Minutes of PVS Officials Committee Meetings
Minutes of
PVS Officials Committee Meeting
January 20, 2010
Members present: Jack Neill, Boots Hall, Dick Griffith, Jim Thompson, Tim Husson, Jim Garner, Steed Edwards, Mike Rubin, Elizabeth Jester, Bob Vincent, Pam Starke-Reed, Mike Rubin, Ron Whalen and Rita Page.
The meeting convened at 7:00pm at River Falls. Thanks go out to Greg York for last minute scramble to secure the space.
Minutes: Minutes of the November 10, 2009 meeting were approved.
Upcoming Meets: There are 3 OQM meets coming up, the first being PVS Senior Championships on March 11-14, 2010 at George Mason University. Jack Neill and Bob Vincent will be the Admin Referee and Meet Referee for this meet. This meet may need to be eligible for N2 certification only unless evaluators for N3 can be assigned.
The PVS 14 & Under Junior Olympic Championships meet will be held on March 18-21, 2010 at Fairland. This meet will be an N2 certification meet only. Tim Husson trained referees in the Administrative Referee position during the Tom Dolan meet and will do so at this meet. Pam Starke Reed will serve as Meet Referee.
The Speedo Championship Series Eastern Zone Southern Sectional meet will be held on March 25-28, 2010 at Germantown. Tim Husson will be the Administrative Referee for this meet. Paul Maker from New England Swimming will serve as Meet Referee and Evaluator. The meet has been approved for evaluations in all N2 positions and all N3 positions except Admin Referee.
Vision Statement: As Strategic Planning committee chair, Jim Thompson will prepare an article for the Officials newsletter citing the PVS Vision Statement and the part PVS Officials play in that vision. He read the Vision Statement and passed out his outline for the article looking for suggestions from the committee.
Chief Judge Certification: PVS will be certifying officials for the Chief Judge position beginning with the 2010-2011 season. Boots Hall, Steed Edwards and Jim Thompson worked on the materials that will be used. Another draft of the Evaluation form was handed out with corrections made by from suggestions from the officials committee. A discussion regarding the N2 items on the evaluation form was held and it was decided that those requirements would be removed from the evaluation form. USA Swimming does not currently have a separate certification for the Chief Judge position. Since this will be strictly an LSC certification, Boots has prepared a test that will be administered and corrected by PVS on hard copy only at this point. Steed and Jim will act as the testing officers an will forward the scores to the certification officer. They will also rework the Certification and recertification requirements.
Clinics: There is a need to schedule more clinics for S&T and Starter. There is an S&T clinic scheduled for S&T at Spring Hill on 2/7. Tim was asked to do another Hy-Tek clinic and scheduled one at Olney for Tuesday evening 2/9. The plan is to schedule at least one more Starter clinic and 1-2 S&T clinics in February. Jim Garner and Jack Neill will work on securing a facility. Any clinics that are scheduled should be reported to Tim so he can put them on the website ASAP for all to have the opportunity to attend. In reviewing the online material for the Chief Judge Certification requirements Jim Thompson discovered that some of the materials and notices for officials could use some syncing up. One thing that needs to be added is that S&T trainees need to do all of their training session at PVS meets and should work at least 2 different meets during their 4 session training. A line item needs to be added to the Officials committee budget for the rental of rooms for clinics if needed.
Officials Reception: Pam Starke-Reed and Mike Rubin volunteered to coordinate an Officials Reception in the Spring. They will research possible dates and locations, as well as suggestions for refreshments. Boots suggested that we recognize officials that go to out of town National meets as well as our new referees.
Officials Tracking System – Local Certification: Rita has been working on getting our officials certifications into the Official Tracking System on the USA Website and is more than half way there. These certifications will now print out on the card the official can download from the website. Hope to have this completed before the end of February.
Hy-Tek/CTS Certification Update: Janice Flamand worked with Tim at the last Hy-Tek clinic taught and will take the lead at the next one. The committee is getting very good feedback regarding clinics, training and the certification process for these positions. Tim encourages all clinic participants to download the demo from the Hy-tek website (hy-tekltd.com) to practice. While most meets use Version 2 MLK is currently using Version 3. Jim Garner reports there is not much difference.
New Radios: The PVS Board authorized the Officials Committee to purchase 20 radios. While the Equipment Manager found radios at $300 each, Tim did some searching and found some good radios for about $50 each. These radios will be tested at the January Open meets. Dave DiNardo will order new headsets for the radios PVS currently owns.
Briefing Our Timers: Tim stated that at one meet he attended several swimmers swam in the wrong lanes and the names were not changed. His concern is that Timers are not being briefed properly. Starters are told at the clinics to use the briefing card prepared by PVS for briefing timers. It should be emphasized that Timers need to check the names of the swimmers and make changes on the timing sheets if needed. Starters, Referees and table officials should keep their eyes peeled for swimmers that miss their heats. Timers should be told to send any swimmer that misses their heat to report to the referee. Some timers are putting those swimmers in an empty land and not informing the referee or table so the times are not being recorded for the proper swimmer. Rita will work up an article for the newsletter reminding Starters to use the briefing card and to assist the referee in identifying any swimmers they may know are swimming in the wrong lanes or lanes that were supposed to be empty.
Committee Structure: Dick Griffith, Bob Vincent, Tim Husson and Jack Neill will form a sub-committee to study the structure of the Officials Committee and make recommendations concerning possible changes, including the possibility of adding a Vice-Chair.
Minimum Number of Officials: Art Davis had raised the question of what the minimum number of officials should be at a meet through an email to the Officials Committee. Art is currently updating the PVS policies and procedures. The PVS Board had previously required a minimum of 4 officials per session. The committee discussed the possibility of pulling a sanction for any session that does not meet that minimum. If a sanction is pulled for a session without that minimum the times achieved at that session would not be admissible.
Swimsuits: Now that FINA has issued its final list of allowed swimsuits, Jack Neill will send out a notice to all referees directing them to this list, and reminding them that only one swimsuit may be worn during competition. However, for age group competitions, it is permissible for an athlete to wear a single garment underneath his or her competition swimsuit for modesty and/or privacy reasons.
The meeting adjourned at 9:30pm
The next meeting will be held on Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at 7:00 pm either at Overlee or River Falls. It was subsequently determined the meeting would be held at Overlee.
Respectfully submitted by,
Rita Page
Committee Member