Minutes of Officials Committee Meetings
MINUTES OF
PVS OFFICIALS COMMITTEE MEETING
MAY 17, 2006
Members present: Jim Van Erden Chair, Boots Hall (via teleconference), Jim Garner, Sue Schwartz, Denice Wepasnick, Bob Brofft, Jack Schaeffer, Tim Husson, Ron Whalen, Dick Griffith and Rita Page.
The meeting convened at 6:55 pm at Jim Van Erden's Office
USA Swimming CD: Jim Garner showed a CD that was put together by USA Swimming for parenting swimmers which will be sent out to all clubs. The CD covers many helpful topics for parents. Jim also passed around material on USA Swimming's IXM program.
Boots mentioned new DVD's being available for officiating. Currently Stroke and Turn is the only one and includes the new stroke rules. She also mentioned an article in Splash magazine regarding Arthur Lopez's outreach program for disadvantaged children.
Clinics for Summer League: Jim Van Erden will distribute promotional piece, sign-in sheets and cards for PVS certification and recertification to those in charge of running summer officials clinics in the various summer leagues. Jim Garner and Denice will make sure that materials are distributed in Montgomery County, Tim Husson will see that materials are distributed at the Prince Mont Swim League, Bob Brofft will take care of Colonial League and Jim Van Erden will try to get in touch with someone for Prince William County. Tim Husson will put a notice on the website letting officials know which summer league clinics will count for PVS certification and recertification.
PVS Clinics for 2006-07 Season: Committee all agreed we needed to make more clinics available this season. Bob Brofft will continue to handle organizing Virginia clinics with Rita Page's help. Jerry Wisor has withdrawn from the committee and Denice Wepasnick has agreed to coordinate clinics in Maryland. Boots Hall will remain as Chief Training Officer. Jim Van Erden suggested that this Training Subcommittee get together and set a schedule and try to secure facilities and dates for clinics so that information could be put up on the website by August 1. It was also agreed that if the need to pay for facilities to hold clinics it was done in the past and was ok to do in the future.
It was decided that we would offer clinics in two ways, through the regular posted schedule and let coaches know that they could request a clinic be held during a meet or practice provided at least 5-6 people would attend.
It was also the general feeling of the committee that we should offer at least 2-3 Hy-Tek and Colorado clinics a year. It was determined that there is a need for Timing Judge and Chief Judge guidance/instruction. Timing judge information will now be part of the Hy-Tek training session and referees will be given the guidelines for duties for both Chief Judges and Timing Judges so they will be able to explain those duties to anyone acting in those positions. Dick Griffith will write up the Chief Judge guidance and Jim Garner will write up the Timing Judge guidance.
Organization of Officials Committee: In reviewing the current members on the website it was stated that John McDonald has stepped down as the PVS Safety Chair and that Dave Macedonia has agreed to Chair that Committee. Jared Wisor has stepped down as the Maryland Clinic coordinator and Denice Wepasnick has agreed to fill that position. It was determined that we would leave the titles for testing officials on the website for at least more year but would then remove that title since everyone is being encourage to take the online test.
We discussed the addition of new members. Jim Van Erden will contact those mentioned to see if they are interested in serving. Jim asked everyone to think about new subcommittee positions and email him suggestions. One subcommittee we feel a need for is Outreach. This subcommittee would find ways to reach out to coaches, club official's chairs and the general membership. It was felt there was a need to reestablish the newsletter in order to communicate upcoming events as well as spark some discussion and disseminate information regarding various situations that have come up at meets and the best way to handle them.
Dick Griffith is in charge of handling the various "tchotchkes" given out to the officials serving PVS such as shirts, whistles, bells, etc. He is in the process of collecting all from various people and taking inventory in order to place a reorder if necessary. A new item suggested was the round badge holders. And to give out some of the lanyards we currently have. It was determined that we would replace/reissue shirts at recertification. Dick asked for a list of anything that we feel needs to be reordered such as bells, nametag blanks and their magnetic backs. We agreed to order a better quality of nametags so the PVS logo doesn't fall off. We will also look into a better quality of bell for certifying new starters.
We will also be ordering white collared shirts for members of the officials committee labeled with "Officials Committee". Jim Van Erden will order these shirts.
It was determined that there is a need for a list serve (group list) for all officials so Rita was charged with compiling that group to be used for distribution to meet officials as they look for people to work the various meets.
New Referees: Several nominees were suggested and discussed for invitation to become referees. Jim Van Erden will contact them.
Officials Committee Budget: The PVS Board is considering an increase to the Officials Committee budget. We discussed how to best use this increase and the results were:
We could have members of USA Swimming come and give advanced clinics to our current officials. Pat Lunsford is currently scheduled for the fall to give an advanced starter clinic. It would be helpful to have more of this type of advanced clinic on all levels of officiating. We could assist in further educating our officials by helping them attend National meets. There would be special requirements and restrictions on this assistance perhaps similar to the athlete caps.
With the Officials Committee going back to staffing the 5 Championship meets it was suggested that we order shirts for these meets for the officials as an extra incentive to work. The criteria for a shirt would be that an official would need to work either three sessions of a particular meet or 5 sessions in a combination of all the meets. It was suggested that the shirts contain a list of the 5 meets for that season and change the shirt each year.
Staffing PVS Championship Meets: As mentioned above we voted to take on the staffing of the 5 Championship meets held each year by PVS. These meets include the PVS Championship and the Junior Olympic Championship meets held in March and the three Long Course Championship meets held in July. The methods for better improving the staffing of those meets are to offer the shirts suggested above and to utilize the email list of Referees and starters we already have and the Stroke & Turn Judge list to be developed by Rita in hopes of reaching out to all officials more personally than going through the Club Officials chairs.
PVS may possibly hire a meet manager and DJ/Announcer as well as people to host the hospitality suite at these championship meets.
Club Officials Outreach: As discussed in previous meetings there is a need for the Officials committee to reach out to the club official's chairs. Our hopes are to hold a meeting with them and go over their concerns and needs from the officials committee as well as what the committee sees as their duties and responsibilities as chairman. Jim will try to set up that meeting.
Club Outreach: We discussed the need to reach out to the clubs through their coaches and ask if someone from the officials committee could attend their parents meetings at the beginning of the season in hopes of inspiring more parents to officiate at the meets. Some clubs offer incentives to parents who volunteer.
PVS Website: We discussed several items for the officials page of the website. Jim Van Erden and Rita Page will send Tim Husson the starter and Stroke & Turn materials that were updated this past year for posting on the website. Jim Garner will send Tim the materials for the Hy-Tek and Colorado training as well as the Timing Judge guidance. We will continue to update the remaining materials for the various positions and get them posted as well.
Fly-Over Starts: There was a small discussion regarding the use of the dive-over or fly-over starts. The last policy found in official's committee minutes comes out against the use of these starts. Recently the use of these starts at PVS meets has resurfaced. Many spoke out in favor of using them at the meeting. The discussion was kept short due to time constraints of the meeting and we agreed to continue the debate via email exchange. The meet announcements have contained language that "fly-over starts may be used". The committee did not feel that the meet announcements were being reviewed with detail to policy and procedure and Jim Garner said he would create a list of items to be reviewed. The hope of the email exchange and discussion is for the committee to take a position on whether fly-over starts should or should not be used on a regular basis in this LSC.
Meeting adjourned at 9:45 pm.
Next Meeting: July 5, 2006 at Jim Van Erden's Office.
Respectfully submitted,
Rita Page
Committee Member