Draft Minutes until approved at the Winter 2015 Competition Committee Meeting
Potomac Valley Swimming
Competition Committee Meeting
University of Maryland
September 27, 2014
· Attendance – Manga Dalizu, Tom Ugast, Bill Marlin, Mike Clark Jenni Bnechler, Elvin Foreman, Sue Schwartz, Lynne Gerlach, Renita Depp, Christopher Williams, Roselyn Raghubar, Robert Davis, Aaron Dean, Bob Walker, Mark Eldridge, Dave Crocker, Mike Cook, Robbie Robins, Marilyn Mangles, Derek Young, Heather Purk, Emily Menard, Greg York, Jim Garner, Carrie Tupper, Tim Hamlet, James Washington, Keely Monge, Rob Green, Adrien Thom, Rory Lewis Sr., Evan Stiles, Kent Williams, Sam Burgi, Dan Jacobs, Mike Kraeuter, John Venit
· Call to Order – The meeting was called to order by the Senior Chair, Manga Dalizu, at 10:10 am.
· Approval of May Minutes – Motion to approve the 2014 Spring Competition Committee Minutes, seconded and approved.
· Approval of the Agenda – Motion to approve the agenda, seconded and approved
· General Chair comments
o Volunteers – This year we will have some turn over on the Board of Directors. If anyone is interested in any of the positions let the General Chair, Bill Marlin, know.
§ In order to run a meets it takes 40-50 volunteers (timers, runners, marshals, Officials, table workers, hospitality, etc) – Please encourage your families to volunteers at meets, especially as a timer or Official.
o Sr. Chair appointee –The appointment of Manga as Senior Chair has been questioned by coaches in the association, since he doesn’t have any/many Senior level athletes. The General Chair explained that with 4 new board members, including a new AG Chair, he wanted a person in that position with experience. He felt Manga knew PVS, the Eastern Zone and USA Swimming. The appointment is to fill the position for one year. At the 2015 HOD meeting the position will be up for a vote.
o 4 objectives – During the USA Swimming Convention, Bill Marlin met with the Board of Directors and outlined his four primary objectives for the 14-15 season.
§ 1. He would like to bring in USA Swimming to hold a Strategic Planning meeting. It will be good to see what we are doing well and what we need to improve on. He is looking towards the end of the fall. If you have thoughts on the direction email Bill.
§ 2. LEAP – We have completed LEAP 1 this past spring. His goal is complete or nearly complete LEAP 2 by spring 2015. He has asked Riley Eaton to head up this project with help from the BOD and Tom Ugast.
§ 3. Age Group Athlete of the Year Award presentations – the current was the Outstanding Athlete Awards are given out is a big disappointment every year. Often times the athletes are not there. Bill is interested in planning a “gala” for the Outstanding Athletes (with families), Coach of the Year, Volunteer of the Year (athletes) and for parents. Officials have indicated that they would rather do their own thing.
§ 4. Coach Educations – Bill is interested in bringing in a series (3-4 per year) National Coaches/presenters to come in and meet with our coaches for “round table” discussions and/or presentations. This could potentially include an Official as well.
§ If there is something you would like to see that is different let a member of the BoD know.
o Open meets – As a reminder, entries are now due 14 days out, not 10 days out. Please make sure to communicate and get your information to the appropriate meet director on time.
o Timers – As a suggestion, when asking for timers for meets, schedule the timers by event, not session. During a couple of the summer LC meets, this was done and it seems that parents were more willing to time if they knew they were only timing for half the meet, instead of the entire meet.
o Zone Team
§ Congratulations to the Zone Team who won.
· Not only did our swimmers swim well, but they were well behaved. Thank you to Dave Green and all the coaches for all their hard work with the swimmers.
· There has been some preliminary discussions regarding a potential LSC sponsorship deal with either Speedo or Nike. The idea is that they would sponsor activities like the Awards Gala and our Championship meets. Speedo is currently our LSC sponsor and helps with the Zone Team outfitting packages and donates the Official’s polos. Nike seems to be more interested in the Grass Roots of PVS, like the Open Meets and possibly the Championship meets.
· Convention Reports
o Athletes – no report submitted
o Coaches – No report submitted
o Senior Swimming -
§ Legends Meet – This voting happened at the Convention.
· Retention numbers were surprising (get from Manga).
· There are more swimmers in the 13-18 age groups.
· Club Portal – USA Swimming is in the concluding a project which includes the redesigning the reports in the Club Portal. Take a look at yours and see what is new. All changes/updates should be ready by end of December. You will now be able to see the trends, how you are improving as a club and against the country.
o Age Group – IMX point for the NE meet is back up to 1800. The meet will be held at the University of Maryland on January 30-Feb 1, 2015.
o Diversity – no report submitted
o Registration – As a reminder, Sumie Emory handles all of the Athlete Registration and Terri Marlin handles all non-athletes (coaches and Officials).
o Safe Sport – Greg York reported that at the USA Swimming Convention there was new legislation passed about making false reports and how you are covered. If you file a report, it will not be held against you as long as you are not trying to hurt anyone and only trying to give information. The rule regarding Deck Changing was also passed. It is now in the rule book that it is prohibited by USA Swimming to deck change. It now goes into all teams Code of Conduct.
§ Safe Sport video - as an LSC we are still not getting enough participation from kids and parents.
· Once suggestion from YORK, is they do not let their athletes travel if they have not letting their kids travel until they see it
§ USA Swimming – Reference checks – it is now mandatory as per USA Swimming. They have partnered with a company that will do the check and doesn’t cost anything.
o Admin – We are going to get LEAP 2 which will give us Grant money for the Athletes.
· LC Junior/Senior Champs
o Should the meet be made a full four day format – We will need to work with John Ertter to find a pool to make a full 4 day format. This change should help ease the timelines.
o Motion to change LC Senior Champs a 4 day meet, seconded,
§ We would be moving one to two events from each day to fill in Thursday
§ Should Jr. Champs mirror Sr. Champs with a four day format? A straw poll was taken and the consensus was yes.
· Motion to amend and allow the LC Junior Champ meet mirror LC Senior Champs, seconded and approved.
§ What are the issues with staffing? It is one more day. An Official present, he didn’t believe it would affect the staffing too much, as long as there was advance notice.
o Any swimmer qualified for Sr. Champs not eligible for Jr Champs in that event.
o Motion to change LC Junior and Senior Championships to a full four day format, seconded and approved.
· Meet Schedule
o Last call for meets April 1 through August 31, 2015 – Motion to approve Club meets for April 1-August 31, 2015 as proposed, seconded and approved.
o Establish PVS meet schedule for the 2015-2016 Season
§ Add a Fall PVS Distance Meet for Fall 2015
§ Any thought of moving the LC June Distance meet from June to earlier in May? Possibly adding it to a club meet – no one seemed particularly interested, so it was suggested to add the 400 IM and 400 Free to the June Distance meet to help with participation numbers.
· Motion to accept the proposed PVS schedule for 2015-2016, seconded and approved.
· Junior/Senior Champ Cuts
o LC standards for SC meets remain unchanged and will be added to the Qualifying Times list.
o GMU has tightened the number of bodies allowed on deck and in the facility, PVS needs to be aware of this as we move forward.
· Outstanding Athletes – See list of winners here.
o There will be a small task force (Richard Rosenthal, Bob Walker and Kent Williams)to create a new way to establish the PVS Outstanding Athletes in the future. They will report back at the January CCM.
· 2015 LC Meets – adding EZ Senior Zone Meets and USA Legends. (see the handout from Manga)
o The needs of the Eastern Zone is very different from the rest of the country.
o Tim Hamlet commented on how it worked in the Western Zone
o The new USA Swimming Meet “Legends” is set up for 3800 kids that are not going to Junior Nationals, but are beyond Sectionals.
o Senior Zone Meet is a proposal, especially if the Eastern Zone were to remove the 15-18 swimmers from the AG Zone meet. There are some teams in the Eastern zone that would not allow that unless there is a Senior Zone Meet.
§ The Senior Zone Meet cuts would be similar to Sectionals, except a little slower to allow more kids in
§ The Legends cuts would not have top end cuts. This would allow it to be more of a team meet.
§ Senior Zone meet: can college kids attend? At this time yes. What about top end cuts? This is still being determined.
o Due to the addition of these meets: Motion to move the Junior/Senior Champs for 2015 to July 23-26 and Age Group Champs July 16-19, 2015, seconded and approved.
§ Pending pool availability; Carrie Tupper was in attendance and indicated that she didn’t expect this to be an issue. We will ask John Ertter to follow up with her for confirmation.
§ Senior Champs swimmers will then go right from Senior Champs to Junior Nationals
§ NCAP commented it is possible that they won’t be able to run JR/SR Champs due to their competition schedule.
· Spring Zones
o Head Coach/Assistant Head Coach Elections
§ Motion to accept Chris Schlegel-ASA for Assistant HC Motion to accept by acclimation, seconded and approved.
· Travel Reimbursement –Motion to keep the qualifications the same as last year, 4 swims (events) in PVS and from Sept 1- entry date, seconded and approved.
· Proposal from Mike Krauter, regarding the scoring of the PVS Championship meets
o The purpose is to look at all PVS Championships and see how we can make these meets more competitive amongst the teams. How can we make Divisions to help the kids see that these meets are competitive? How do we make it feel like a Championship meet.
o Awards for Jr/Sr Champs? – The idea is that the kids who swim may feel like it is a Championship meet
§ If yes, then awards for teams, individual high point and medal for individual events & relays
o Motion to include awards for Junior and Senior Championships, seconded and approved. We will have to decide the best procedure is for awards.
§ Using recycled awards or do we purchase other awards.
§ One suggestion is to have a table of awards and only give them to the kids who ask for them.
o Motion to create 4 divisions for JO’s and Age Group Champs, seconded and defeated.
§ If you are a big team, and only send 20 kids, then you are still considered a big team. Feels the size should be based upon the number of entries.
§ Motion to create divisions for 14 & U JO’s and LC Age Group Champs based upon meet entries, seconded and approved.
§ There needs to be an objective way to determine the Divisions.
§ Motion to create divisions for JO and AG Champs that are the same as they are for Junior & Senior champs, seconded and approved.
· Old Business
o The Distance Meet in November for 2014 will be a club meet (The DCPR Fall Distance Meet)
o DCPR has been asked to look into increasing security measures at the facility.
· New Business – no new business.
· Motion to Adjourn, second and approve