Recognition of Officials
Boots indicated that Bill Stephens had contacted her about the possibility of finding ways to give greater recognition and support to PVS officials in order to thank them for their many hours of volunteer support to the association. The Committee generally felt that the recognition should be more modest that had originally been proposed.

The Committee endorsed the following recommendations:

• PVS no longer charge officials the local $5 surcharge to register annually with USA Swimming. [The amount to be paid to USA Swimming will increase from $25 in 2003 to $40 in 2004.]
• PVS would no longer charge officials $3 to recertify as an official.
• The $5 charge for initially certifying as an official would remain. However, in addition the certification patch and card they now receive, they would now also get a name tag. The name tag would be modified to no longer use the USA Swimming teardrop and would start to make use of a PVS pin that ordered in error - approximately a 100 are in inventory They are similar to the Hytek and Colorado pins currently in use, but have a different color scheme.
• Officials upon their initial registration would now also receive a PVS lanyard for their laminated credential card.
• Stroke and Turns who successfully complete their initial recertification process (Including attending a recertification clinic and passing the recertification test) would receive a collared white polo (officials) shirt with the PVS insignia on it.
• New Starters would receive a bell (used when the lead swimmer in distance events has 2 lengths plus 5 yard/meters to go.)
• New Referees would receive a whistle, binder for their training materials, and an official's shirt that recognized their level of certification.
• Current officials would receive this recognition the first time they successfully recertified at that level.
• The possibility of giving length of service pins (which USA Swimming can provide) to long time PVS officials was also endorsed.
• The Committee also discussed having the LSC providing financial assistance to officials attending National Championship level meets. Assistance might be conditioned on officiating all sessions of the meet, limited to first time participants to encourage greater involvement by our officials, and/or be a set some of money that would be divided annually amongst those eligible to participate in the pool. An official might have had to participated in PVS officials program for a given period of time in order to be eligible.

Situations
The Committee discussed several situations that had arisen at the recently held Tom Dolan (fna Joe Jacoby) Invitational Meet.

• It was the Committee's view that the final authority to whether to accept/not accept a scratch from finals rests with the Meet Referee, not the Meet Director.
• That while at a National Championship meet, the Admin Referee would review entries for conformance with entry QT's and check against over entries, that within a PVS setting the primary responsibility for this type of checking should remain with the Meet Director who processes the entries as they are submitted.
• It would be useful to clarify high point scoring as to how points are awarded when a younger swimmer "swims-up" into an Open event. Hy-Tek provides several options. It was recognized this was primarily a competition issue. The Officials Committee suggested that high-point be based on attained age rather than the age description of the events. However, the swimmer will only be credited with the points they actually earned "swimming up" not the points they theoretically would have earned had they competed in their own age group. Jim agreed to bring this matter to the Competition Committee's attention for their input.
• It was also noted that in some cases swimmers other than those on the relay card had competed in a given lane. In one case, this was due to the names for the "A" and "C" relays being crossed. While on a National Championship meet deck, the officials would be expected to confirm relay names, the Committee felt this was an unrealistic expectation within PVS given the rapid turnover of officials (especially late in a sessions when relays are usually swum) and the very limited time available for training the timers.

Decertification Procedures
USA Swimming had circulated proposed Discipline and Decertification Guidelines for all the LSC's to consider adopting in late October. PVS is apparently one of the few LSC's which already had such a policy in place - see O-20, Suspension or Revocation of Official's Certification in PVS's Policy and Procedures Manual. Accordingly, a member of the USA Swimming Officials Committee was contacted to determine if they felt PVS's policies should be revised in light of these new guidelines. They indicated they felt we were within basic compliance and saw nothing that contradicts national policy. However, they suggested we may wish to distinguish between what can be handled locally versus requires National Board of Review participation. Also, the procedures may want to distinguish between problems of incompetence versus misconduct.

It was suggested that Officials Committee invite somebody to closely review the current PVS Policy to see changes should be recommended to the Officials Committee for their consideration. Once the Officials Committee endorsed them, they would then need to be forwarded to the PVS Board of Directors for adoption.

Note:Subsequent to the meeting, Jim Van Erden agreed to undertake the initial review.

Update Referee/Starter Final Certification Lists
The list of PVS officials who can observe and evaluate prospective starter's and referee's had last been updated in August, 2001. The Committee eliminated those officials who certification had lapsed and/or who had indicated they were no longer active in officiating.

The Committee also reviewed the list of current Referee's and Starter's to determine who would be good additions to the list. The Committee agreed to add 4 Referees to the Referee's list and 5 Starters to the Starter's list. Frank agreed to contact these individuals to confirm they would be willing to serve in this capacity.

Swimposium
Boots suggested PVS should give consideration to having one again. It has been many years since one was held in PVS. The LSC's adjoining PVS (MD and VA) have held them successfully in the recent past. Their experience is that better participation is achieved when the gathering is limited to one day.

Next Meeting
It was agreed the next meeting would be scheduled for Tuesday, February 18. (Due to weather, this meet was rescheduled to Monday February 24.) An important agenda item will be staffing of PVS SCY Championship Meet. Jim Garner agreed to see if MAC would be available.

The meeting adjourned at 9:15.

Respectfully submitted:

John Hirschmann
Committee Member