New England Swimming Technical Committee, September 1, 2004

NOTE: The Technical Committee Report was accepted by the Board of New England Swimming with the following exception: The entire section of MEET FEES was referred back to the Technical Committee. The result is the SWIMMER PARTICIPATION FEE policy.

The Technical Committee of New England Swimming met at the home of Priscilla Davis on September 1, 2004. The meeting was called to order at 6 pm by chairman, Dan Warner.

Attending were: Dan Warner, Priscilla Davis, Mariella Allard, Bob Gauvin, Amy Parratto, Mike Parratto, Michelle Bernal and guests, Ray Grant and Mary Riddell.

EVALUATIONS OF PAST MEETS: Mariella Allard reported that she had received no evaluations.

OPEN CHAMPIONSHIPS: Committee members were satisfied with the individual awards and high point awards for 13 and 14 swimmers. There was more discussion concerning the 13 and 14 age group, but no changes in the meet format were proposed.

All agreed that the positive check in for distance events worked well and should be continued.

It was agreed that for all championship meets times from meets on the weekend before the championship meet should be able to be updated until 5 pm on the Tuesday before the championship meet begins.

At the present time, an unlimited number of relays are permitted, although only 2 relays per team can score. The committee recommended that teams be allowed to swim up to 4 relays, with only 2 relays allowed to score. Relay only swimmers can be added only if the team has 1, 2, or 3 qualified swimmers. The committee recommended that as part of its entry a team can enter 13 and 14 relays and can add 13 and 14 relay only swimmers if a team has only 1, 2, or 3 qualified 13 and 14 swimmers.

Mike Parratto would like to flip the 800 free and the 1500 free (and the 1000 free and 1650 free) in the open schedule. The Thursday schedule would include the 200 breast and 1000/800 free and the Sunday schedule would include the 100 breast and 1650/1500 free. The committee agreed to this. There was some discussion of having the men’s 1000/800 free and women’s 1650/1500 free on Thursday and the men’s 1650/1500 free and women’s 1000/800 free on Sunday, but that was rejected.

There was much discussion concerning whether to have a 13—14 and older age group meet or an open meet. Although there was discussion of some coaches and parents who are very interested in bringing back the 13 and over age group meet, a straw vote of committee members definitely favored the open concept, especially with the addition of 13 and 14 relays. All agreed that the open meet is the only option in the summer because of time restraints. Amy Parratto will take this recommendation to the Age Group Committee.

The short course end of season calendar for 2004--2005 includes both an open meet and a senior meet. When the calendar was proposed it was expected that a swimmer could not attend both the open meet and the senior meet. The question was asked if the open time standards would have a cut off time as well as a cut on time. Having a cut off time would mean that a swimmer who has a senior cut could not swim that event at the open meet. There was much discussion about this, but in the end, the committee felt that having a cut off time would be too limiting for some swimmers. Swimmers could still attend only one of the two meets, but, if they had cuts for both meets, would be able to choose which meet would better suit their goals.

12 and under CHAMPIONSHIPS: The committee would like teams to be able to bring relay only swimmers to the meet. However, they recommended that each team be limited to no more that four relays per sex per event per team.

Members felt that distance awards were unnecessary for the 12 and under meet unless the athlete reps wanted to add them.

There was concern that some long time New England policies are not making it into end of season meet invitations and that meet invitations are not being posted in a timely fashion. Ray Grant suggested that we need special end of season meet templates. Mary Riddell said she would prepare them once the Age Group and Senior Committees have given her the information that she needs.

COMBINED SCORING OF CHAMPIONSHIP MEETS: The committee agreed that each championship meet should be scored separately.

REVIEW OF MEET STIPENDS FOR END OF SEASON MEETS: Committee members reviewed the current stipends and did not recommend any changes.

TIME STANDARDS: Committee members would like the time standards to be released as soon as possible. The Senior Committee and the Age Group Committee will make their recommendations at the October meeting. (The committees will submit written reports, and Mary Riddell suggested that the reports be submitted in time to send them to the board members before the meeting.) Once the format is set for short course, the time standards can be announced as soon as possible. Ray Grant will help Laura Matuszak with the time standards for regionals, 12 and unders (with or without 8 and unders), and the open (or 13 and over age groups). Mike Parratto will do the senior time standards now.

The committee agreed that 25 meter time standards are needed since more meets are being held in 25 meter pools.

EIGHT and under END OF SEASON MEET CONCEPT: Committee members liked the concept of a “fun” meet during the long course season. It should be held earlier that it was this past summer. Members do not think an 8 and under meet is needed during the short course season since 8 and under swimmers are included in the regional meets.

MEET CUTTING PROCESS: After some discussion, members agreed that “A” meets and faster should be cut by time rather than by a lottery. There also was discussion about cutting the distance events on Friday nights of team specialty meets. Often after the meet has been cut by a lottery to a proper size for Saturday and Sunday, the Friday distance events are still over subscribed. The committee agreed that these events could then be cut by time if necessary.

MEET FEES: Many committee members thought that meet fees need to be increased especially for those teams who run meets in some of the more expensive pools. They think that a meet fee increase would encourage teams to run meets in the better (and more expensive) pools, and that teams would gladly pay increased fees to attend more meets in these pools. In addition to the discussion of unlimited meet fees, there was discussion of would other formats such as facility surcharges, a flat fee for a meet, and different fees for short, one session meets. While acknowledging that pools costs have increased (and probably will continue to increase), some members were uncomfortable with the proposed unlimited fees or surcharges, concerned that costs will increase too much and that it be hard for teams to plan their schedules since they would not know the costs of a meet until the entry was posted on line. A compromise for next summer’s long course season was proposed as follows. Meet fees per swim would remain the same as they are now. However, teams would be allowed to add a per swimmer facility surcharge. This surcharge would be stated in the meet bid and would be included in the calendar when the calendar is posted on the web site and in the newsletter. This way teams would know up front what the fees would be and could plan accordingly. New England would set the surcharge for end of season meets and possibly help with more subsidies to keep costs down for the swimmers.

NOTE: This entire proposal has been formalized by the SWIMMER PARTICIPATION FEE policy.

TEAM WORK ASSIGNMENTS FOR END OF SEASON MEETS: This summer there were some problems with work assignments for teams. For one meet the assignments were posted too late to notify parents and for both meets there were problems with teams being assigned timers for sessions when they had few or no swimmers. It was agreed that more time would be taken at the meet managers meeting to discuss how to assign timers. There also was a problem with time trials. At some end of season meets, the assigned timers were required to stay for time trials. New England’s policy is that time trial swimmers have to provide their own timers unless the host team wants to do this. This policy will be made very clear in the future.

CALENDAR MEETS HELD OUT OF NEW ENGLAND: There has been an increasing problem with New England teams running meets out of New England since often our policies are in conflict with the policies of the other LSC who is sanctioning the meet. New England receives no financial benefit and has no control over these meets. The committee recommends that non-championship meets which are held out of district by New England Swimming teams not be listed on the New England calendar.

NEW ENGLAND SENIORS: The Calendar Committee still has not received any bids for New England Seniors on February 24—27. SSA has submitted a bid for Bowdoin College for the weekend of March 3—6, 2005. It was decided that Bob Gauvin will ask Rick Osterberg to post on the web site that a bid has been received for this weekend and asking that any other teams who want to bid should submit a bid within two weeks. There was concern that this change of date places the meet a week before the sectional meet, rather than two weeks. It was suggested that the meet be open to out of district swimmers who would have to qualify for each event. (New England swimmers who qualify for one event could swim five events. Those who qualify for five events could swim nine events.)

The meeting was adjourned at 9 pm.

Submitted by Mary Riddell