Draft Minutes until approved at the 2013 HOD meeting.
Potomac Valley Swimming
House of Delegates Meeting
May 23, 2012
River Falls
7915 Horseshoe Lane
Potomac, MD 20854
· Attendance – Board Members: Riley Eaton, Paris Jacobs, Bob Vincent, Bill Marlin, Manga Dalizu, Miriam Lynch, Emily Menard, Mike Rubin, Nick Campbell (athlete) and Brandon Fiala (athlete). Club Representatives: Evan Stile-AAC, Bob Walker-ASA, Mike Kraeuter-BWST, Tim Kelly-CUBU, ERSC, Tony Murray-FAST, Mark Murray-FBST, Bruce Andersen-HACC, Dan Jacobs-MACH, Chris Huott-MSSC, Melanie McKula-SDS, Eric Adams-SNOW, Shelley Geskar-YORK, Arvydas Barzdukas-NVSL, David Mengering-MCSL. At-Large Delegates; Dave Crocker, Tom Ugast, Brad Bowser, Greg York, Art Davis, Kurt Thiel, Ward Foley, Boots Hall, Linda Klopfenstein. Athlete Representatives; Julia Schwartz-PM, Karina Kolb-PM, James Caldwell-HACC, Mary Elizabeth Caldwell-HACC. Non-voting members; John Ertter, Tim Husson, Lynne Gerlach, Denise Adams and Terri Marlin
· Call to Order – The meeting was called to order by the General Chair, Riley Eaton at 7:30 pm
· Proof of Quorum – Of the 64 possible members, 39 are present which represents a quorum.
· Approval of May 23, 2011 HOD Minutes – Motion to approve the minutes from the May 23, 2011 House of Delegates Meeting, seconded and approved.
· Approval of May 23, 2012 HOD Agenda – Motion to approve the agenda for the May 23, 2012 House of Delegates Meeting, seconded and approved.
· General Chair’s Report on the General State of the Corporation- see general chair report submitted
o The 2012-2013 has been a very interesting year and I have done a lot of learning, as I complete my first year as the General Chair. There are many positive things happening in PVS.
o PVS is among the top 5 LSC’s in the country in regards to population. We currently have over 10,000 athletes and are the only LSC that is still growing. If history repeats itself with the post-Olympic boom we should see about a 7% growth this next season.
o It is becoming harder and harder for teams to find pool space within PVS borders. Not only are pools becoming more and more crowded, they are also becoming more expensive to rent both for practices and meets.
o As USA Swimming continues planning for the next Quad, it has become clear that they are going to increase their expenses in several significant areas. These expenses most likely will be funneled down to the LSC level.
o Here in PVS we are going to have to look for new and creative ways to increase our revenue.
o This past September PVS added two new non-voting positions to the BoD; we predict that at the 2012 USA Swimming Convention, the HOD will vote to mandate the following two positions as voting positions for each LSC.
§ Safety Chair – Kurt Thiel (who is also the Open Water chair)
§ Athlete Protection – Greg York – Greg also serves on the USA Swimming Safe Sport Committee. This position is going to become more and more prevalent and important in both USA Swimming and in each LSC.
o PVS is continues to be a leading LSC in the country in many ways. Many PVS members serve on USA Swimming Committees and continue to participate in many USA Swimming seminars and workshops.
· Nominating Committee Report- See report Submitted
o Ballots were handed out to the voting members of the House.
o Board member are voted on every two years at the House of Delegates meeting, except for the three Representative positions (Coaches, Athletes, Officials), these positions are voted on by their LSC peers outside of the House meeting.
§ Roughly half of all Board Positions are voted on each year. This year we are voting for Admin Vice-Chair, Age Group Chair, Operations Chair and Strategic Planning Chair, as well as 5 Board of Review positions (1 must be an athlete).
· Additional Nominations- We will take nominations from the floor:
o Admin – Paris Jacobs (incumbent), no additional nominations
o AG Chair – Manga Dalizu (incumbent) & Mark Murrray, nominated by Aaron Dean, no additional nominations
o Operations – Brian Pawlowicz – no additional nominations
o Strategic Planning – Merari Hall Chollette and Jim Garner who was nominated from the floor
o Board of Review – 5 positions (one must be an athlete) – no additional nominations
§ Aidan Pongrace (athlete), Linda Klopfenstein, David Merkin, Amy Hsu and Peter Karl
o Motion to close the nominations for elections, seconded and approved.
o Motion to elect Paris Jacobs (Admin Chair), Brian Pawlowicz (Operations) and all Board of Review elected by acclimation, seconded and approved.
o The nominees for AG Chair and Strategic Planning positions each gave a brief introduction to themselves.
· Elections- The ballots were counted by Linda Klopfenstein and confirmed by Art Davis and the winners were:
o AG Chair – Manga Dalizu
o Strategic Planning – Jim Garner
§ Motion to destroy the ballots, seconded and approved.
o Thank you all for running and we appreciate everyone who is volunteering and hope that you will continue to be interested in helping with the positions you were nominated for.
· Reports
o Athlete Protection-
§ USA Swimming has established a partnership with Praesidium, the National Organization on child protection – the contact information is included in the information that has been handed out.
§ Additionally a draft of what the Safe Sport program is, what we have done and where we are going. USA Swimming and Praesidium are just about ready to release the Athlete Protection Program for Parents. PVS will announce to the body when it is released.
§ PVS plans to follow the legislation from USA Swimming, by making the Athlete Protection Chair a voting Board Position. This legislation has to pass at the USA-S Convention in September; however we are anticipating it to pass. USA-S then recommends a creating committee, which we already have established, so if there is an incident in our LSC we have a committee to work with. Finally PVS is asking (not official legislation at this time) each club to name an individual as a safe sport rep for each club, please have them email Greg. This will go to legislation at USA S in 2013 to become mandated.
§ Deck changing: PVS already have a policy against deck changing at any PVS sanction events. USA Swimming is trying to get this passed to make it illegal at all meets across the country including all National meets. However they are getting a lot of push back from the National Team.
§ The legislation looks like it is moving away from LSC Board of Review and going to Zone Level Board of Review.
§ USA Swimming has changed the name of the Athlete Protection Committee to d “Safe Sport”. They felt that Athlete Protection was a reactive term, but wanted a name that sounded more proactive.
o Executive Director-see report submitted
o Administration & Registration - see report submitted
o Webmaster – The PVS website continues to be a success. See report submitted.
§ Started a FB page, still considering it as a possibility to use for communication.
§ Moved all email groups to Google groups. Please go to the PVS website to sign up for various email groups.
o Operations- See report submitted
o Diversity/Inclusion- see report submitted
§ We have increased the number of participates in all of our programs.
§ We held two clinics this past year, one with Olympian, Anthony Ervin, both of which several BoD members and swimmers volunteered to help. They were both great successes.
§ We have increased the number of athletes who can travel to the Black Heritage Meet in NC.
§ We are looking to help Teams increase the number of Diversity athletes on their teams.
o Officials-See report submitted. A special thanks to Jack Neill and Tim Husson for being the Chair and Vice Chair of the Officials Committee.
§ There is still a HUGE concern regarding the number of timers at meets. The Officials will be putting together a recommendation to aid meet directors to encourage parents to volunteer to time at meets.
§ Please consider the Officials committee as a resource to train and retain your officials, we have liaisons available to work with the club Official Chairs and strategize on ways to talk to your parents and to help increase the number of volunteers on your club.
o Technical Committee-see report submitted. This is a new committee that we started last September, we are still working on the charter. Currently we review all club meet announcements, our goal is to have them be accurate and correct the first time and we work with meet directors to keep the 12 & U sessions within the 4 hour timeline. It has worked well and meet directors have complied with the rule. The committee is made up of Tim Husson, the Operations Chair, AG Chair, Senior Chair and Jim Thompson. We are still looking for an athlete who is willing to serve on the committee.
o Senior Swimming – See report submitted
§ This past season 43 female resident records and 45 male resident records were set across all age groups. In addition 4 National AG records (Katie Ledecky (2 events), Jack Conger and 11-12 boys RMSC relay).
§ There is going to be National Team reunion this summer at Trials, if you know of any previous members of the USA Swimming National Team, please pass on the word.
§ There is legislation coming to Convention from the swim suit manufactures, to allow the male suits to come back up over the shoulders. The AG Development committee is asking that this legislation be voted down.
§ At the recent Competition Committee Meeting we approved the club meet schedule. There are a lot of meets on the schedule – the BoD and Officials committee will be reviewing it and voting to approve or deny the meets. Club meets will be reviewed by members of the BoD and/or Officials Committee and if your meet is not properly staffed with officials, you will run the risk of not being approved the following year.
o Age Group Swimming- see report submitted
§ A huge Thanks to Tim Husson and Jim Thompson who did a great job looking over the times from early in the season and was able to predict to the number of swimmers who had qualified for JO, which allowed us to be better prepared for the meet.
§ Previously the Board voted to include PVS Age Group and JO records. Manga will have this task completed in time for the 2012 summer AG Championship Meet.
§ 14 & U JO’s ran very smoothly thank to the meet management and all of the Officials who worked throughout the weekend. Thanks to everyone who helped with the meet.
o Coaches Representatives- see report submitted
§ Please get your coaches signed up on the Google Group. It is the only communication tool the Coaches Representatives have to effectively communicate with all coaches in PVS. All coaches are encouraged to go to the PVS home page and sign up.
o Athlete Representatives- no report submitted
§ The Athletes discussed an idea of attempting to develop “leagues” within PVS to try to increase the excitement and team atmosphere at the PVS Open meets. Right now, they are still in the brainstorming phase and welcome thoughts and ideas on how to make this work.
· Leagues would probably have to be divided into large teams and small teams. Then there could be a “dual meet” type competition instead of or as a part of the PVS Open meets.
· It was suggested that the Athlete Representatives and Coach Representatives work together on a plan to present to the Competition Committee. We would suggest that you work with the coaches reps and come up with a better plan to present at CCM.
· How this type of format will affect the need and possibly additional work load on the Officials will need to be looked and discussed as well.
o Strategic Planning- See report submitted
o Safety- see report submitted
§ Report of Occurrence – this report is not just an accident report. It is available on the PVS website and can be filled out directly on line and submitted.
o Board of Review-Nothing to report and thank you to everyone who has served on the Board of Review this past year.
o Finance & Budget – see report submitted. The taxes filed, the budget has been submitted for review, the Audit Committee has review all documents. We are in need volunteers to be on the investment committee (inc. athlete), if you are interested please contact the Finance Chair.
· Administrative - General Chair, Riley Eaton would like to thank Admin Vice-Chair Paris Jacobs and the PVS Administrator Terri Marlin for their assistance this past year. Without them his job would be so much more difficult.
o PVS Policies & Procedures have been reviewed and several sections have been updated. P & P is a constant work in progress. An updated version has been posted on the PVS website.
§ Section C-9 refers to policy to fine teams when their swimmers compete but are not yet registered. In the past there have been too many swimmers competing when they are not registered. In order to ensure compliance from all teams, fines have been sent out and the number of incidents has decreased.
§ It was endorsed by the Board of Directors to split the income from these fines evenly between the PVS Operating Fund and USA Swimming Foundation.
§ The number of athletes in PVS has continued to increase; however the number of Officials is not currently keeping up with this trend. PVS is looking at the Official’s Requirement Policy and will start assessing fines to the clubs who do not have the correct number of Officials for the size of their club.
§ Currently the policy states that there should be at least one Officials for every 30 athletes on the team.
· The philosophy of a long time coach from another LSC was that at least one parent had to work every meet or else the kids were off the team, because of his policy all parents helped out. The bottom line of this story is that the philosophy has to start with the club owners/head coaches and more of an effort needs to be made by the coaches to encourage the parents to volunteer.
· Jack Neill has been selected to work Olympic Trials as a Stroke and Turn judge. Congratulations Jack!
· Old Business – None
· New Business
o PVS Life Time Service Awards – As one of the first tasks Riley Eaton wanted to accomplish as General Chair was to establish a PVS Lifetime Service Award to recognize individuals in the LSC that have been Lifetime Volunteers; who have done anything and everything for years and years. The PVS Board feels that it is very, very important that we recognize members of our own LSC and thank them for their efforts and dedication to Potomac Valley Swimming, the clubs and the swimmers. The BoD has voted to accept the following three individuals and want to thank them for everything they have done for our association.
§ John Hirschmann – has been a member since forever! John has served Potomac Valley in numerous positions over the years. He has held just about every by serving as the Records Chair.
§ Linda Klopfenstein has been involved in primarily one segment of PVS, the OVC Chair. If anyone was going to take a swimmer to Nationals you had to have an OVC (proof of when the time was done, in what pool, at what meet, etc). Everything was done by hand and as a coach you had to physically take the paper with you. Linda was tireless at this job! She was always at the meets and willing to help any coach, by making sure their swimmers were taken care of. She has continued to serve PVS by being the Travel Assistance Coordinator for years and is always willing to help PVS in whatever way she can.
§ Boots Hall has been an Official for just about as long as anyone can remember. For Riley and many others, Boots was one of those faces that you would always look for at meet. She has officiated in meets of all levels from Mini Meets to Olympic Trials. Boots has conducted more clinics and trained more officials in PVS then just about anyone else. She has worked tirelessly for years on the pool deck, even long after her own children have stopped swimming.
§ Thank you John, Linda and Boots for your years of dedication and service to all member of Potomac Valley Swimming!
o We would like to recognize the 39 PVS athletes who have qualified for Olympic Trials. See complete list on the PVS Website [Since the HOD meeting, there have been several additional swimmers qualify.]
o PVS Age Group Coach of the Year 2012 – Yuri Suguiyama . Congratulations Yuri!
o Approval of Policies & Procedures Changes-
§ This is a change that affects how we deposit our money and we feel it is important that everyone is aware how our money is handled. John Ertter is a very good custodian of the PVS money.
§ Potomac Valley Swimming, Inc. (PVS) Investment Policy Statement (03/07)
This statement of investment policy has been adopted by the Board of Directors of Potomac Valley Swimming, Inc. to provide instructions regarding investments held by the Corporation. This policy statement assumes that PVS maintains a system of internal controls sufficient to safeguard assets against fraud and malfeasance and to monitor compliance with this policy. This policy may only be modified by formal action of the Board of Directors in response to changes in the business environment in which PVS operates and/or external economic conditions.
§ The following definitions identify the types of funds held by PVS:
General Operating Funds or Checking Account (GOA):
Funds in the GOA are checking account funds to cover cash needs for the next 10 days. All checks issued by PVS are issued from this account. As such, the balance in this account should not exceed short-term cash needs plus a $10,000 cash cushion. Deposits/transfers into this account shall be made in a manner that allows for good internal controls, as reviewed during the audit/review.
§ Restricted Operating Funds or Money Market Deposit Accounts (ROA):
Funds in the ROA are unrestricted operating funds invested in one or more money market deposit 14 accounts. All receipts of PVS shall be deposited to these accounts. Deposits/transfers into this account shall be made in a manner that allows for good internal controls, as reviewed during the audit/review. These accounts are used to fund the GOA account through electronic funds transfers. No checks are written against these accounts. Funds in these accounts are held to provide sufficient liquidity to meet current business cycle expenses. While the balance allowed to be maintained in these accounts is not specified in this policy, the Board of Directors should formally review the balances on a quarterly basis to insure (1) adequate liquidity to meet short term cash requirements and (2) insure that funds in excess of short term needs are invested in CD_s or mutual funds.
§ Motion to accept the changes in the PVS Investment policies as outlined above, seconded and approved.
§ Motion to endorse the P & P package as presented, seconded and approved.
o Approval of 2012-2013 Budget-
§ The Budget presented, reviewed and endorsed at the Board Meeting on April 16, 2012. See draft budget.
§ The current projection of about a $24,000 surplus for 2011-2012.We have a requirement to maintain a reserve account between 75-125% of our funds. We are currently at 76%, and the board members feel we are in a good position at this time financially. Our reserve has remained at a stable level, while our expenses have continued to increase.
§ We are currently looking for ways to increase services and cut down on expenses without taking anything away from the athletes.
§ Additionally we are working hard to protect our assets.
§ Motion to approve the budget as proposed, seconded and approved.
· One member asked about the possible increase in USA Swimming Membership Fees. It was then reports that at this time the USA-S budget calls for a $1 increase each year until the end of the quad (2014, but are asking to extend it through 2016). However, if USA-S goes to an online registration process for swimming memberships then they may ask for a $2 increase in 2015 to supplement the increased cost of the online service. There are some additional concerns regarding the increase insurance fees, these will be discussed at the USA Swimming Convention in September.
§ Thank you to John Ertter for creating the budget and helping with all aspects of the financial planning for PVS.
o Other New Business-none.
· Motion to adjourn the 2013 HOD Meeting, seconded and approved.