PVS Officials

Minutes of PVS Officials Committee Meetings

Minutes of
PVS Officials Committee Meeting
September 12, 2010

Members present: Jack Neill, Boots Hall, Jim Garner, Steed Edwards, Mike Rubin, Dave DiNardo, Lionel Bejean, Dick Griffith, Tim Husson, Pam Starke-Reed, Bob Vincent, Ron Whalen, Elizabeth Jester, Donna Considine and Rita Page.

The meeting convened at 2:25pm at Jim Garner's house. Many thanks to the Garner's for hosting.

Minutes: Minutes of the June 22, 2010 meeting were approved.

Kudos: The committee recognized Ron Whalen for his work as Meet Referee at LC Zones and Jim Thompson for his work as Admin Referee at LC Senior Champs. Appreciation was expressed to Committee members who worked many sessions in a wide variety of positions throughout the recent LC season.

New Referee Candidates: The list of potential new referees was reviewed and the committee agreed on several candidates. Jack will contact the invitees and determine a date to hold the new referee clinic.

Update on Referee Candidates from last Season: Of the 23 officials initially invited to become referees, 20 accepted. To date 7 have completed the process and the rest are in various stages of completion.

Proposed Rule Changes: One of the items up for vote at the House of Delegates this year is the addition of a place judge as a required deck official at all meets. Some members of the committee were concerned about adding the extra position, as most of our meets are stretched pretty thin with staff. It was agreed that Jim Garner would voice our concerns to Arvydas Barzdukas as a PVS representative and USA Swimming Rules and Regulations Committee member. The committee agreed that this should be mentioned at clinics this season as a possible additional task for the referee or starter.

Two other items proposed are that 3 watches would be required if watches are the primary timing system used. Another proposed change would be a requirement for all officials to pass criminal background checks.

Clinic Schedule & Materials: The 2010-11 clinic schedule has been posted on the website. We have received a couple of requests from clubs to schedule a clinic and they have been deferred until after the first of the year. With the number of clinics and the various locations currently scheduled we feel most official's needs will be met. There may be other clinics added at a later date if there is a need.

The committee agreed that the new Chief Judge clinic being taught this year would also cover the requirement for S&T recertification. The Chief Judge test will be handed out at the clinics and sent to either Steed Edwards or Jim Thompson to be hand scored. Steed will be the Maryland Testing Officer and Jim Thompson will be the Virginia Testing Officer. Jack Neill will look into putting the test on the PVS website. After studying all the materials for the Chief Judge position all agreed they were ready to go. We will evaluate this position for the first year to determine if it should be part of the requirement for referee certification. A list of evaluators will be created from current referee pool.

Referee Clinic: The committee discussed items to include at the upcoming referee clinic. Suggestions included proper staffing of meets and the timing judge position, emphasizing the duties and the necessity for the position. Some assume the Hy-tek operators are trained in the position and they often make adjustments without the referee's knowledge. Other possible topics include false starts, use of Chief Judges, disability swimming, and appropriate communication with swimmers, coaches, officials, timers, etc.

Officials Qualifying Meets for 2010-11: The committee affirmed that Officials Qualifying Meets for 2010-11 are the Tom Dolan Invitational, Spring JO's and SC Senior Champs, and Summer LC Senior Champs.

Club Officials Chairs: Jack sent an email to the current club officials chairs thanking them for their hard work and reviewing their duties. There are still a few clubs without an officials chair. The committee felt it would be helpful to assign mentors to the clubs so the officials chairs would have someone to turn to for support. Several members volunteered to fill those positions.

Training/Certification Procedures: The committee agreed that we can do better in mentoring trainee S&T Judges during their training sessions. Referees should be assigning experienced S&T to work with trainees. Often this is not the case due to poor staffing. This is another item to be raised at the referee clinic. It was suggested that it would be helpful for officials chairs to have a list of parents that attended clinics so they can follow up with them. Rita will begin to compile a list from the sign in sheets from the various clinics

Other Items: Pam Starke-Reed and Scott Robinson attended the Officials workshop in MN in May and reported that there were lengthy discussions on the butterfly and backstroke clarifications published earlier in the season.

There were also discussions about the role of chief judges. Pam reported that some of the officials from USA Swimming were anxious to see how PVS certification of chief judge goes to see if they want to instill that certification.

The committee agreed that it would be a good idea to own two projectors for clinics so that one could be kept in the Maryland area and one kept in the Virginia area. Donna Considine will look into some used projectors.

The meeting adjourned at 7:20pm

The next two meetings were scheduled. The first will be held on Tuesday, October 19 or 20, 2010 at 7:00 pm. The second meeting was scheduled for November 16, 2010 at 7:00 pm. The location of each will be determined but the preliminary location suggestions were MAC or Overlee. The October meeting was subsequently scheduled for October 20 at MAC.

Respectfully submitted by,
Rita Page
Committee Member