Potomac Valley Voices

Editor: Dick Rankin

Vol. 3 No 5 JULY, 1999

Thirl Crudup Elected PVS General Chairman -- Dick Rankin
Taylor and Henderson Families Honored -- Dick Rankin
PVS Awarded Spring 2000 Zone Meet-- Dick Rankin
PVS Registrars Installed -- Irene Millman
House of Delegates Decisions -- Editor



Link to other Issues of PVS Voices


Thirl Crudup Elected PVS General Chairman -- Dick Rankin

The PVS House of Delegates (HOD) at its Annual Meeting on May 18,1999 elected Thirl Crudup as the next General Chairman. He will step into this role on September 1, 1999 and lead this association into the next millennium. Thirl has been a long time volunteer in Potomac Valley; he and his wife, Linda, have served as our Zone Team Coordinators for the past several years. In this role he has seen first hand the major components of our competition program and for the past 2 years he has been the chairman of the very critical Operations Committee. As such, he has responsibility for the conduct of our swimming programs. From these positions Thirl is thoroughly grounded in PVS programs. In addition to his local responsibilities, the President of USA Swimming has appointed him to the national Outreach Committee, charged with the development of policy to expand USA Swimming into areas it does not presently reach very well. No one in our association is any better prepared to become General Chairman than Thirl and I know he will be a tremendous success.

The HOD also selected Jim Garner as the incoming Vice Chairman for Senior Swimming. Jim, like Thirl, has been a major volunteer in this association for many years. You, no doubt, have seen him on the deck as an official for years; he also serves on the PVS Officials Committee and what you may not know is that he has been John Hirschmann's right hand assistant on the PVS web page. John Ertter was elected as our Treasurer and Chairman of the Finance Committee. His professional skills in the financial business world will be well used in this key position. Like the other new Board members, John has been very visible in the association. The HOD also re-elected Carol Nickle and selected John McDonald and Larry Woodward to the Board of Review. I want to publicly thank Dave Scibetta and his Nominating Committee for finding just the right leaders for carrying on the management of PVS along with the other continuing members of the Board.

Nominations for Coach and Athlete Representatives on the Board of Directors were also conducted at the House annual meeting. Greg York and Steve Ercolano were nominated for the Coach position and Kelly Burke for the Athlete position. The election for these positions will be held during selected swim meets during this long course season.

Taylor and Henderson Families Honored -- Dick Rankin

In an unprecedented event 2 members - actually 2 families - of the PVS community received the Phillips 66 Outstanding Service Award at the HOD Annual Meeting. Never before in the history of our association has this award been made to more than one person in a given year; in fact, this award which comes from USA Swimming to honor local volunteers, who give of themselves way beyond the norm, is restricted to one presentation per year per LSC. However, this year we had 2 families that have decided to retire from their very active roles in competitive swimming and both PVS and USA Swimming decided to "amend the rules" to rightfully honor Evelyn and Ron Taylor and Mary Ann and Marty Henderson as recipients of this prestigious service award. In addition to the award itself the Taylors and the Hendersons received a certificate of distinguished service from Chuck Wielgus, the Executive Director of USA Swimming, and a personal letter from the USA Swimming staff director that routinely interfaced with Evelyn and Mary Ann in their respective roles as Administrative Assistant and Registrar. It goes virtually without saying that all in PVS will miss their hard work, dedication and wise counsel and that we wish them well in whatever ventures they pursue. Evelyn and Ron have already permanently relocated to a warmer climate and the Hendersons plan to be on the road a lot over the coming months. Nevertheless, all of us who worked so closely with them hope that our paths continue to cross regularly.

PVS Awarded Spring 2000 Zone Meet -- Dick Rankin

The PVS adventure to the Eastern Zone Meeting in Stamford, CT in early May is what movies are made of! Our delegation from PVS set out from our homes on an early Saturday morning with airline tickets in hand that would get us to the meeting by the 10 AM start time. By 1 PM when we finally walked into the meeting, having arrived at a totally different airport than scheduled due to the weather, our brand new Administrative Assistants, who had driven up the night before, had been able to delay the Zone Meet Bid presentations pending our arrival. By the way our travel story doesn't end there, the meeting ended 2 hours later and we headed back to New York for our 5:30 PM flight only to arrive in Washington via train at 11:15 PM. What a day!?!

But it was also a very successful day for PVS because we were able to achieve what we set out to accomplish. Namely, the Eastern Zone awarded PVS the hosting of the 2000 Short Course Zone Championship Meet. Mark your calendars; the meet will be held next March 30 through April 1 at the brand new Prince Georges Sports and Learning Complex (PGS&LC), adjacent to the Jack Kent Cooke Stadium. This new indoor/outdoor facility, which should open later this summer, will include one of the finest indoor swimming venues on the East Coast. The indoor complex includes a full scale track and field facility as well as a gymnastic competition center along with the aquatic venue. Over a thousand, seated spectators will be able to watch the swimmers compete in a state of the art 50 meter by 25 yard pool facility complete with electronic scoreboards for multiple competition pools. Swimmers will be able to warmup/warmdown in a separate, smaller 25 yard pool and will have access to excellent locker room facilities. Unlike most other public athletic facilities that are designed primarily for recreational use of the community, the PGS&LC has been designed with competition in mind. We envision swimming competitions at a regional and national level will be held here for years to come. This is the first time that PVS has hosted the Short Course Championship Meet. The Curl Burke Swim Club has volunteered to be the host club for the meet and Linda Crudup, who is our Zone Team Representative, will serve as the Meet Director. The Competition Committee at its May Meeting restated its commitment to ensure that our swimmers receive all the benefits of being in a team environment. Coaches will be selected in the early Fall and planning will get underway shortly thereafter. The Committee did decide that since the meet is local we would not require all the swimmers to stay together in a local hotel. In fact, housing will be left to the individual swimmers and their teams and coaches as we do with the Long Course Championship each summer.

PVS Registrars Installed -- Irene Millman

Our administrative office, staffed by Irene Millman and Linda Edmunds, have now assumed full responsibility for PVS Registration activity. Irene and Linda worked closely with Mary Ann Henderson during June to transition the registrar function to the Administrative Office and that transition is now complete. For any registration and/or insurance question or action please contact Irene or Linda through one of the following ways:

Address: PO Box 313
Washington Grove, MD 20880-0313
Phone: (301) 840-5955
Fax: (301) 840-5950
The email address is pvadmn@pvswim.org

By adding the registration function to our administrative office responsibilities, we have now combined all of our administrative staff functions into one location and we have achieved the convenience of "one stop shopping" for our membership.

House of Delegates Decisions -- Editor

In addition to the election of new officers, the House of Delegates approved the following actions at its Annual Meeting:

  • PVS Committee Structure: The HOD approved several modifications to our PVS Committee structure. The purpose of this restructuring was to better functionally align our committees and to provide better management oversight. At the membership level these realignments should be transparent. The most significant of the realignments included shifting the Safety Committee to the Operations Division and Awards to Age Group Vice Chairman. Also, all of the administrative staff functions will not report to the Administrative Vice Chairman. Over the summer we will prepare an amendment to the PVS By Laws reflecting these adjustments. That amendment will be promulgated in the Fall.
  • Volunteers: Although no action was taken, it was noted by both our Registrar and our Officials Chair that we need more volunteers. Statistics were provided to the member clubs which showed which clubs need to improve their volunteer ratio. While we have the 6th largest number of athlete members, PVS is way down the scale in terms of numbers of volunteers. And in fact, the number of non-athlete members is down this year compared to past years. We have great volunteers; we need more!
  • Entry Fee Increase: Our costs for running swim meets continue to climb and we know there will be increases in pool rental as we move some of our competition into new facilities at the University of Maryland, George Mason University and Prince Georges Sports & Learning Complex in order to provide the very best opportunities for our swimmers to reach their potentials. In order to cover these increased costs the HOD approved a $ .25 splash fee increase across the board for PVS and club sponsored meets.
  • PVS Family Membership: With the advent of our aggressive use of electronic media, this program, which was very helpful as a means of communicating with our membership, is no longer needed and will be terminated at the end of this summer's long course season.
  • PVS Aquatics Guide: This booklet, which was not made available in the 98-99 season, will be reinstated with several changes. In the past it was only available to PVS Family Members; however, it will now be available to any PVS member for $6. It will be restructured and shortened to include relevant information on PVS member clubs, competition facilities, PVS records, and PVS management and committee information. It will be our goal to make this booklet available to the membership in the early Fall vice early January. The means of sale has not been determined yet.
  • Mailings: In lieu of the Family Membership, members may subscribe to receive the same material which was available through Family Membership last season; however, the mailings will be scaled back to 3 per year to coincide with the release of meet announcements for the Fall, Winter, and Long Course seasons.
  • Budget Amendment: The 1999 - 2000 budget was approved by the HOD with one amendment which shifted $5,000 in PVS subsidy for the Zone Teams in order to increase our Travel Assistance by $5,000. Since we continue to operate at a deficit in our Travel Assistance in spite of a new policy adopted last year to address this fact (this is in fact good news because it means more athletes are swimming at national level meets), the HOD felt that with the Short Course Zone Meet being held in our LSC next year we could accommodate a one time reduction in our subsidy to the Zone Team in order to overcome an anticipated deficit in the Travel Assistance program.
  • USA Club Membership: Some definition of swim clubs will be debated at the USA Swimming Convention this Fall; our delegation will need to know our member clubs' views on this issue and the HOD directed our clubs to submit their positions to the PVS Board in time to prepare a position for the PVS delegation at the convention.