Minutes of Swimming Nelson Marlborough
Meeting held Tuesday 17th of July,2012
7.00p.m.
Nelson Swimming Club, Riverside Pool, Nelson.
Present: Brent Cheyne, Sue Malthus,Jos Pattison, Phil McMath
Hamish Neill
Apologies: Steve Fryer, Jim Sinner.
Brent welcomed everyone to the meeting.
Confirmation of the Last Minutes:
19th of June, 2012.Phil McMath/Hamish Neill
Carried
Matters Arising:
The only matter arising was that Hamish mentioned that although Swimming New Zealand
have stated that the 2013 National Age Group Championships will run from 26th of February
to the 2nd of March as shown in our calendar, in the proposed Regulations, SNZ are stating
that this meet will commence on the first Tuesday in March each year. We will need to
confirm this date for our calendar as soon as this is confirmed by SNZ.
Review of Summary of Tasks:
A follow-up meeting with CLM has not been arranged. It has, however, been noted that
they have appointed a new head coach – Andy Adair.
It is believed that Andy would like to engage with other coaches, and be part of a Coaches
Forum.
Hamish reported that the Coaches Forum was still in progress and that this would be put fully
into place once Andy had commenced working with the Academy.
Discussion on organising the 2013 South Island Championships was deferred until the first
meeting after the AGM due to time needing to be spent on the SNZ Review.
Brent advised that Hamish would be attending the SNZ SGM with him in Wellington.
Jim has completed the Flier for the SNM Winter Meet.
Kay has notified Andrew that the organising of the SI Champs had been deferred and that he
would be advised when the planning had commenced.
Brent has had various discussions with Brian Palmer regarding the SNZ Review.
Jos commented that he had contacted Councillor Rainey regarding a possible MOU between
NCC and TDC and the ASB Aquatic Centre. Councillor Rainey is happy to be involved in this.
Jos and Hamish are to follow this up. Jos will arrange a time for this meeting.
Brent has contacted Shanine Hermsen regarding SNM hosting the 2014 SI Secondary School Champs.
Kay has completed the Board’s remit regarding the SNM Swimmers Trust Fund and this has been
sent out to clubs.
Administrator’s Report:
This report was handed out to Board members.
Treasurer’s Report:
No report.
Registrar’s Report to Swimming Nelson Marlborough
A short Registrar's report as follows:
1. Registrations for 2012-13 have been received from clubs during the past week in advance of the Blenheim meet.
2. The SNM Winter Meet 2012 Flier has been finalised and distributed to clubs, sent to Wellington and Canterbury-West Coast (as well as clubs outside the region that sent swimmers last year), and posted on the SNM website.
3. I am hoping to trial at the Winter Meet a new feature of Meet Manager that allows us to automatically post live results to our website during the meet, which can be accessed by anyone with an iPhone or iPad who has downloaded the required "app". I need to do further research on how this works.
Publicity/Communications Report
No report.
Funding Report:
No report.
Technical/Coaching:
No report.
Events:
No report.
General Business:
SNM AGM Planning:
The planning for the AGM is all in order and the Annual Report ready to go to print.
South IslandSecondary School Championships:
Brent advised Shanine that SNM would prefer to host this event in 2014 due to the fact that we were
already hosting the South Island Championships in 2013. Shanine replied as follows:
Thank you for the email, that would be great to have the event in our region in 2014.
It will have to go back to the South Island RSD Forum for the decisions around the locations and I will get back to you once we know what is happening.
I know Aoraki are keen to host this year and I will inform the group SNM is keen to host in 2014.
Kind Regards, Shanine
South Island Championships Planning:
It was agreed that due to the time requirements for the SNZ Review, planning for the SI Championships
would commence at the first Board meeting after the SNM AGM.
SNZ Review:
Brent advised the Board of events since the last Board meeting, including a request that had been
sent out to clubs asking for feedback. In particular, this referred to Clause 9 which had a direct impact on
clubs. All clubs that had replied were not in favour of Clause 9.1(c) v where surplus assets would vest
in Swimming New Zealand, and all were concerned with Clause 9.1(b) which states that “no club shall
have less than 50 members”. Brent advised that he had sent several emails to Sue Suckling, and another
to Chris Moller asking whether further input into the SNZ Draft Constitution was possible and he stated
that 9.1 was an example of our concerns. The result of this was that Brent was advised that Clause 9.1(c) v
was an error and is not meant to be in the Constitution.
Sue Suckling has confirmed that the “50 members limit” will not apply to existing clubs at the time of
transition and that comments on the Draft Constitution would be welcome, but preferably in point form
and not as an “amended constitution”.
Board members had emailed their thoughts on the SNZ Draft Constitution since its release. These
comments were all correlated and each discussed individually to determine a list of the most fundamental
issues for us to forward on to Sue Suckling. These points were emailed as follows:
Swimming Nelson Marlborough had its final Board meeting before the SNZ SGM last night. Wereviewed our concerns over the Draft Constitution. We have taken your advice and reduced these to what we see as the most important issues and show them as points below rather than proposed amendments to the Constitution. We would ask that you please give these due consideration.
- Our board was unanimous in their view that we cannot accept the motion to be passed at the SGM without having had the opportunity to review and give feedback on the Draft Regional Constitution. We believe that we would be negligent in our capacity as Board members to vote for a document as important as this without even have reading it.
- Clause 9.1 (c) (v) Our Clubs have given us strict instructions that they do not accept this clause. The surplus assets of a club on liquidation must vest in the region, not SNZ.
- Clause 9.1 (b) Our clubs have concern that they will not meet the minimum 50 member requirement. I understand from discussions with you yesterday that this requirement will not apply to existing clubs at the time of the transition to the new constitution.
- Clause 8.5 (e) This clause states that regions must play an active part in securing funding for the sport. It is difficult enough for regions to obtain sufficient funding for their own requirements. A definition of “active part” under this clause is required. Is SNZ and the Sport Funding strategy going to support the funding needs of regions as well as SNZ?
- Clause 8.5 (k) This clause states that each Regional Association must pay any amount imposed on it by SNZ. Our region has great concern over how open this clause is. Swimming NZ, as well as Regional Associations, will already be levying swimmers an Annual Membership Levy. Any subsequent payments demanded of regions will also have to be passed on to the swimmers by the region and would need to be budgeted for by the regions. Under the current constitution, membership fees for both SNZ and the regions are agreed on at the AGM. The only other “levy” imposed on regions is the Annual Rewards Levy which is also agreed at the AGM. The other point needing to be made here is that the regions are doing most of the work required to administer swimming in New Zealand so should a payment not be coming the other way?!
- Clause 6.2 states that all members in categories (a), (b) and (c) in Rule 6.1 must pay all amounts due before they can participate. Our region is concerned over the possible charging of fees to officials (c) who are all unpaid volunteers, and to a lesser degree, Coaches, (b) some of whom are unpaid volunteers.
- A further sub-clause should be added to Rule 13 (Board Procedure) that reads –“ Board minutes are to be made available to members on a timely basis. This will show transparency and collaboration with the sport.”
- Clause 16.3. We believe that it would be more practical for 30 days notice to be given than 14 days. This will give regions more time to seek any relevant feedback from clubs, and where appropriate, swimmers.
- Clause 27.9 (b). We believe that this should be deleted as regions need time to seek any relevant feedback from clubs and, where appropriate, swimmers.
- Clause 8.5 (a) states that each Regional Association must support and work with the Board and executive of SNZ to build a culture of trust, collaboration and discipline for the sport. We believe that the same rule should apply to Swimming New Zealand by adding a reciprocal clause to Rule 4 (Objects) and by amending Rule 13.2 (vii) by removing the words “a commitment to”. So that this reads “establishing the whole of Sport Plan which is to include transparency and collaboration with the sport on all matters”.
The Board also suggested pointing out to Sue that it may not be in the Review’s interest to lookfor a result at the SNZ SGM on 28th July, but to use this meeting to progress the Review so thata positive outcome could be achieved.
Board Time:
The following Swimmer Transfers were ratified by the Board:-
Philippa Dwyer from Motueka SC to Nelson South SC
Leah Jane Woodford from WaimeaSC to Nelson SC
Claire Ballance from Nelson SC to Nelson South SC
Brooke Matheson from Nelson SC to Nelson South SC
Amy Coulton from Nelson SC to Nelson South SC
Louise Kelly from Nelson SC to Nelson South SC
Luke Kelly from Nelson SC to Nelson South SC
Charlie Perkins from Nelson SC to Nelson South SC
Harrison Perkins from Nelson SC to Nelson South SC
IT WAS MOVED THATthe above Transfers be ratified.
Sue Malthus/Phil McMath
Carried
Phil advised that it was mentioned at the Blenheim Swimming Club meeting that we have three large meets
coming up in a short period of time and we require more trained officials to be able to cope with this. We
should be actively driving officials training at every opportunity. At the SNM Winter Meet, Ivon won’t be
available, so Blenheim are down to one Referee and are without a Meet Director in Blenheim.
Phil suggested that we actively start putting a training regime together. Clubs may be able to identify people
prepared to undergo training for officials roles, including our senior swimmers who may wish to do so.
The meeting closed at 9.22p.m.
The next Board meeting will be set by the new Board following the SNM Annual
General Meeting. Date, Venue and Time to be advised.
SUMMARY OF TASKS:
Hamish to collate ideas from coaches on the setting up of a Coaches Forum.
Swimming Camp for Murchison, Kaikoura and Golden Bay to be organizedfor early summer.
Board to set up a sub-committee to organize the 2013 South Island Championships.
Brent and Hamish to attend SNZ SGM in Wellington
Jos and Hamish to contact Councillor Rainey regarding MOU between NCC/TDC.
Brent to contact Sue Suckling with our region’s input into the Draft SNZ Constitution.