Minutes for the Meeting
Of the
Plymouth Canton Cruisers
Board of Directors
September 13, 2016
The meeting of the Board of Directors of the Plymouth Canton Cruisers is called to order on September 13, 2016 at 7:00 pm at the PCC Office (Rm. 211) in the PARC, Plymouth, MI pursuant to notice of setting, time and purpose of meeting.
The following directors were present and in person: Co-Head Coach Josh Morgan, Helen Goderis, Frankie Jaramilla, Chet Budnick and Sherry Soenen.
The following officers were present and in person: President Michelle Macy, Vice President Dan Tabar, Secretary Michelle Cohen and Treasurer Matt Pulick.
Approval of July Minutes
· Minutes were approved; 1st Sherry, 2nd Josh . All in favor; Yes. Passed unanimous.
Family Requests and Concerns
· Request to change “Black” group color: a PCC family has suggested a change to the name of the practice group “black”. “Silver” was suggested as an alternative practice group color. All in favor; Yes. Passed unanimously. Josh will make the appropriate changes on the website to reflect this.
12 & Under LCM State Meet (Michelle M. for Dan)
· Feedback on meet
o It was noted that our expenditures for the meet exceeded our revenue by $3,000 which was due to higher pool rental fee and less athletes participating in the meet this year.
o Matt would like to verify the receipt of the anticipated $6,000 from Michigan Swimming for the meet and Dan will follow up on this.
o PCC received positive feedback from meet spectators and coaches on a job well done running the meet.
o Michelle M. distributed a handout denoting PCC families and their respective volunteer hour contributions. It was noted on this handout that 55 families volunteered the required 10+ hours, 46 families did NOT volunteer for any amount of time, nor make any donation, and 18 families did NOT volunteer time or make donations and are not clearly active with the team. The remaining families volunteered for less than the required 10 hours, ranging from 9.5 to 3.5 hours.
o Michelle M. suggested an email be sent to those families that did not meet the volunteer requirement, with the exception of those who worked relatively close to 10 hours (i.e. 9.5 to 8.5 hours perhaps), notifying them of their choice of paying the $100 fine or volunteering service hours to the team equivalent to the number of volunteer hours remaining to fulfill their 10 hour volunteer obligation. Service to the team may include cleaning pool offices, timing at our upcoming Benchmark Meet on Oct. 1st, helping at the Sun and Snow suit fitting or PCC garage sale help. These families receiving this email will be required to commit to the fine or the volunteer hours by September 30th. PCC will presume the choice of the $100 fine if no response is received. Once the commitment is made by a family to volunteer in order to meet their 10 hour obligation, they will have until December 15, 2016 to do so. All in favor; Yes. Passed unanimously.
o As previously stated, the total amount in fines collected will help to offset the meet’s $3,000 deficit.
Membership Retention and Recruitment
· Communication/Marketing—Relationship building with Goldfish Swim School (Sherry and Susie)
o Sherry and Susie met with Katie of Goldfish Swim School in order to establish a working relationship that supports the best interests of the Goldfish swimmers. Katie would like to sell a “team” to her graduating Goldfish rather than a “Mini” anything, or, alternatively, being sure to refer to the “Minis” as “Mini Cruisers”.
o Katie informed Sherry and Susie of a Goldfish meet being held on October 21, 2016, both at the Canton and Farmington Hills Goldfish Swim Schools. She suggested that PCC board members could attend these meets in order to speak with Goldfish parents regarding the “next step” of swimming on a team which can build endurance and take them to the next level of swimming with no coaches being in the water with the swimmers. Josh Macy and Helen volunteered to attend the meet in Canton. Sherry and Frankie volunteered to attend the one in Farmington Hills.
o Sherry stated that she has created a flier promoting PCC to distribute to the Goldfish parents. The flier includes tear off tabs for Goldfish parents to take which ask “Are you ready?” with PCC’s website address.
o Katie stated that she would be happy to attend PCC’s October BOD meeting and would also like to understand exactly what the stroke school is.
o Michelle M. suggested adding QR codes to Sherry’s fliers
o Josh suggested inviting the Goldfish to one of PCC’s meet clinics or, alternatively, a “start clinic”. Either of these events would give them first time exposure to diving blocks. He further suggested extending a similar invitation to Aqua Tots or Summit athletes. It was suggested that PCC hold a meet clinic on November 6th.
o Susie suggested posting a flier advertising PCC meet clinics at all swim schools in the area.
· Older/Younger Swimmers Pairings for New Families: Michelle M. stated that there will be a question contained within the PCC Short Course Membership Required Docs emailed to the membership inquiring as to whether or not new families would like to be paired up with a returning family to learn the ropes, or if returning families would like to help a new family as they start on PCC. She added that it was concluded from the most recent LCM survey that a lot of families benefitted from the older/younger swimmer pairings during the LCM season.
· Volunteer Appreciation/SC Kick Off: This event will be held on September 18, 2016 at the Cass Benton Area of Hines Park. Michelle M. stated that currently there are 70 signed up to attend.
· Spirit Wear—“Custom Ink” vs. Other Ideas: Michelle M. will set up a PCC shirt order opportunity, with the approval of the BOD, via email for parents and other Cruiser fans through Booster/CustomInk. All proceeds from the sale of the shirts will go to the PCC general fund to support costs of pool time and future upgrades to the PARC pool.
Treasurer’s Report (Matt)
· Families with Outstanding Balances: Matt stated that there are currently three families with outstanding balances, totaling $2,700. Matt will follow up with these families. He further stated that there were a handful of failed credit card issues when the membership’s short course season charges were applied to everyone’s account on September 1st.
· Approve Budget for FY17: Matt stated that the FY17 budget is forthcoming and will be ready to review at the next BOD meeting. He will need a final athlete number from Josh.
· New Overtime Law: Mike Breda shared an email from USA Swimming regarding the new federal overtime law. This law is not applicable to PCC as none of our employees work over 40 hours per week.
Coach’s Report (Josh)
· Swim-a-thon Prizes: Josh stated that the prizes from Speedo are swim parkas and backpacks, but they still need to be embroidered. He will distribute these during the first week of practice. He further stated that SCY season caps and shirts will be distributed to swimmers after they have signed off on the required PCC Short Course Membership Documents electronically.
· Summary of New/Returning Members for Short Course Season
o Josh stated that there were about 100 new swimmer evaluations for the short course season
o He stated that 16-20 athletes left the team for reasons including moving out of the area, changing schools and losing interest in swimming.
o There are currently 181 active accounts.
o There are currently 210 active swimmers.
· Schedule for Short Course Meets and Other Events
o Josh distributed a handout containing a chart of the entire short course meet schedule for PCC. The chart also denotes which meets are appropriate for each practice group.
o Frankie volunteered to book hotel blocks for the team for the following travel meets: both State Championships in Holland, the Fall Focus Meet in Fenton and the GPG meet in Grosse Pointe.
o Josh will handle booking the hotel block for the Mid-States 14 & under All Star Meet in Indianapolis, IN.
o Josh stated that currently we have 10 coaches: Z (National, Age Grp Silver), Josh (Jr groups, Age Grp Silver), Joe (dryland, Age Grp Blue), Dave (Sr Varsity), Mary (Jr Silver), Chris (Age Grp Green), Susie (PARC groups, stroke school, Mini Cruisers), Jen (PARC, stroke school, Minis), Travis (Jr Silver), and Jordan (Jr Green, Jr Blue).
o Josh stated that he, Z, Joe, Mary and Jordan attended the Coaches Clinic in Florida and it went well. He further stated that the USA Swimming Convention will be held next week in Atlanta, GA.
o Josh and Z will both attend the Michigan Swimming HOD meeting on October 2, 2016. Josh will ask PCC athlete, Jacob Skwirsk if he would like to continue to act as PCC’s athlete representative for Michigan Swimming.
o Josh is working on updates to the team website including the creation of two separate pages for the competitive team and the stroke school/Mini-Cruisers.
President’s Report (Michelle M.)
· Long Course Member Survey Summary
o Michelle M. plans to analyze the survey’s results in the near future, but did note that it yielded positive comments overall. She will group the responses by practice group upon analysis.
o She noted a prominent theme of a parental desire for strong coach/swimmer connections as well as coach/parent connections from the survey results.
o Michelle M. feels that we should focus on prompt communication with parents, coaches being “on” during practice and the BOD being “present” and outgoing.
· Google Form for Short Course Paperwork:
o Michelle M. will email the membership (presented to the BOD as a handout) a “PCC Short Course Membership Required Documents” Google Doc that each family must complete electronically for each of their swimmers in order for their athletes to receive their short course season caps and shirts.
o The Google Doc will contain PCC policies for parents to review and acknowledge receipt of, including the Michigan Parent/Athlete Concussion Info Sheet, the Electronic Communication Policy, the Anti-Bullying Policy, the Parent Handbook, the Assumption of Risk, and the Volunteering and Fee Policy. It will also include a question regarding New/Returning Family Pairing.
· Team Norms/Code of Conduct—for Swimmers, Parents, Coaches: Michelle M. distributed a handout entitled “PCC Code of Conduct for Swimmers, Parents, and Coaches; Draft for Comment” for the BOD to review. All agreed on the general content of the handout, but would like to add to item #3 under the subheading Parents Will that parents should take a day to reflect on any grievance they may have before bringing their concerns to a coach or board member.
· “ZingTrain”: Michelle M. has been viewing free webinars on ZingTrain.com. These webinars are specifically for business training and she is taking notes on important concepts that would be beneficial to managing a team.
Meeting Adjourned 8:58 pm