Draft minutes until approved at the May 2015 HOD meeting
Potomac Valley Swimming
House of Delegates
Overlee Community Center
2030 Lee Highway
Arlington, VA
May 20, 2014
· Attendance –
o Board of Directors: Bill Marlin-General Chair, Paris Jacobs-Admin Chair, Bob Vincent-Finance Chair, Brad Bowser-Sr. Chair, Manga Dalizu-AG Chair, Merari Chollette-Diversity Chair, Tim Husson-Operations Chair, Emily Menard-Sr. Coaches Rep, Steve Menard-Jr. Coaches Rep, Jim Garner-Strategic Planning, Mike Rubin-Officials Rep, Greg York-Safe Sport Chair, Murphy Freal-Sr. Athlete Rep, Karina Kolb-Jr Athlete Rep, Trey McKula-Jr. Athlete Rep.
o HOD Representatives: Bob Walker-ASA, Mike Kraeuter-BWST, Tom Ugast – NCAP, Rob Green-DCPR, Elvin Foreman-ERSC, Robert Davis-FAST, Bruce Andersen-HACC, Joe Flaherty-JFD, Dan Jacobs-MACH, Heather Purk-LMAC, Kevin Mallon-PM, Mark, Eldridge-RMSC, Melanie McKula-SDS, Shelley Geskar-YORK, Timothy DeLucia-PGPR, Christie Zindler-RY, Kate Johnson-PAC, Arvydas Barzdukas-NVSL
o At-Large Delegates: Dave Crocker, Tim Kelly, Josh Travis, Riley Eaton, Kurt Thiel, Ward Foley, Art Davis, Linda Klopfenstein
o Additional Athletes: Lauren Hensley-PM, Martin Javelosa-PM, Stephen Pastoriza-NCAP
o PVS Members (non-voting): John Ertter-Controller, Terri Marlin-Administrator
· Call to Order – The meeting was called to order at 7:17 by the General Chair, Bill Marlin.
· Proof of Quorum – Motion to accept the club member that are here form a quorum, seconded and approved.
o How many clubs are here? There are 17 of our 41 member clubs present.
· Approval of May 2013 HOD Minutes – Motion to accept the minutes from the 2013 House of Delegates meeting, seconded and approved.
· Approval of the Agenda – Motion to accept the agenda as submitted, seconded and approved.
· Approval of Chair Reports – Motion to accept the Board of Directors Chair’s reports as submitted, seconded and approved.
o The financial report is pulled for discussion.
· Recognition of outgoing Board Members –
o Paris Jacobs was recognition for her years of service as our Administrative Chair for the past four years and all of her contributions to PVS.
o Manga Dalizu was recognized for his years on the Board of Director. He served as Age Group Chair for the past four years and held other positions prior to that time. Manga was thanked for all the work he has done on behalf of PVS.
· Lifetime Achievement Award –
o Bill Marlin, the General recognized Arthur Lopez, for his years in PVS running the Nada por Vida program and to thank him for his love and dedication to thousands of young swimmers he taught and supports through the years.
o Arthur was appreciative of his recognition and said thank you to PVS for their support of his program. He also thanked all the coaches, swimmers and clubs for their support and help over the years. This has truly been a labor of love.
o He began the Nada por Vida program with just 11 children, by the end he was averaging 200 kids per practice.
o He felt very thankful to be able to give back to the community through swimming and felt he was able to help teach the children not only to swim but to be a part of the community and to be Americans.
· General Chair Comments on the State of the LSC – Welcome to the 2014 PVS House of Delegates.
o All Board members were introduced to the House.
o Membership numbers: in 2012-2013 season, PVS registered 11,352 athletes between Sept1-May 5. In 2013-2014 we registered 11, 617 athletes over the same time period. This is a growth of 265 athletes (2.3% growth). In comparison, USA Swimming grew by just .1% this past year.
o We are also growing in our non-athlete members: up to 1705 (1046 from last year). This is a growth of 2.8%. We now have over 500 coaches, 533 Officials and 42 “Other” which are primarily chaperones.
o In 2013-2014, we have 48 clubs. We added 5 new clubs this past year (and two didn’t renew from previous years).
o Membership number and due are the lifeline of our LSC. The membership dues collected allow PVS to do all the things we do in our LSC. These dues fund educational opportunities for athletes, officials, parents and volunteers. They help offset the travel expenses to National level competition, the cost of our Zone Team and pay the facility rental for all our LSC hosted meets, including championships. Every member in our LSC benefit from the strength of our membership numbers. I am proud to announce that as of May 4, PVS remains to be the 4th largest LSC in the country.
o Education: Our Officials conducted 33 clinics this year between September and April. Thank you for all of your hard work!
o This past year, PVS hosted 3 Officials Qualifying Meets – 66 PVS Officials took advantage of these opportunities and are now N2-N3 certified.
o Swimposium in September – please send ideas of what you want to hear/speakers etc. to Manga, Brad and Terri by May 31.
o PVS continues to send representatives to all USA Swimming conventions and workshops. We are committed to having the most educated members in the country.
o Competitively, PVS is still strongly represented, which means our swimmers are continuing to improve and our coaches are doing a great job. Take a look at our attendance numbers at the various National level meets this past year:
§ Winter Senior Nationals: 59 women, 53 men
§ Winter Junior Nationals: 41 women, 72 men
§ Summer Senior Nationals: 16 women, 16 men
§ US Open: 20 women, 31 men
§ Summer Junior Nationals: 29 women, 31 men
o The one area we all need to improve on is paying meet entry fees on time to the meet directors. When these payments are late, it makes the accounting job much more difficult for the meet director and the PVS controller.
o Safe Sport – 4 coaches in PVS have been accused in the past several years. Greg has been very involved in Safe Sport, thank you! Please continue to educate your coaches, athletes, parents. There are free training courses on sexual abuse and bullying for athletes and parents. Education is power and when we have educated coaches, officials, athletes and parents we may be able to make PVS a safer place for all our members.
o Diversity – PVS continue to lead the rest of the country in Diversity efforts.
§ Many of the ideas from Miriam Lynch continues to do outstanding work in the Eastern Zone. Many of her ideas are now used across the country. Thank you Miriam for all your hard work.
§ Merari, the PVS Diversity Chair has also been very active in our community. She has brought PVS an great opportunity by hosting the Diversity Summit in 2015. Thank you Merari.
o Financially PVS is very strong. Our revenues continue to grow and we will once again have a surplus. This surplus puts us in the lower range of our goal of 75-125% of our Operating Expenses. Thank you to John Ertter for all of his hard work on the budget. We will be going over budget later in our meeting. I do encourage you all to pass it as presented. A lot of thought and hard work went into this year’s budget. Thank you John.
o Thank you to all Board members for all of their hard work on the day to day operations. Because of all of their hard work, the first year of being General Chair has gone smoothly. I do want to continue to encourage others to become more active in the PVS Board of Directors. Thank you!
· Nominating Committee Report –
o The job of the Nominating Committee was to develop a slate of at least one candidate in each of the positions up for re-election, including the Board of Review.
o Additional nominations may be made from the floor.
o As a note; there is a change in the role of the Board of Review; that is coming from USA Swimming.
§ As of September 1 the National BoR will move the BoR to the Zone level instead of at the LSC level. However we are still waiting for USA Swimming to give the Zone guidance as to how this new level of Board of Review will work. We have been told this is a change we have to make, but the implementation has yet to be determined.
§ PVS will still have members on the BOR, If there is an issue it will go to the Zone BOR and the members to hear the case will be pulled from those members at the LSC level; however the LSC will no longer hear cases from within their own LSC.
§ This is a By-Law change that is coming down from National. Once we have guidance, the wording will be changed in our By-Laws.
§ The Board of Directors can still handle some of these issues that don’t have to go BOR.
o Candidates:
§ Admin Vice Chair: Tom Ugast
§ Operations Chair – Tim Husson, he is running for his second term
§ Age Group Chair - Steve Menard
§ Strategic Chair– Jim Garner, he is running for his second term
§ Are there any nominations from the floor? This question was asked two times, with no additional nominations made.
§ Motion to accept all candidates by acclimation and a unanimous vote, seconded and approved.
· By electing Steve Menard as Age Group Chair, there will now be a vacancy in the Coaches Representative position. As per the By-Laws am board member can serve on the BOR and BOD at the same time, but cannot hold two BOD positions. The General Chair will appoint a new Senior Coaches Rep based upon recommendations from the outgoing AG Chair and Senior Chair. This will happen in July. Additionally elections will be held at the LC Championship meets in July, for the Junior Coaches Representative.
o Board of Review – Since we do not yet have definitive guidelines regarding BoR from USA Swimming we will hold elections as in the past. There are 6 positions to be voted on. Three of these positions are currently held by member who have only served one term and therefore can run again; Linda Klopfenstein, David Merkin and Amy Hus. There are three new nominees to fill the remaining three spots; Steven Pest (get last name/athlete), Ward Foley and Elizabeth Jester
§ Steven quickly introduced himself to the House.
§ Are there any nominations from the floor? This question was asked two times, with no additional nominations made.
§ Motion to accept all candidates by acclimation and a unanimous vote, seconded and approved.
o There is one vacancy – the GC can appoint someone. However the House can fill it now. This position was not filled and the General Chair will fill it.
· Committee Reports
o Administrative Report
§ Have spent time on the reorganization and the structure of this organization. This year we moved several part time contractors to employees and we have removed the Executive Director position, but maintain the controller position.
§ Reported that the PVS By-Laws are in good condition and have been approved by USA Swimming.
§ P & P is up to date and a working document, please keep up with it, read it, and have your coaches read it.
§ Teams have been doing a great job recruiting new officials; however as our association continues to grow we will still need more officials.
§ Thank for the opportunity to serve as the Administrative Vice-Chair these past four years.
o Finance – PVS is in a strong financial situation
§ This year we have had more input in the budget preparation, thank you, and we encourage everyone to take an interest in the budget and offer your input.
§ John had done a great job of informing the House of the changes to the budget.
§ Credit cards, we now have the ability to make payments with credit cards. We are still investigating the ability in being able to accept credit cards.
§ Tonight we will be recommending a change in investment policy. Please review this new proposal.
§ We have posted a copy of the Controllers job description. Thank John for all his hard work over the years as the controller and we look forward to have him continue in this fashion.
§ We are in need some volunteers to serve on the Audit Committee additionally this will be the last year of Bob Vincent’s term as treasurer. We will need someone to run for this position next year.
o Sr. Chair – Brad – see report submitted.
§ At USA Swimming Convention in Sept. did a great deal of work with Disability athletes, worked with several athletes who were deaf and partially blind. It was very interesting to see how they have learned to compensate.
§ Thanks to input from coaches in PVS Senior Champs will remain roughly the same as it was last year.
o AG Chair – see report submitted.
§ Manga thanked the House for allowing him to server as the AG Chair the last four year. When he started as AG Chair several years ago it was about the time that the JO meet “exploded”, but we have all worked hard to bring the meet back to a 2 session meet and have been able to move the meet to a better facility.
§ Feels the summer AG Champ meets has “caught up” with the spring JO meet.
§ There is a lot more LC opportunities than in the years past.
§ Looking for the LSC philosophy on the champs meets, this is something that we need to continue to discuss.
o Coaches Reps-
§ One of the biggest issues we hear from the coaches is what to do with the Open meets. We are looking to possibly changing the format, order of events, etc. We welcome any comments and thoughts that other coaches may have.
§ For the most coaches are satisfied with the formats of the various PVS Championships meets.
§ We are working with GMU and internally trying to make some adjustments to Junior/Senior Champs.
§ PVS will now allow intra-squad meets that can be sanctioned. But they still must meet the same regulations as a dual/tri meet with the required number of officials, timers, etc.
§ If there is anything you want to bring up or have questions let the coaches reps know.
o Operations – Officials, Safety and Technical Committee
§ Equipment- we are in good shape regarding equipment. Thanks to Carrie Tupper our Equipment Manager for taking care of our equipment.
§ Fairland and PGS&LC both have new timing systems including score boards.
o Diversity – see report submitted.
§ The biggest focusing this year is on inclusion, within the sport of swimming.
§ The goal of each club should be working to getting people to individual who are not swimmer to become swimmers. Reach outside of our comfort zone in finding ways to get people into the sport.
§ Become familiar with the Foundation at USA Swimming, it is a great program and has done amazing work in the sport of swimming.
§ Diversity Select Camp – in June 2015, we will be hosting it at UMD. Every LSC in the zone will send 2 athletes and a coach. We are excited to be a part of this event.
§ Please consider helping out with the Black History meet, it is open to all our athletes that is culturally diverse and celebrate the cultural diversity in the sport.
§ We are still looking to get a Diversity Grant program started. This grant will give the ability for clubs to get money to help them support programs that encourage diversity and inclusion on your club and in the sport of swimming in PVS. If you have ideas and do some reaching out in the community, you will be able to apply for a grant.
o Officials – see report submitted
§ This past year we have increased number of officials in PVS by 14%, which is pretty good. Given that we continue to increase the number of meets we need to continue to increase the number of Officials.
§ If you are team that hosts meets, please continue to work on recruiting officials, so all meets can be adequately staffed.
§ Many officials took advantage of the OQM opportunities.
§ 16 PVS Officials who were selected to attend National meets. A testament to the quality of our Officials.
§ Several PVS Officials also played lead roles at Sectionals and Zones.
§ Administrative Officials – we were able to implement this new rule well. In the past year we have certified 15 Admin Officials and quite a few referees have completed the clinics.
§ Added a travel stipend for Officials to National meets. 21 have taken advantage of this.
§ Maxwell Awards, USA Swimming and Swimming World honor Officials for their hard work in their local area. There are 6 given out each year. Last year Jack Neill was honored with this award.
§ If as a club you want a clinic, please let us know. We will be putting out a clinic schedule shorty and are happy to add one for your club. The clinic will have to be open to the entire LSC, but we can come to your club to conduct a clinic.
o Safe Sport –
§ Riley is now the EZ Safe Sport Chair.
§ Please pick up the various handouts about Safe Sport.
§ The purpose of the USA Swimming is to be an education committee. The Committee will not come in and “save the day,” when/if a problem comes up.
§ The more our coaches and clubs are educated the better off we are as an LSC, please learn what you can and keep your club and coaches up on all that Safe Sport has to offer.
§ Remember there are training programs on line for parents and athletes. PVS does lead the nation with the number athletes who have viewed the training; however a very small percentage of our athletes have seen the training video. We need to continue to encourage our athletes and parents watch the videos.
§ Safe Sport is also not working on Bullying Issues, more information will be passed down to LSC clubs.
§ Safe sport resource guide – There is now a guide that include what the marshals, timers and meet directors should be doing at meets. All clubs should review this information.
§ If you have questions, please come and talk to us (Greg or Riley)
o Safety/Open Water –
§ From a safety perspective we have had an insignificant year, there have been relatively few incidents in PVS.
§ Most were reported on line. We are doing better about reporting.
§ But please continue to report incidents that occur at any club function.
§ Open Water – In the past we had Pohick Bay in Fairfax Co. as an option for Open Water. We are now in serious negations with National Harbor, the sunset swims have been shut down for now [they were reinstated shortly after the HOD meeting in May 2014]. The water in DC is very expensive, and within the PVS boundaries there is not a lot of options for Open Water. We need to protect and work hard for what little there is.
§ At an event at Lake Anna recently, they had 6 lifeguards for the event; however they were all pool lifeguard, not open water lifeguards. There is a significant difference how you maintain safety in an open water event.
§ If you take your swimmers to an event that Kurt Thiel is not attending, please make sure you find out the quality of the lifeguard. You want them to be open water, beach front lifeguards.
§ One PVS Official went to the Open Water Clinic. Al Melius is now a championship open water official.
o Technical – helps to review meet announcement and special projects for the board.
o Athletes – No report submitted
o Strategic – No report submitted
· Approval of the 2014-2015 Budget – This budget does include a Swimposium, a third site for LC 1 & 2 in 2015, (note other increases/changes) projected us with a 85 % in our reserve. A very conservative reserve.
o Motion to accept het budget for the 2014-2015, seconded
§ What have we set the registration fees at? Answer: an increase of $2 per year for the next 10 years, starting with $79 in 2015.
§ At the CCM we discussed that the fees for the LC zone meet in 2014 due to the financial savings at the SC meet.
· Line item 47300 – Camps: When the 13-14 budget was developed the Board wanted to put money in the budge to run PVS camps as we have done in the past. In some years we have done camps, but some years we have not. There is a $4000 place holder for revenue, but we would likely spend roughly the same amount. The end result is a wash. At this time there are no plans for camps in 2015
· Open Water - $8000, are we planning any events? When the budget was planned, yes we were hoping to have several events, but with the new developments at National Harbor we now do not know. If there are events in DC it may cost more. So the money is put into the budget, so if we are able to hold an event we can.
· What is the $10,000 for Safe Sport?
o It will cover items such as: Travel, educations, to pay for supplies (like the handouts that are here at HOD).
o How do we get this money to come back to each club? Everything that Greg brings back from the clinics, all the handouts, banners, etc. is designed to go back to the clubs.
o Some of the money will also go towards Swimposium to bring in speakers and training.
o Remember Safe Sport is an education based committee.
· Contractor services – it talks about a possible 3% increase. Without out the Executive Director position why is the amount spent.
o This possible increase could to the registrar or other employees. The increase it there so we can give raises as needed.
· Why was the Executive Director Job taken away? Where/how did the duties get separated?
o Please see the Treasure Report submitted by Bob Vincent. The information and job description is there.
o When looking at the job description of the Executive Director, the Admin Vice-Chair, Finance Chair and General Chair looked at line by line and determined that many of the items should be done by board members. Other duties were found to be more of the controller. Still other duties were moved to the employees (contractors who had to become employees). This was more of a reorganization of duties across the board.
· There seem to be several items that do not seem to be part of the controller’s duties; such as preforming staff reviews. Why?
o It was recommended that Ertter assist in the next round of the review because he had done it in the past. In the future this will not be in his job description.
· The question was called: Motion to accept the 2014-2015 PVS Budget as proposed, seconded and approved.
· Old Business – no old business
· New Business –
o USA Swimming Convention; If you are attending, Linda needs all the information for your arrival and departure dates. Due to the change in the hotel policies, she needs the information sooner than in the past.
o Approval of P&P – Motion to accept the changes endorsed as it stands now (it is a working document) in the P & P, seconded and approved.
§ Most is just housekeeping
§ Change in the FCC the treasurer controls the movement of money, the bank has set a limit of 6 per month transfers allowed per month. Due to the limit we would like to keep the balance in our operational account $30,000, so we do not have to move money as often. Motion to increase the amount in the PVS Operational Bank Account to $30,000, seconded and approved.
§ Still a few reference to the Executive Director - yes there are and they will be removed.
o Moment of Silence for those who in PVS who have passed away. We have lost several members of PVS this past year.
· Motion to adjourn the 2014 House of Delegates Meeting, seconded and approved. Thank you all for attending.