Potomac Valley Swimming
Competition Committee Meeting
6030 Lee Highway
Arlington, VA
January 5, 2015
· Attendance – Manga Dalizu, Steve Menard, Derek Young – NCAP, Michelle Blanton – YORK, Tim Delucia- PGPR, Christine Vu – SNOW, Jim Garner – PVS, Tim Husson – PVS, Cherlynn Venit – PAC, Kate Johnson – PAC, Carrie Tupper – UMAC, Richard Rosenthal – NCAP, Tom Ugast – NCAP, Adrien Thom – LMAC, Murphy Freal – PVS, Aaron Dean – OCCS, Heather Haddock – MAKO, Bruce Andersen – HACC, Heather Purk – HACC, Greg York – YORK, Paris Jacobs – MACH, Rob Green – DCPR, Elvin Foremen - ERSC
· Call to Order – The meeting was called to order by Senior Chair, Manga Dalizu at 7:00 pm
· Approval of Spring Minutes – Motion to approve the minutes from the Spring Competition Committee Meeting, seconded and approved.
· Special Topic – Tim Husson, PVS Official’s Chair, provide some commonly asked questions and answers.
o Q: What do I need to have operationally to run a Dual/Tri or Inter-squad meet? – A: In order to run a sanctioned Dual, Tri or Inter-squad meet, teams are required to have at least four certified Officials on deck. These Officials are; a certified Referee, certified Starter, one other certified deck official (Stroke & Turn) and an Admin Official. More are certainly welcome and advised; however four is the minimum requirement.
o Q: What are the timer requirements for meets? – A: Detailed rules are listed in the USA Swimming rule book. The timer requirements are dependent on the type of timing system used, regardless of the type of meet. If you are using stopwatches you must have 3 per lane. By using a timing system, fewer timers are required. There is a document on the PVS website with the timer requirements.
o Q: How do I get a split as an official time? – Every LSC does it a little different and there is no standard way. In PVS the best thing to do at the meet is to talk with the AO at the meet, if you know you want to use an initial split as an official time, they can give you guidance as to what to do. If you look at results, then send the Times Officer (Tim Husson) an email with what you want loaded and he will take care of it as long as it is a valid time (1. Need to finish that split legally 2. They need to finish the entire race they are entered in). The only difference is in backstroke, the finish is different from the turn and the referee will need to know in advance so they can verify it was a legal finish.
o OME – Getting ready to do Junior and Senior Champs with OME. If you have any questions ask Tim Husson.
§ In Junior Champs – OME will not let you do a NFT for relays.
§ If you use a team time, it may likely be faster than the QT time. So you have to use an aggregate time.
§ Junior Champs only swimmers that don’t have QT for Senior Champs or 13-14 JOs can swim. There are some events 13-14 swimmers won’t be able to qualify because the JO times are faster.
o Q: How do Observed Swims get entered into SWIMS (i.e. High School meets)? – We are fortunate that we have enough officials that most of our HS meets (Districts, Regionals, States), so the times for USA-S registered athletes are eligible to be entered into SWIMS. The issue we have with HS times is that often times the swimmer ID in the database from the HS meet doesn’t always match the SWIMS database. These issues are generally easy to correct, just send Tim the swimmer and time and meet and he will correct so they load directly into OME. Having the time corrected in SWIMS first is easier and more efficient than doing an override time in OME.
o Q: Is a Certified Administrative Official necessary at meets? – A: YES, As of September 2014, USA Swimming requires a certified AO at every meet, this is a USA-S rule, not a PVS rule. Initially all meet referees were made AO. But now we are finding we don’t have enough in PVS. For the most part meet referees have filled in, but we need more AOs. The requirement to start the process is they have to be certified in HY-Tek for at least one year. Please encourage your computer people to become certified. The next class is January 25 at Overlee.
· Selection of Assistance Coaches for 2015 SC Zones – There are seven nominees as Assistant coach for the 2015 SC Zones, we only need six. Please vote for 6 coaches. Two coaches were in attendance and introduce themselves. Ballots were handed out to each team in attendance and elections were held. Jim Garner tallied the ballots and reported the results.
o Motion to accept Mary Carter-NCAP, Heather Purk-HACC, John Aldonas-CSC, Nick Mason-NCAP, Liz Badley-HACC and Michelle Blanton-YORK, as assistant coaches for the 2015 SC Spring Zone Team, seconded and approved.
o Motion to destroy the ballots, seconded and approved.
· Selection of Head Coach and Assistant Head Coach for 2015 LC Zones – We have one name for Head Coach, Derek Young from NCAP and one name for Assistant Head Coach, Heather Purk from HACC.
o Motion to approve Derek Young as Head Coach and Heather Purk as Assistant Head Coach for the 2015 LC Age Group Zone team by acclimation, seconded and approved.
· Club Meet Bids for 2015-2016 season – The 2015-2016 Club Schedule was presented, discussed and voted on.
o Motion to accept the club meets for the 2015-2016 season, seconded and approved.
· QT Times posted – Senior Summer Zone meet; swimmers attend as part of their club, not PVS (as with the AG Zone team). Qualifying times and Bonus cuts have been posted on the Eastern Zone website. The meet will be held in Buffalo, NY. Age Group Zone qualifying times are also posted. This meet will be in Richmond again.
· Continuing Education Grant – Derek Young attended the ASCA Clinic in September 2014, he presented a report on what he learned at the clinic.
· Reports
o Safe Sport – Many teams take the Safe Sport policies seriously; however, so are not. We are still seeing phones behind the blocks being used by timers, coaches and marshals, marshals sitting with their feet up, etc. Note that many of these Safe Sport rules are becoming a part of the Code of Conduct violations. If a coach is found violating one of the Safe Sport rules they can be brought up on a Code of Conduct violation. Please be sure to pass these rules on to all your coaches. Find ways to get your swimmers, coaches and parents to watch the Safe Sport videos, they are short and very informative. All of PVS needs to take these issues more seriously, please help spread the word.
§ You will be able to see if your athletes watched the Safe Sport video in your Club Portal
§ There will be a Safe Sport committee meeting in February and then a workshop (for anyone) in May, both presented by USA Swimming.
§ Check your facilities and see if there are signs and notifications regarding policies of phones in locker rooms, etc. If you have control over your facilities then consider putting up signs around the facilities.
o Athletes – Murphy Freal was in attendance to report on the Athlete Committees. Please encourage your swimmers to fill out the application to be on a PVS Committee. Information can be found on the PVS website.
o Coaches – Heather Purk reported that she has been talking with coaches and officials. All swimmers in attendance of any meet, regardless of age, must have a certified coach supervising them. If you (as a coach) are running late for a meet or if you are not attending as a coach, please let the meet director know, so that alternate arrangements can be made for that swimmer. Parents are not allowed to sit on the deck or supervise their swimmers on deck.
§ In cases like this, parents will come down to the deck, this particularly happens in mini meets. This can be an issue, as parents are not allowed on deck per USA Swimming rules/insurance.
§ It is more common with Meets like the Distance Meet or with older kids to have swimmers without a coach. Please be sure to notify the meet director and/or another coach, so this is someone available to supervise.
o Age Group – With the December Champs meets are over, we will be working on guesstimates on the numbers for JO Champs. Since we have changed the format of the October and November Open, please send your comments/thoughts to Steve Menard.
o Senior – Senior Champs cuts have been up since September. GMU is only allowing about 60 bodies in the warm up/cool down pool. GMU is getting stricter on the number of people on deck and in the stands. We are going to have to be very conscious about these numbers as we continue to grow and attend meets at GMU.
o Diversity – no report submitted
o Open Water – no report submitted
o General Chair – no report submitted
· Outstanding Athletes Nomination Process – Over the past few years it has been noted that the selection process for PVS Outstanding Athlete is not necessarily in the best interest of the athletes. The perception is that those swimmers with the most name recognition would often win. Richard Rosenthal, Kent Williams and Bob Walker were tasked with preparing a proposal on how to change the nomination and election process. There was a discussion regarding the proposal:
o They created two forms one for 12 & U and another for 13 & O because the “qualifying meets” and the meets they attend are different.
o One thing this form does allow the accomplishments are listed in the same order, so it is easier to compare athletes.
o It is difficult to compare two athletes when they don’t all attend the same meets.
o What about Grand Prix, Futures, Sectionals for at least 13-14 athletes?
o What is the entire process, can it be submitted earlier and a summary or all the nominations sent to the head coach/club contact prior to the Fall CCM? Yes, this can be done, however all applications would have to be submitted in a more timely manner.
o What about having the nominations due at the Fall CCM and then voted on in January after everyone had the opportunity to review the applications?
o What about having the coaches turn nominations into the committee (a group assigned), have them reviewed and then recommendations made to the CCM for a vote?
o The current Committee will make some adjustments based upon the discussion and then send to Terri to send out to the coaching body for review prior to the Spring CCM.
· IMX – The meet announcement is up, entries are now open. Please wait until you have your entries before you send in your entry file.
· December Meet Recap – December is a big month for swimming in PVS. There were 6 “championship” meets held over two weekends and numerous other meets during the month of December. Overall, all meets were well attended, well-staffed by PVS Officials and there didn’t appear to be any major issues at any of the meets.
o Tom Dolan Invite (NCAP) – Great meet, officials did a great job, UMD staff was excellent. The meet ran smoothly. Timelines were a little long on Saturday, but it was handled well.
o Turkey Claus (MACH) – Had over 9000 splashes, but they managed it well, good timelines, good meet.
o Christmas Champs (MSSC) – The meet ran well with about 7000 splashes. Didn’t use Fairland equipment due to the cost from the facility. Using PVS equipment worked out well, but with the nice scoreboard at the facility it would be nice to be able to use it.
o Holiday Invite (RMSC) – Good meet, a nice size, very smooth, great help from the Officials.
o Reindeer Mini (YORK) – This year they brought in bleachers for the swimmers, which helped with deck space. Timelines were good.
o Holiday Invite (MAKO) – Two long days, good meet, good swims.
o Winter Classic (PM) – Great meet, athlete count was down a little from previous year, but this led to comfortable numbers on deck and in the stands.
o Tim did an analysis and reported that all meets were well staffed by the Officials. There were roughly 45,000 splashes (not including finals). A lot of swimming in December.
o We would like to send a big Thank You to the Officials Committee for all their hard work during December. Tim indicated he would pass on our gratitude to the Officials Committee.
· Old Business – no Old Business
· New Business – No New Business
· Next Meeting – (Wednesday May 13, location TBD)
· Adjourn – Motion to adjourn, second and approved.