Potomac Valley Swimming

Competition Committee Meeting

Overlee Community Center

September 30, 2017

 

·         Attendance – Blair Piddington-PVS, Mark Faherty-PVS, Tim Husson-PVS, Dave DiNardo-PVS, Greg York-YORK, Sarah Boyle (athlete)-MACH, Morgan Henderson-Kunz-MACH, Kent Williams-RMSC, Bob Walker-ASA, Mike Kraeuter-BWST, Brian Pawlowicz-NCAP, Evan Stiles-AAC, Mark Eldridge-RMSC, Heather Purk-PVS, Pete Morgan-NCAP, Mike Clark-CSC, Manga Dalizu-FAST, Erik Collins-SNOW, Mark Murray-FBST, Callan Heidkamp-FISH, Joe Faherty-JFD, Melanie McKula-SDS

·         Call to Order – The Meeting was called to order at 11:35, by Age Group Chair, Blair Piddington

·         Approval of Spring Meeting Minutes – Motion to approve the Meeting Minutes from the 2017 Spring CCM, seconded and approved.

·         Board Reports from convention

§  General Chair – No report submitted

§  Admin Chair – Tim Husson reported that in 2017 we exceeded 12,000 athletes in PVS. This is over a 6% increase. We contribute this to a post-Olympic year bump, after 3 years of flat.

·         At convention USA Swimming announced a new Governance structure for the USAS. The Board will move from an Operational board to a Governance oversite board. All the operations of USAS will be moved to the staff. Board members will be elected as At-Large members, and will vote their own chair from those members. The Zone Directors have been moved from the BOD. The hope in making the board smaller is that they will be able to get work done more efficiently. As they proceed, USA S will set up a nominating committee to vet out the nominees.

§  Age Group Chair – Many of the meetings focused on Governance

·         Tech suits was a big topic among the Age Group coaches. There was a lot of discussion as to who would decide who is allowed to wear tech suite; what ages? Which meets? Who will ultimately decide, Zones? LSCs or individual clubs? It is recommended that each club should have a policy as to who and when the tech suits are worn.

§  Senior Chair –

·         Junior coaches (under 18) – A new rule will allow for 16 & 17 year olds to be coach members. They will have to go through all the same requirement except for BGS (due to their age). During all practices and meets the Jr. Coaches are required to be within direct visual contact of another USA S coach member.

o   Keep in mind that each state has their own laws regarding youth employment.

o   They can be athletes and coach, but not have to be an athlete. If you have a coach who is also an athlete, they will only have to pay one membership fee.

·         Flex Memberships – In an effort to increase the interest in the sport, USA S will begin to allow athletes to join at a reduced cost. These athletes with a FLEX Membership will only be allowed to swim in 2 LSC meets a season. If they want to swim in more they will have to convert to a full membership, only paying the difference.  

o   It will be up to the LSCs if they want to offer Flex memberships. It will begin Sept 1 2018 for the 18-19 season. The fee is $20; USAS will received $10 and the LSC will receive $10 (currently we get $28 per athlete with a full membership).

·         Spring Zones – The Spring Zone meet in 2018 and 2019 the Age Group Zone meet will be a qualifying meet and up to each individual team whether or not they want to participate. The QT’s are now posted on the site. The spring 2018 will be in Webster, NY. They have the room to change to a dual course if needed. They are concerned it will be poorly subscribed.

o   The meet directors will send out an interest survey in January to see what clubs and approximate numbers will be so they can better determine the format.

o   The summer meet continues to work in the zone, so for now Summer Zones will continue to run as in the past.

·         EZ Sectionals – There is no longer a “no earlier” date that the EZ can old Sectionals.

·         Miriam Lynch, an NCAP coach and former PVS Diversity Chair was awarded the USA Swimming Diversity & Inclusion Award at the 2018 USAS Convention.

§  Coaches Reps

·         USAS has almost finished with swimmer concussion training. They plan to have it on the USA Swimming soon (no date has been announced yet).

§  Operations Chair – nor report submitted

§  Strategic Planning Chair – LEAP 3 has been completed and we were recognized a convention.  There is a little more paper work to complete. In December we will hold another planning session with USA Swimming and Jane Grosser, on December 16. If you are interested in attending, let Dave DiNardo know and he will add you to the invite list.

§  Safe Sport Chair – The Safe Sport office is open at the USOC. They will handle all  sexual misconduct cases. You can send them to the club/LSC or USAS, but they will be sent to the USOC. USAS will continue to handle issues such as bullying.

·         Still looking for a Safe Sport person for each club – let Safe Sport Chair, Merari Chollette know if you are interested.

§  Diversity Chair – No report submitted

§  Officials Rep – No report submitted

§  Athletes Reps – No report submitted.

 

·         Meet Schedule for 2018-2019

o   Short Course and Long Course – Motion to approve the 1819 PVS meet schedule, seconded and approved as amended.

§  When will NCSA meet be in 2019?

§  What about moving the LC Open meets and Distance in 2019 one week later each

§  Amend to move AG/SR 1 to June 16, LC Distance 22-23, AGSR 2 June 30, seconded and approved.

§  Motion to move LC Age Group champs to the 18-21, seconded and approved.

§  Motion to move LS Junior & Senior Champs the weekend prior to AG Champs, July 11-14, seconded and approved.

·         Will there be enough time to get entries in and changes made with AGSR 2 being held June 30. Yes.

 

·         Outstanding Athlete Award – The main opinion is to make this an award that is in the best interest of the athletes in PVS. Historically there has been various issues in getting the nominations, compiling the information, getting the information out to all the coaches to vote. There is one thought of using power points, Tim and Kelly R have created a spreadsheet to calculate power points, with power points if we decide to award the Outstanding Athlete based upon power points.

o   There was a lot of discussion as to the best course of action to move forward with the PVS Outstanding Athlete awards. Some options that were discussed were; remaining the process the same, with nominations and voting by clubs; using power points to identify the top 3 athletes in each age group and vote; use power points to determine the top swimmer/performance for each age group (multiple swimmers could win any one single age group.

o   At this time the body feels PVS should continue with the criteria we have previously set; with nominations and voting. We need to find a way to get the information out in a timely manner.

·         Athlete Travel Assistance – Mark Faherty proposed the criteria for reimbursement for athletes at National and Junior National meets: Athletes who qualify for reimbursement will receive, $600 for Winter USA Nationals, Winter Juniors, Summer Nationals and Summer Juniors.

o    Motion to set the criteria for PVS Travel Assistance as; 4 swims in at least one PVS sanctioned meet from Sept 1 through Aug 31, seconded and approved.

·         Long Course Championship Meets Recap – Meet Directors from the PVS LC meets were asked how they felt the meets went.

o    LC Age Group Champs (Mark Murray) – the meet went well. It ran efficiently and the numbers in attendance and on deck all went well, even with the extreme temperatures.  Feels it will be even better in 2018 since we will be back at UMD.

·         New Business

o   LC Qualifying Meets - 

§  There was a discussion as to whether or not PVS is interested in adding another LC meet, either earlier in the season or a lower level “championship” meet later in July.

·         Facility availability and club hosts were the two biggest obstacles brought up. The discussion will continue and be brought back in the Winter.

·         It was also noted that any once club could host another meet, even if PVS is not interested.

o   LC Championship Meet format

§  Mark Faherty presented a LC Champ meet format change. Looking to get the information out and start the discussion. He hopes the information presented will get coaches thinking and the discussion will continue on deck this fall and

§  Motion to remove Junior Champs from Senior champs and create its own meet on a separate date or to combine with the 13-14 AG Champ swimmers, seconded and defeated.

·         There was a discussion amongst the coaches in attendance.

·         Tim commented that from an Official’s perspective the officials will set up and make this what the body decides will happen

·         What about added another level (lower) and adding it at the end of July?

·         Motion to table discussion and give clubs the opportunity to go back to their clubs to discuss, second and approved.

o   Freestyle Rule Change in the Individual Medleys – USA Swimming sent out the new rule to all coaches and club. This was brought up as information in case anyone didn’t see the email.

§  In the IM, freestyle swimmers can push off on their backs as long as they are on their breast before they initiate the kick or the pull

 

o   Scholastic All Americans – the list came out end of August.  PVS has 48 Scholar Athletes this year, which is the 6th highest in USAS. NCAP had 31 of the athletes which is the 2nd highest team in the country. Next year’s program the qualifications will stay the same but they will be 9th graders.

o    National Age Group Records will begin tracking Mixed Relays – Over the past 3-4 years since Mixed Relays have become a legitimate event according to USAS, there has been little interest and little data. So it was thought that if NAG were now tracked there may be more teams/clubs/LSCs that will swim Mixed relays.  Currently there are only 4 LSC offer them in their Championship meets.

o    In September 2018, they will set the Mixed Relays for records

·         PVS Scholar Athlete application is open until 15 of October.

·         Swimposium – We will be talking about it at the Board meeting as we are slatted for funding and to host one in 2018.

·         Old Business – no old business to report

·         Winter Meeting Date:  Wednesday – January 10 in Maryland (Rockville)

·         Need a November Open host

·         Fairland has new lights

·         Adjourn