General Chairman
Thirl had no comments as General Chairman. He introduced Sue Anderson Eastern Zone Sports Development Coordinator. She is visiting PVS this coming week. There was some discussion of her plans for the week.

Athlete Representative
Coco Buck and Kelly Burke presented their desire to increase comments from the PVS athletes. They presented and distributed a flyer for coaches to hand out to athletes with information on how to contact them by e-mail. New e-mail addresses are being established for them. This same information would be posted on the PVS Web Page.

A copy of the flyer is attached at the end of this document.

Greg York suggested a contact log be kept by the Athlete Representatives and be brought to the April BoD meeting for discussion.

Coaches Reps
Greg York Submitted written report from the January BoD meeting

Concern was raised over if someone will be there (at the meet) and available to take the votes from the coaches for the coach elections. Greg York indicated that arrangements had been made with the other Coaches' Representative, John Blaschke and the Administrative Office to be present. Dave Tonnesen suggested that if goal is to get more coaches to vote then the voting process should be moved to March when more coaches are available and involved in SCY season. Pete Karl agreed the coaches are more active and less distracted during the SCY Season. It was noted for the above change to be implemented, PVS's by-laws would have to be amended.

Motion - Mark Eldridge moved that one of the Coaches Representatives make a motion at the HoD for the 2001 election to be a mail in vote and to move the election to the championship meets in March for the 2002 election. Passed

Coaches Representative, John Blaschke agreed to make the motion at the HoD Meeting in May 2001

Mini Camp
Brief discussion regarding the mini camp portion of Greg York's report followed. (Subsequent to this report, the Administrative Office has secured Montgomery Aquatic Center for the camp.) Coaches should contact Greg York to volunteer, he wants only 8 & under coaches. Mark Eldridge asked if they are not swimming in meets can they come anyway

Administrative Division
Irene Millman reviewed the status of the Aquatics Guide and the status of coach's cards. Aquatics Guide - is in production and only one additional club order has been received. Delivery is expected in the next couple of weeks and extra copies will be made available to the membership at that time.

Coaches' cards. - All cards that can be processed have been as of 1/21/01. Coaches were reminded that copies of all certifications MUST to be attached to each application each year. In addition, many second year coaches have not gotten their education requirements completed. Irene further requested that if the applications are not complete please don't mail them to the Administrative Office until they are complete for processing. The office spends approximately an hour of time for each application that is received incomplete -- thereby delaying the processing of complete applications.

Operations Divsion Report
John Hirschmann reminded everyone that the Jan 27-28 PVS SCY Qualifier Meet had been moved to GMU, and there are new start times for the Saturday session. Ward Foley questioned if teams who had previously entered under the previous meet time and location could withdraw their entries w/o penalty? John Hirschmann indicated he did not foresee it would be a problem so long as it was done in a timely manner before the program was published later in the week. Jim Garner indicated he felt this would not be an issue and directed any club with concerns to contact the meet entry person (Kit Mathews).

The question was raised if the reason for the move would affect the meet at PGS&LC for 3/1-4. Both John Hirschmann and Irene Millman indicated they did not know at this time, and if a change were necessary there would be ample notice.

Ward Foley expressed serious concern over Potomac Valley's Weather Policy, and why incorrect information was posted on the PVS web Page regarding his Double Tri meet the weekend January 20-21, 2001. The meet was sanctioned for the 20-21st. It was explained that a final meet announcement was not submitted to the office in accordance with PVS policy and therefore both the PVS Web Master/Operations Chair and the Administrative Office believed the meet was being conducted over two days. When inclement weather was imminent on Saturday and expected before Sunday morning, the clubs involved in running all PVS sanctioned meets were contacted via email. As responses came in information was posted. Ward Foley contacted the PVS Administrative Office, left a message that his Sat session was beginning in a few minutes. At no time when direct communication was established with Mr. Foley by Linda Edmunds did he indicate that there was no need for concern since all the sessions would be taking place on Saturday (prior to any expected snow). Concerns were expressed by both Ward Foley and Pete Karl regarding parents who visited the PVS Web page and became confused regarding the statement that no further information regarding the Sunday sessions had been received.

John Hirschmann and Irene Millman responded that they were simply trying to provide the best information available to the membership at that time and they did not realize that no part of the meet would be conducted on Sunday. At no time was further communication received from the teams involved that anything that had been posted was incorrect until this meeting.

PVS cannot conduct competition if the facility it is renting closes. Jim Garner responded that he believes the Operations Chairman has the final call on delay or cancellation of PVS sponsored meets where the facility has not been closed. PVS policy is less clear regarding club sponsored meets. Garner suggested that the Meet Director of club meets should have the final call on their meets under the same circumstances.

John Hirschmann suggested that in the future more detailed information be provided to the Administrative Office regarding when and where sessions are actually taking place, then PVS can be more helpful regarding notifications (via web and recorded message) of any possible changes due to weather or other special circumstances

Age Group Swimming
Zone Team Greg York referenced his earlier report regarding the voting for Zone Coaches and reminded everyone of the procedure.

John Hirschmann has indicated he has done the initial posting of the 10 fastest times in each event. The posted times have the athletes sorted by age with their proper age-up date as of the start of the SCY Zone Meet (March 29, 2001).

The Zone Top Times database will be reviewed and after the application deadline will only contain those names from whom applications have been received.

Mark Eldridge asked if the list could reflect relay lead off times. John Hirschamnn indicated he had only recently been requested to undertake this assignment and responded that those lead off times need to be submitted to him and that the swimmers' names would have to be in the meet results. John further indicated that at this late date it would be a rather large task to rebuild all the databases to include splits and leadoff times. Bob Walker asked that if you have an athlete with a lead off time or split that would qualify them to speak to either him or Linda Crudup.

Bob Walker reminded the coaches that any athlete with 6 or more times that would qualify them to swim at Zones will need to indicate which events they would like to swim and will need to do so immediately after the appropriate Championship meet.

Ward Foley suggested that we wait 48 hours to verify relay times after the meets. Bob Walker felt that 48 hours was too long and indicated he would be comfortable with 24 hours post meet before finalizing the Zone Team.

Further discussion continued regarding relay times, the PVS Zone Database, and the team selection. Bob Walker said he would review the issues with John Hirschmann and Linda Crudup. It was asked that if teams were going out of town for meets on the same weekend as the team was being finalized for that age group that they let the above know they were doing so well in advance so arrangements can be made for those times to be immediately submitted and entered into the database.

Bob Walker stated there would be no Zone Camp this year because of the late date for completing the 12/U selection process.

Questions from the body regarding eligibility for the Zone team were raised. If an athlete has been to Nationals but are currently not making those National time cuts, are they eligible to participate? John Hirschmann explained the eligibility statement as posted on the PVS Web Page within the Zone Meet Announcement. He further explained that these decisions were made at the May 2000 and prior Eastern Zone meetings. It was acknowledged that they differ from the USA Swimming practice regarding how long an athletes time is valid for a national championship meet If an athlete 13 & over has qualified for but not yet swum that event at Nationals/Trials class meet, they may swim other events at the Zone meet but not that event. However, if the athlete is aged 12 or younger and they have not swum at Nationals they may swim that event at the Zone Meet. Any swimmer who has participated in a National/Trials class meet may not participate in the Zone meet.

Questions were raised as to why this was being done this way and Kerry Ellett who is the Eastern Zone Coach Director explained that the Zone discussed and that is the way they voted. Kerry further explained that the summer zone meet is expected to be a very fast meet because the cuts are now open to the Sr. National level. Thus, if you have competed at the former Speed Junior National Meet you are now permitted to swim at the Zone meet level. The only difference in the rule from past years is the removal of the words Speedo Junior National and US Open in the Zone Manual when referring to eligibility at a Zone meet. The LC Zone meet may also be larger since the NFT's are apparently not being raised.

Greg York brought up the eligibility issue at the Zone meetings while at Convention in October and will address these concerns again at the May Zone Meeting in Maine. He along with other coaches are concerned that swimmers might not be permitted to participate in Zones because of current training schedules particularly if they are not currently swimming at an elite level. There is currently no procedure in place at the Zone level to disavow a time previously achieved if that time is not possible to obtain currently because of a significant change in training or injury, or the time has simply not been achieved for a considerable period.

Awards
Eric Moore has accepted the position of Awards Chairman. Bob Walker addressed Ward Foley's concern over when the 1999-2000 Outstanding Athlete awards would be presented. He indicated he would discuss it with Eric and the awards would be mailed to the recipients. Motion to poll the recipients and determine if they would be at one of the championship meets and if possible present their awards to them at the PVS championship meet in which they would be participating. Passed

Pete Morgan asked about an award that had previously been given to the Male and Female 1650 swimmers. A brief discussion followed regarding the history of this award and how it might be resurrected.

Motion PVS recognize outstanding Male and Female distance swimmer of the year fastest 1650 SCY Male and 1000 SCY Female performance from the prior twelve month season (using the same dates as for the Outstanding Athlete) and honoring them along with our other Outstanding Athletes. Passed

Senior Swimming
Travel reimbursement for National Championship (2001 Summer and 2002 Spring) & the 2001 US Open Motion to continue Travel Reimbursement as set previous year. $450 for National Championships & $250 for the US Open (4 events -- at least 2 of which are from PVS sponsored meets during the Summer 2001 season will continue to be required to be funded for National Champs -- Summer 2001 and US Open -- Dec 2001.)

Discussion followed -- it was agreed it was inappropriate to discuss Spring 2002 Travel at this time. Motion amended to address only Summer 2001 and US Open 2001 travel. Passed

Ward Foley questioned when the summer travel funds were disbursed. Irene Millman responded that travel reimbursement for summer is paid from the following year's budget (i.e. Summer 01 is paid from the 01-02 fiscal year.)

Motion - Mark Eldridge moved that athletes not be required to swim in finals for the event to count towards travel reimbursement. Discussion followed, Mark Eldridge restated his position that athletes are required only to swim in Prelims in a Prelims/Finals meet and not be forced to either swim slow in prelims or not have the event count by scratching finals. Greg York stated he did not feel that swimming in finals was too much to ask for from a PVS Athlete if their club is to receive travel funding from the association. Although Mark agreed with Greg he felt that making the requirement that they must swim in finals (if qualified) should not be considered a "burden" but he felt there are a significant number of athletes that just "swim back and forth" in prelims so they don't have to come back for finals. Failed

Greg York discussed his concern regarding all the changes brought on by the termination of Jr Nationals. He brought up the possibility of going to convention with enough votes to overturn this situation. Dave Tonnesen agreed with this concern and further commented that all the changes from the "Club Championship" plan to back to having Juniors, then to NO Juniors to now Sectionals, then all the changes to Sectionals make it difficult to keep the athletes focused and motivated toward a meet.

Greg further stated the "we" the coaches agreed on a SCY meet format that clubs can take all their kids to shaved and tapered and now there are many coaches/clubs not taking all their kids to sectionals because of all the changes.

Pete Morgan stated he felt that USA Swimming will revisit the Jr National Meet format only after we have had a couple of sectional meets and can objectively review them across the country. Some of the Zones have made their sectionals open where the cuts are different then what we have in the Eastern Zone Region 2. This concept opens things up to a new direction and that coaches can use these formats in the future, if sectionals are a flop he was sure the pressure from coaches across the nation would bring it back.

Further discussion continued regarding the difficulty in preparing the athletes for these meets and the differences in their attitude toward training for a meet that has no USA Swimming sponsorship. Concern was also expressed over the lack of PVS meets available to athletes in the mid to late fall in preparation for the US Open was expressed. Mark Eldridge stated his club would be proposing a Club Meet on the schedule in the November time frame that would be at the Sr. Level.

Review of SCY 00/01
Jim Garner stated that to date he feels the 2000-01 SCY season has gone well.

Dale Lewis asked as to how teams were assigned a particular venue for the Open meets. John Hirschmann responded to his question and explained he did his best to try to keep the Maryland teams on their side of the river, but it doesn't always work that way as expected attendance does usually divide exactly 1/3-2/3rds. One of the contributing factors is the size of two of the teams (CUBU and RMSC), which limits how many other teams can be assigned to the same venues. John stated he would continue to rotate cross-river assignments as evenly as possible and noted he keeps a record of which teams swim where. John Hirschmann further explained the new process for balancing entries at the opens before the meet and how teams might be moved to maintain splash balance. Dale Lewis asked about the possibility of a review of entries being pooled for a balance of income as well. John Hirschmann said that as a result of balancing entries, income would also be approximately balanced in the process.

LC 2001

Jim Garner presented the following LC Schedule to the Committee. The PVS BoD on January 16, 2001, approved the addition of the club-sponsored meets to the schedule (subject to the concurrence of the Competition Committee. It now also reflects LC season bid awards that have been approved by the Board.

Jim Garner asked for interest on the AG I Meet, as there was no bidder for one site of that meet. Billy West of MMSC had previously offered to run that meet concurrent with his Outreach Meet. The Meet Award Committee previously determined that it would not be possible for MMSC to run two meets the same weekend. Discussion followed. Irene Millman stated that with the current issues with the facility where the Outreach Meet is schedule to take place that it would be a significant issue regarding the pool budget and that unless that session were run wholly on Sunday morning it would be in direct conflict with the summer league meets. It was further agreed by the Age Group Chairman, Bob Walker, and the Sr. Chairman, Jim Garner that it would not be possible to run the events concurrent with his meet.

Dale Lewis of TNT and George Massey of York (in that order) both offered to bid to host the meet. York suggested if TNT needed help, they could possibly run the meet together. It was left to the two teams to work out the details TNT subsequently asked to approve as the official host club for the meet site.

Mark Eldridge asked the Competition Chairs to review the Age Group and Sr. LC Championship Meets. He requested if possible that 14 & Unders be included in the Age Group LC Championship Meet that is currently scheduled to take place between Prelims & Finals of the SR Champ LC meet. He further suggested the finals session could be started 1 hour later to give the older athletes more time to eat and rest before finals. This would also allow more time for the Age Group session to occur between prelim and finals. If this is not possible, he request that these events not be scheduled this way in the future. The Competition Chairs, Jim Garner, and Bob Walker agreed to review the time lines. No formal motion was made.

SC 2001/02
Jim Garner presented a skeleton version of the proposed schedule of PVS sponsored meets for 2001-02. It included the October, November and January Open Meets, November, January, & February Distance Meets.

Dates for Opens were October 19-21, November 9-11 and January 19-20. Dates for Distance Meets were November 24-25, January 5-6 and February 2-3. Dates for USA Swimming Spring Phillips 66 Nationals are March 19-23, 2002

The idea behind this presentation is to determine the timing of the championship meets once the Opens are on the schedule and knowing when the National Meets will occur.

Discussion followed regarding the schedule and several motions were brought forth as follows:

Motion to accept the base schedule as presented. Passed

Motion to add the Age Group 14 & under Junior Olympic championships March 14-17 Passed

Motion to add the SCY Championship meet February 28 to March 3 Passed

Motion to add Sr. Champs Meet in January - Withdrawn after further discussion

Motion to add Sr Level Club Championship Meet to the schedule December 13-16. Discussion followed, Irene Millman indicated that there might be pool availability issues on those dates as the suggested pool of choice was GMU. A friendly amendment to the motion to allow for a first alternate weekend of December 6 to 9 and a less preferred alternative of December 20 to 23. Passed

Motion to delete the November Distance meet and add the 1650 to the November Open on Friday night. (The 1000 will continue to be swum at the October Open. Passed

Motion to make the February Distance meet 12 & under 1000 on Saturday and the 1650 13 & Over on Sunday. Passed

Motion to change the January Open to Short Course Meters. Passed

Motion to approve the schedule as amended. Passed

A deadline of April 1, 2001 was set by Competition Chairman, Jim Garner for the submission of bids for the Short Course Season 2001-02.

The 2001-02 short course schedule of PVS sponsored meets being recommended by Competition to the Board for its approval follows:

Old Business
None

New Business
Dave Tonnesen brought forth his proposal for allowing advertising at PVS Sponsored meets (both in the program and at the venue). This had been presented to the January Board meeting and the Board asked that the proposal be further refined. Jim Garner stated he felt the general proposal was reasonable and assembled an Ad-Hoc committee of Dave Tonnesen (Chair), Peter Karl, and Dale Lewis. A brief discussion followed and the committee was advised to bring a proposal to the PVS Board of Directors at its April meeting.

Dave Tonnesen also stated that he had received donations to enhance the awards for the upcoming 14 & Under Championship meet in March of this year to include caps, towels and mesh bags to be given to High point and heat winners. Brief discussion followed. The consensus of the committee was this was not an issue and John Hirschmann noted that there was nothing in the PVS Policies and Procedures Manual to prevent this and it was recommended that the BoD approve this proposal at their next meeting.

Mark Eldridge briefly described the proposal recently put before the BoD regarding seeking a cash donation from the LSC to RMSC in support of the new outdoor (CTS) scoreboard at the Rockville Municipal site. In turn, there would be rate considerations. It was noted that the Board has not yet had an opportunity to act on this request. The Board has taken it under advisement and the Administrative Office will be in contact with RMSC for further details. It was further noted that the MCSL had also been asked to make a donation.

Ward Foley made the following four proposals:

Motion #1 Club meet results, in which all PVS teams are invited, be referenced on the front page of the PVS web page for a period of no shorter then 7 days and no longer then 10 days. Reason: It seems some meet, club meet; results are references for a few days and others for a number of weeks. Are all clubs being treated equally?

John Hirschmann stated that he does his best to provide equal exposure to the recently posted meet results. He felt very strongly that as a volunteer do his best to provide information of interest to the LSC that it was extremely inappropriate to be "micro managed." John Hirschmann further stated that meet result notices are not left there intentionally to give one club priority over others but until the next meet occurs or other important notices are ready for posting. It was further noted that all meet results from ALL PVS sanctioned meets are in the results section of the web page.

Dave Tonnesen said that he felt John Hirschmann did tremendous work for the LSC and as a volunteer we should support him and if such a relatively minor issue was going to cost PVS the Web Master maybe it would be better to allow him a bit more latitude. Motion Passed

Motion #2 Proposal that a new meet managers report form be developed to include the following:
1. Name of the meet, date, sanction number, and pool name.
2. Club sponsoring the meet
3. Splash fees
4. Total number of splashes
5. Total Expenses
6. Total Revenue
Reason: the current form on the PVS web site is out of date and meet for PVS hosted meets.

Brief discussion followed. Note the form Mr. Foley is referring to is the Meet Director's Financial Report. Passed

Motion #3 Proposal for Splash fees to be developed for all PVS Sponsored Meets:

PVS BoD may vote to increase a meet(s) base on need of unforeseen cost, by a vote of the full BoD. Reason: For uniformity in all PVS Sponsored Meets

Dave Tonnesen - friendly amendment to replace "full BoD" with "a quorum of the BoD" - accepted. Hirschmann inquired whether the intent of the motion was having a consistent and rational fee structure for PVS sponsored meets. Foley indicated it was. It was agreed that it might be appropriate to modify the specific amounts as the revenue needs for future fiscal years are addressed. It was also agreed that the Operations Chair along with the Competition Chairs and the Treasurer would review the fee schedule and determine a rational structure. Passed

Motion #4 That all PVS Board of Directors, and Competition Committee Meetings be announced on the front of the PVS Web site for a period of 10 days leading up to the meeting with date, place and time.

Reason: To increase participation in the association by PVS members. Not all PVS Coaches get the flash (email) announcements. House of Delegates meetings are covered in the By-Laws.

The Administrative Office also indicated it was prepared to add additional coaches to its e-mail list if the addresses are provided to them. Passed.

Motion to adjourn at 6:22pm

Respectfully submitted,
Irene Millman


Potomac Valley Swimming
Administration