Operations Division
November 13, 2001 Report


    Officials Committee
    • Two Stroke and Turn clinics will be held on Saturday afternoon November 17 at MAC and Oak Marr. A Starter's clinic is planned at Oak Marr on November 18. An additional clinic is in planning stage for early December which is expected to include both Stroke and Turn and Starter's clinics.
    • Applied and received permission for Joe Jacoby Holiday meet to be a National Certification meet for officials. Officials seeking National Certification will be required to also work a PVS Championship meet in order to receive National Certification. Jim Garner will be meet referee and Bob Richardson will be administrative referee.
    • Joel Black of the National Officials Committee was asked to be Meet Referee for the March SC Sectional at GMU; he has agreed to come.
    .
    Meet Management
    • Several teams have questioned provision in Oct and Nov Open MA requiring all events 100 yards and longer to be positively checked-in. Many have indicated it should not be mandatory as expected session time-line, expected table resources may make it appropriate to not do so. Impact on program sales is also a factor.
    • JFD was reassigned to Spring Hill site to better balance entries for the November Open. This permitted the expected finish times of the two longest sessions to be approximately equal. As result, two courses at PGS&LC were not set up.
    • Several situations have arisen at both October and November Open regarding ability of table workers to properly operate timing system, handle scratches, determine official times and/or properly input times and other changes into Hy-Tek. These situations highlight the importance of clubs assuring sufficient trained officials are available to undertake these critical functions.
    • Teams made very limited opportunity of opportunity to have 5 splashes/session which was permitted at November Open. Average swimmer splashes/session went from about 2.6 last year to 2.9 at PGS&LC and 3.4 at Spring Hill. The higher ratio at Spring Hill was primarily due to one team taking "advantage" of the opportunity to have their swimmers enter more events. This is below the 4.0 ratio that had been assumed when team assignments were made. As a result, there were 6762 splashes at Nov Open versus 10500 expected based on last year's participation and a 4.0 splash/session ratio.
    • Spring Hill was used by PVS for competition for the first time in several years. 250 athletes participating in Saturday afternoon session was about maximum pool could accommodate comfortably.
    • October Open "attendance" of 6549 splashes was down from 9399 in '98, 10118 in '99 and 10343 in '00. Similarly, November Open "attendance" of 6762 splashes was down from 10641 in '98, 9017 in '99 and 7842 in '00
      • .

    Equipment Manager
    • Two new dot matrix printers have been purchased with CTS timing equipment.
    • PVS timing equipment was used at both CEN and PGS&LC, even though both faciliities own their own. In the case of CEN, needed maintenance could not be accomplished prior to meet, requiring PVS to bring in its own equipment. In the case of PGS&LC, the facility was unwilling to use the 10 lane on-deck harness we understand they own. As a result PVS had no choice but to bring it its own timing equipment, which PGS&LC reluctantly permitted us to use
      • .

    Safety Commitee
    • No new Reports of Occurrences have been received.
    • Starting May 15, 2002 USA Swimming has established a requirement for marshals at meets to wear identifying attire. To assure marshaling function receives appropriate attention, assigned officials are no longer expected to do this duty as "collateral duty." PVS should start taking steps to make sure host clubs are aware they will have to assume this duty during both warm-ups and actual competition.