Members present: Boots Hall Chairman, Jim Carey, Jim Van Erden, Jim Thompson, Jim Garner, Sue Schwartz, Bob Brofft, Denise Wepasnick, Pam Starke Reed and Rita Page. The meeting convened at 6:50 pm at Jim Carey's office.

Reports on Clinics: To date there have been two S&T clinics in Maryland and five in Virginia. Boots will ask Jerry Wisor to coordinate Maryland clinics so we can hold more. Attendance at the MD clinics was not very high. Discussed ways to improve attendance. Suggested that we send a flyer to coaches and ask that them put them on the bulletin boards as well as continuing to put them on the website. There is a S&T clinic scheduled at the Swim & Rock meet and both S&T and Starter clinics will be held at the Reindeer mini meet.

Electronic Meet Reporting: Jim Thompson has been working very hard collecting data from the various meets held so far this year and presented the Board with sample reports. He has corrected and updated the program to fix the glitches that were occurring initially. Jim has been present at all the meets that have reported their officials' data so far but will be emailing the file to meet managers prior to the meets to have the data entered from now on. Because the data are constantly being updated.

PVS Website Update: Art Davis went over the current website for officials committee issues and made several recommendations for deleting or archiving old files. He will continue to work with John Hirchman and Tim Husson to update the website

Training Material Update: Jim Van Erden will head up the update of PVS handouts and materials. Rita volunteered to help. Materials haven't been updated for two years or more in some cases. Jim Garner will write up training materials for the new Colorado 6. Lynda and Bob will revamp the Hy-Tek materials. Bob Brofft suggested giving out the pocket sized USA Swimming rulebooks at our clinics to all officials attending.

Recent Situations: Pam had a couple of situations at meets dealing with a parent cursing and with swimmers taunting that she shared with the committee. She involved the coaches and the situations were eventually calmed. A discussion of how best to handle these types of circumstances was held. The best thing to do is to solicit the coaches' help in getting their parents and swimmers under control. It was also suggested that we add to the timers briefing that if they witness taunting or poor behavior that they bring it to the referee's attention.

Need for Officials at Meets: Discussion took place on how best to get more officials to work meets and the need to have a meeting with the Officials Chairs from the clubs to explain duties and get suggestions on how to reach people. Would like to hold meeting in April maybe before the start, or between sessions of Spring Championship meet. We will use the newsletter once we get email address on all officials. Currently it's only going to Refs and Starters. Jim Garner will look into building the database for the email distribution. The Board plans to hold a Swimposium in the fall (Sept - Oct.) to get people charged up for the upcoming clinics and season.

Newsletter: The newsletters have been sent to Officials chairs, Referees and Starters do far. Denise is looking for situation to put in the newsletter and will post upcoming meets and the need for officials to work them. Jim Van Erden will get the last newsletter updated and emailed out soon.

Meeting adjourned at 8:30 pm.

Next Meeting: Tuesday, February 1, 2005 at Boots' house at 7:00 pm. Will need to discuss who will run Spring Champs.

Respectfully submitted,


Rita Page
Committee Member