Operations Division
October 23, 2002 Report


Officials Committee
  • Clinics
  • Clinics have continued. In addition to the the new referee clinic and the stroke and turn clinic held at Burke Racquet and Swim Club, which were reported last month, eight more clinics have been held. In Maryland there was the main referee clinic with 28 attendees (5 new and 23 recertifying), two stroke and turn clinics with 39 attendees, and a starter clinic with 19 attendees (almost evenly split between new and recertifying). In addition there was a Hytek clinic with 21 attendees and an Electronic Timing System clinic with 20 attendees. In Virginia two more stroke and turn clinics were held in conjunction with the Harvest Moon meet with 17 attendees (half were new) along with a starter clinic with 6 attendees.
  • Two more stroke and turn clinics are scheduled for Virginia: one at Madeira at a small meet and one at South Run in conjunction with an early morning Saturday am practice. Taking the clinics to places where the parents are going to be anyway seems to be working.


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  • Other business
    1. Boots has applied to USA Swimming for the Joe Jacoby Chrysler Jeep Holiday Invitational at GMU to be a National Certification meet.
    2. At the referee clinic, time was spent on discussions of adaptive swimming and what we can do to make PVS meets more welcoming to adaptive swimmers.


  • What follows are the suggestion made by the PVS referees on October 5, 2002, to attract, encourage and support disabled swimmers to become and compete as PVS athletes. Please note that these suggestions are listed in no order of preference or priority. Also note that these suggestions were not voted upon or endorsed by the body as a whole. In other words, this is a listing of individual thoughts and ideas. One thing was clear however-the referees encourage the LSC to consider a comprehensive policy to encourage swimmers with disabilities to participate fully in the offerings of Potomac Valley Swimming.
  • Encourage those disabled swimmers you see at summer and/or high school meets to become involved in year-round swimming with a PVS team.
  • Publicize our desire to welcome disabled swimmers through area recreation departments.
  • Possibly allow certain disabled swimmers to swim in a lower age group (done in other LSC's) or to adjust event lengths of certain swimmers such as have a 50 inserted and swum as part of the 200 (also done in other LSC'S).
  • Publicize our desire to welcome disabled swimmers through area organizations for persons with disabilities and through area rehabilitation facilities.
  • Consider a small paraolympic meet around the same time as some of our "championship" meets (Or add events for disabled swimmers to the championship meets to have the same objective).
  • Consider ways that disabled swimmers "points" from the paraolympic meet are added to the team scores of the "championship" meet.
  • Educate PVS coaches to the benefits of working with swimmers with disabilities and ask them to be a part of Item # 1.
  • Craft a questionnaire to go to area pools to see what they already do for disabled swimmers and see how we can become more involved with their efforts.
  • Two of our officials seem to be interested in helping with these iniatives. They have different, but highly complementary skills to offer. As LSCs have been asked to have someone go to the February meeting on adaptive swimming at Colorado Springs. Boots is recommending that the Board approach these two individuals and consider appointing them co-chairs for adaptive swimming for Potomac Valley.
Meet Equipment
  • No significant problems with PVS equipment have been reported. As voted upon at House of Delegates meeting, ribbons were provided to all three meet sites for the October Open to be provided top 8 finishers in 12/U sessions
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Meet Management
  • Most significant concerns raised regarding October Open was water temperature at Mt Vernon and parking arrangements at PGS&LC. These concerns are being discussed with the appropriate park authorities.
  • Request for sanction (as approved competition) of 2003 Maryland Winterfest Invitational at UMD on January 11-12, 2003 has been received. Requesting host is SPY swimming.
  • Contacts have been made regarding pool rentals for PVS sponsored meets during the summer 2003. Availability of the desired pools has been tentatively confirmed with one noteworthy exception. GMU has advised its pool has previously been committed for another competition on dates desired for PVS's Senior/Junior LC Championship meet. No suitable alternatives have been located to date.
  • PVS LC Age Group Champs will be able to held Thurs-Sunday or Friday-Monday on weekend of July 17-21 - with the distance only session normally held on Thurs afternoon moved to Saturday afternoon and prelim/finals sessions on the other days.
  • Attendance at October Open was 6778 splashes versus 6049 splashes in 2001. Permissible swims per session was increased from 3 to 5 this year. Two non-PVS clubs expressed interest in attending this meet. One submitted entries but withdrew due to sniper attacks. No significant interest from outside PVS in attending the November Open has been received.
  • There were 4406 splashes at RMSC Invitational held October 11-13. This competition was held in 8 lanes of water. In contrast the PVS October Open had 6778 splashes in 24 lanes of water. This translates to ratio of 2:1 in terms of pool utilization. This highlights the importance of Strategic Planning reviewing the role of PVS versus club sponsored meets for this type of competition.
 Safety Commitee
  • No new Reports of Occurrence have been received.
  • Updated list of Coaches Safety Curriculum 2002--2003 Requirements and Equivalents has been posted to the website.