South Texas Swimming
Post Office Box 781383
San Antonio, TX 78278-1383
Board of Directors Conference Call Meeting
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
8:30 p.m.
Call to Order- 8:34 PM
Members Present
Board Members present: Regina Prewitt-Campbell, Frank Swigon, Rachel Woodard, Jessica Evans, Trey Prinz, Didi Byerly, Annette Duvall, Don Walker, and Blaine Stapleton.
Board Members absent: Janet Risser, Andrew Byerly, Robert Coleman, Florian Rudolph, and Bobbi Villarreal.
Committee Chairs present: Kathy Hartman, Tim Byerly, Lorna Anaya, and Angella Woodard.
Verify Quorum– A quorum was verified.
Reports of Officers
General ChairmanRegina Prewitt-Campbell
Regina reported that she had attended BB Champs South and BB Champs North and will be attending STAGS in Corpus Christi.
Admin Vice ChairmanFrank Swigon
Frank will be attending the Orlando Grand Prix this weekend.
Senior Vice ChairmanJanet Risser
No Report
Age Group ChairmanRachel Woodard
No Report
Tech Planning ChairmanJessica Evans
The STSI Bylaws have been approved by United States Swimming and are posted to the STSI website. All approved revisions have been made to the STSI Policies and Procedures and posted to the STSI website. Jessica is working on templates and meet manager backups for long course STAGS and under A’s and will have them out to the host teams shortly. The new posting date for long course Championship Meets is April 15th. Jessica and Janet Risser are hosting information meeting at STAGS to solicit input on the 2014-15 Meet Calendar.
Officials Chair Trey Prinz
Currently there are 110 active officials, of which 13 are trainees. An Officials Clinic will be held in Austin for new officials. The Quarterly Officials call in went well. Work is being one on how to streamline the Meet Referee Reports and OTS input.
TreasurerDidi Byerly
No report.
Trustee At LargeAnnette Duvall
No report.
Coach's RepresentativeDon Walker and Florian Rudolph
Championship meets are going well. Don expressed appreciation to SASA and UIW for stepping up to host the BB Champs South. The meet was well run. Appreciation was expressed to Mark Parshall for hosting the BB Champs North. Trey served as Referee on Saturday and all ran well. Jessica Evans served as Referee on Sunday and said that despite being bitterly cold, with a strong north wind, there were lots of great swims. Both championship meets were well attended.
Athlete RepresentativeAndrew Byerly
No report.
Athlete RepresentativeBobbi Villarreal
No report.
Athlete RepresentativeBlaine Stapleton
No report.
Safety CoordinatorRobert Coleman
No report.
Report of Committee Chairs and Coordinators
Adaptive Swimming Chair Kathy Hartman
Kathy has heard back from several coaches and parents as a result of the letter that was sent out to coaches about Adaptive Swimming.
Board of Review Chair Ron Zolno
No report.
Open Water Chair Tim Byerly
Tracy Spurgeon and John Baltzell have been working hard promoting the Open Water Meet. To date 22 athletes have applied. STSI plans to take a team of 18 athletes. Tim has the invoice for the airfare that he will submit for approval. There is an Open Water Clinic planned in conjunction with this meet. Team selection will be announced March 10th or 11th.
Diversity and InclusionCedric Rawls
No report.
Safe Sport CoordinatorVacant
Meet Sanction Chair Lorna Anaya
No report.
NTV ChairDidi Byerly
No report.
Records CoordinatorDidi Byerly
No report.
Registration & MembershipAngella Woodard
Angella reported that year to date, 7175 Year Round Athletes have been registered. This is about 90 less athletes than were registered by this time last year. 28 Others, 246 coaches, and 126 officials have been registered bringing the total year to date registrations to 7569, which is about a 100 less than the same period last year.
CHAIRS and COORDINATORS Dismissed –
OLD BUSINESS
HOD Meeting Minutes
The HOD Meeting Minutes are finally ready for posting. Regina expressed thanks to Jessica Evans, Didi Byerly, and Angella Woodard for reviewing and correcting the minutes. They put a lot of hours into the process. Copies of the minutes were sent out to all BOD Members last week for review and a couple of corrections were received and made. Jessica Evans moved that the minutes be accepted as amended. Didi seconded. Motion passed. Jessica Evans will post the minutes on the STSI website.
Investment Committee
Frank Swigon reported as mentioned in last month’s BOD Meeting, STSI currently has ~$400K in the Investment Account and ~$500K in the Checking and Money Market accounts. As approved last meeting, $350K will be moved into the Investment Account. Jerry Gonzales, the Investment Advisor, has made some recommendations to restructure our investments. Frank has a copy of his recommendations and will make it available to anyone interested in reviewing it. At this time, we are ready to transfer funds. In the future, STSI will need to determine how the interest from our investments should be applied.
NEW BUSINESS
Minutes from January 14thmeeting
Angella Woodard e-mailed out the minutes from the last board meeting. They were not approved via an email vote. Regina reminded everyone that it is our fiduciary duty to approve the minutes prior to posting. If an email vote is not accomplished then the posting of the minutes is delayed. Regina asked if there were any corrections or additions to the minutes. None were given. Didi Byerly moved that the minutes be accepted as written. Jessica Evans seconded. Motion passed. Angella will have the minutes posted on the STSI website.
Ratify Email Vote Approvals
No email votes were taken since the last BOD Meeting in need of ratification. An email vote, was tabled for further discussion at this meeting.
Audit Committee Meeting
A meeting of the Audit Committee was set for Friday, February 14, 2014, between Prelims and Finals at A Championships.
Coach of the Year
Regina will ask that Flo Rudolph email the plan for selection of Coach of the Year to all BOD Members.
Committee Chair/Coordinator Appointments
Regina announced her appointments for the following positions:
Safe Sports Coordinator – Chris Mullikan
NTV Chair – Rick Allenstein
Records Coordinator – Heather Bleasdell
Several individuals applied for all of the positions. Regina would like to find other opportunities within the LSC to use these applicants, who have expressed interest in serving STSI. In the coming weeks, Regina will be soliciting individuals to serve as Awards Coordinator, LEAP Coordinator, and Swimposium Coordinator. Jessica Evans requested that the aforementioned applicants be contacted first.
Regina asked if there were other positions where additional volunteers could serve. Rachel Woodard indicated that she would like an individual to serve as the Zones Team Manager and coordinate meals, drinks, snacks, etc. for the Zones Team.
NASA Junior Nationals Cup Reimbursement
A request was submitted for the BOD to consider providing an athlete stipend for this meet similar to the stipend STSI recently passed for attendance at the NCSA Junior National Meet. Frank pointed out that the NASA Junior Nationals Cup is a meet hosted by a non-USA group, the International Swim Association, a spin off from ASCA. The meet is a USA Sanctioned Meet and times are uploaded into the SWIMS database. After much discussion the BOD made a decision not to fund this meet.
Disability Athlete Reimbursement
Didi Byerly moved to go into Executive Session. The motion died for lack of a second.
Didi previously received and relayed via email the following request to the BOD for consideration:
Jan 25, 2014, at 9:21 AM, wrote:
Good morning to all,
An issue has been brought to my attention which now needs to be brought to your attention. We have a 14-year old athlete who is qualified to compete in the CanAM games, which are for disabled athletes. Under our policy, the athlete does qualify for financial assistance. His coach will accompany him. Under policies set forth by USA Swimming, athletes should not share a room with the coach. My understanding is that it can be done if the parents sign a letter indicating such.
The family has asked if we can assist in expenses for a chaperone. In this case it would be the parent. Our policy does not address this issue, hence, this needs to be considered as an exception that the board considers.
My opinion is that the board should not put ourselves in a position that we allow a 14-year old to be in a hotel room alone. Additionally, I do not feel it is fair to ask the coach to oversee the swimmer 24/7. When this happens in a high school situation, the school will fund for a member of that sex to accompany the athlete. We need to consider if we want to fund a chaperone to attend with this athlete.
Options:
1. No funding
2. Cover and fund similar to what we would cover for a coach
3. Cover at a flat rate
I ask that someone make a motion on this issue and that we open discussion and vote -- understanding that it is not the intent to add this to the policy, but rather to consider this individual issue alone.
Thank you
Didi
This email resulted in the following e-mail motion by Frank Swigon:
In a message dated 1/25/2014 3:55:37 P.M. Central Standard Time, writes:
Folks,
I am not sure what the athletes disability is, but given the circumstances, I don't believe a precedent would be set. This is a unique situation in which we have a single athlete, 14 years old, and a one coach attending a competition. I am not too concerned about the coach having 24/7 responsibility, because any coach taking athletes on a travel trip assumes that as part of the task. However, I think it puts the coach in an uncomfortable position and having a third person present seems to make sense to me and is fair to the coach.
I move we approve the reimbursement.
Frank
The email motion was seconded by Didi Byerly:
From: [mailto:
Sent: Mon 1/27/2014 10:00 AM
Subject: Re: Disability Athlete Reimbursement Issue
Frank,
I believe some good discussion has taken place, but I also believe the board should not put ourselves in a position to allow a 14-year old athlete to travel alone with the coach. I second the motion but want you to consider putting a cap of $500 on payment. That way we aren't covering the entire amount, but that should help with expenses.
Didi
A subsequent motion was made by Jessica Evans via e-mail to table the discussion until the monthly BOD Meeting. That motion was seconded and approved via e-mail.
Discussion on this topic continued at this monthly BOD Meeting. It was clarified that this decision should not be made on the athlete’s disability as this athlete is able to function without assistance. A question was raised if STIS would consider this request for a swimmer traveling to a USA Swimming National meet. Annette pointed out that we are already providing assistance to the athlete and the coach and that she would never even consider asking for additional STSI reimbursement for a parent or chaperone. Frank believes that a chaperone or a parent should receive assistance anytime a minor athlete is traveling to a meet not being attended by other STSI teams/athletes. Trey Prinz asked if we would look at the same policy for minors attending National Level meets and Frank responded that situation is different because multiple STSI teams/athletes are in attendance. Didi called the question. Frank Swigon moved to fund a chaperone in the amount of $500.00 to attend the CanAm Games and that STSI consider revising our travel policy such that we would not fund an athlete and a coach to attend a meet alone without any South Texas representation. Didi seconded. The motion passed by a vote of 6 to 3. Regina asked to go on record as voting for the motion.
Next Meeting –
The next monthly BOD Meeting is currently scheduled for Tuesday, March 11th, 8:30 p.m. Regina pointed out that the meeting is during Spring Break and asked if we wanted to reschedule for a different date. After receiving input, the next monthly BOD Meeting will be moved to Tuesday, March 19th at 8:30 PM.
Adjournment
The meeting adjourned at 9:52 PM.