Eastern Zone Swimming

AS APPROVED at the September 2004 Eastern Zone Meeting
with the following clarification
 

EASTERN ZONE MEETING
Portland, Maine
May 8, 2004
MINUTES
 

The meeting was called to order at 10:00 am, with Zone Directors Kerry Reed Ellett and Pete Gannon as chairs. Attendance: See attached list.

Minutes: The minutes of the Convention meetings were approved as distributed.

Financial report: The following financial report was approved as read.

Cash on hand as of 5/4/04 $1,366.13
Anticipated income (dues - CT, MD, NE, NI) 500.00
Anticipated expenses (900.00)
Projected balance $ 966.13

 

Report of Meet Coordination Committee: Sectionals had low audience attendance, and the Committee is looking at ways to enhance the excitement, such as using a dynamic announcer. The Zone meet was well run. Bids for all 2006 meets (Zones and Sectionals) will be due at this year's Convention.

Officers/Staff Reports: Sue Anderson reported on a number of staff changes at USA Swimming Headquarters, including a job change for her - she will be working on implementation of new programs and services directed by the task force to use the dues increase funds. Ira Klein will become the new staff contact for Eastern Zone, and will serve as the field services director.

Staff changes resulted from the task force recommendations on how to use the extra dues collected, and include the following: Everett Uchiyama - National Team Director, Bob Steele and Jon Urbanchek -Master Coaches (part-time); John McIlhargy - Director of Aquatics Industry Relations; Mick Nelson - Club Facilities Development; Sue Nelson - Aquatics Programming Specialist.

USA Swimming will roll out its new website on May 26; some pages will not be implemented until the second launch in June. One of the exciting enhancements will be an individual page for every athlete in the SWIMS database. Navigation will be much improved over the current website.

The Directors reported that USA Swimming's finances are in good shape: investments are doing better than average, the insurance company gave a refund based on our good record, and the auditors made no recommendations or adjustments. Andy Knox will identify directors of the USA Swimming Foundation. The "Golden Goggles" black tie dinner will be held in New York City on November 15th at the Hammerstein Ballroom in the Marriott Marquis. Tickets are $1000 each, or $8000 for a table; proceeds benefit the Foundation. The affair will feature the 2004 Olympic team, as well as many past Olympians.

Two task forces have been set up - one on Males in Swimming, and the other on Right to Participate. Staff members Pat Hogan and Randy Julian testified before a legislative committee looking into the issue of athletes deprived of their club participation by high school rules. Legislatures in Missouri and Minnesota are facing this Issue.

Convention: September 14-18 in Orlando. USAS Code of Conduct and Waiver & Release Forms will be sent to LSCs for their under 18 athlete delegates to complete prior to attending Convention. Election ballots will be scanned and tabulated electronically, which should speed up the election process.

Junior Championships: August 8-12, 4½ day format, long course, no location yet determined. Time standards are likely to be close to US Open standards. The meet may be held in the same location as Nationals and if the Duel in the Pool is held there, Junior Champs would likely start one day later.

Steering/OIO Report: Jim Wood provided important information on Olympic Trials July 7-14 in Long Beach - Asthmatics must have a PFT (Pulmonary Function Test) within 12 months of the event. Photo IDs will be required of all coaches and athletes. To avoid long lines at the meet, coaches and athletes should send in photo and information in advance. The meet is expected to have about 700 athletes. The pool is still under construction, and will host its first competition June 10-13. There will be no shade, which will be similar to the Olympic venue. There will be shaded areas for athletes at the Olympic venue, but no roof over the pool or deck - temperatures expected to be well over 100.

Pan Ams Open Water will be held June 20-24 in Panama City, Panama. USA will send one male, one female and one coach, to be picked off nationals in Florida. We will send a full team to Short Course World Championships, to be picked off Trials. 2005 Long Course Worlds will be held July 17-31 (Swimming 23-30) in Montreal; World University Games August 11-21 in Izmir, Turkey. Selection for both events will be at a qualifier to be held April 1-6; time standards will be Senior cuts from summer 2004.

Junior Pan Pacs - for males athletes 17 & under, and females 15 & under - will be held in alternate odd years, always in Hawaii, always in January - 16 countries to participate. Selection will be off several meets.

2005 Duel in the Pool will likely be held the first week of August, possibly in Irvine. We are negotiating with Australia.

FINA rules changes: Effective at Indianapolis, athletes must wear official bibs (like track athletes) on the march to the blocks. Clarification of swim suit definition: the suit may not extend past the ankle, wrist or neck, and arm bands are not an acceptable part of the suit.

Technical Planning: Ed Dellert chaired this portion of the meeting. Considerable discussion surrounded issues concerning Sectionals and Zones. The following motions carried:

·

  • Effective Spring 2005, there will be a single meet information sheet for Spring Short Course Sectionals; both meets will have the same order of events. Order of events will be the same as the 2004 Super Sectional order.
  • ·
  • Both Spring meets will be open to swimmers from either Section, as well as to those outside the Zone (with priority given to within-Zone teams if meet is over subscribed.). Each Section has the right to control the size of the meet.
  • ·
  • Effective 2005, both Spring meets will have the same time standards, using the slower of the two 2004 Spring standards with a possible slowing of men's breast/fly, and
  • ·
  • For 2006, the 50 free and 400 IM will be evaluated for possible tightening of time standards.
  • ·
  • Each Section may make the determination of whether to allow bonus events, and to set associated standards.
  • ·
  • For Spring Sectionals, the following events will be added: 4 x 50 Free Relay and 4 x 50 Medley Relay. These events will have two heats in the finals as the current 400 relays, and will be swum as the first events of the evening. Slower heats will be swum in the trials sessions. Qualifying times will be the same as 400 relays and events will be seeded based on those times. Technical Planning needs to make recommendation on what days these events will be swum and when in prelims slower heats will be swum.

Athlete Representative Report: Diana Hurst reported that she had received more contacts from coaches than from swimmers, and summarized the position of the athletes on several issues. The announcer at Zones plays a key role in making the meets exciting - it is important for the swimmers that the meets be fun. The athletes are generally enthusiastic about the Super Sectionals. In Virginia, they set up a room for the athletes between trials and finals, with movies, places to rest, snacks and hydration - this was very successful. The athletes reacted extremely positively to the inclusion of athletes with a disability in the Zone meet. The Zone Athlete Rep position needs a job description and specific duties. Athletes favor the one-day registration program for Open Water.

Unfinished Business

Spring Zone All-Star Task Force Report: The motion to eliminate the 15-18 age group, allow LSCs to enter three swimmers per event, and run consolations for 11-12/13-14 failed after considerable discussion. The following motions carried:

·

  • Effective 2005, in eligibility for the meet, substitute "Eastern Zone Sectionals or above" for "Nationals" as the upper limit of participant eligibility. (Formerly F.5d read: "Athletes who have competed in the USA Nationals, U.S. Open or a trials class meet in an individual event are not eligible to enter this meet." F.5e read: "13/O athletes who have ever achieved USA National, U.S. Open or trials class meet qualifying times in an individual event, may not enter that event or compete in a relay for that stroke and distance, nor may their times be used to enter an LSC relay for that stroke and distance.")

[JOHN HIRSHMANN'S NOTE; While the above was the original proposal, as a result of Jim Garner's reading aloud the current language, we realized that rather than replace current words with Sectional, what we needed to do is really is add Speedo Championship Series to currently enumerated list of meets. An amendment by George Homewood clarified that the time could not be faster than that needed to enter an EASTERN ZONE Speedo Championship Series meet. (5e clause) Whether participation in a Speedo Championship Series meet in another zone (which might have slower QT's) would bar you from zones is probably an open issue that we need to sort out in September. (5d clause)]

[Note: See Adoption of these minutes at Eastern Zone September 16th meeting for clarification of the above item.]

·

  • The Sectionals limit passed above will apply only to Spring Zone Meets.

Site Selection: The sites for the 2005 Spring Sectionals, Long Course Zone Meet and Long Course Super Sectionals were decided at previous Zone meetings. The following summarizes those decisions as well as decisions made at the May meeting. The 2005 Zone Short Course All-Star Meet will be held March 31- April 2 in Buffalo. (No other bids submitted.) The Long Course Zone Meet will be held in Buffalo August 10-13, with Open Water on the 14th. Short Course Sectionals will be in Nassau March 10-13 and in Fairfax March 17-20. The date for the Long Course Super Sectionals at St. Mary's (MD) will be July 21-24. The 2005 Spring meeting will be hosted by New Jersey in Newark on May 7th. Other bids for the Spring meeting were Pittsburgh (AM), and Fort Lauderdale (MD/PV).

Committee Reports

Senior: The Spring meet will be long course. Men's long course standards may be eased. A task force will study the issue of foreign athletes at Nationals. Senior Swimming is moving toward making it easier to qualify for these meets with long course times.

Adapted: There was approximately 50% new participation at the national meet. 86 national records were set, and 41 athletes have qualified for Paralympics.

International Relations/USOC: Skip Kenney and Ross Wales were inducted into ISHOF. Michael Phelps won the Sullivan Award. Jim Counsilman was posthumously awarded the USOC Lifetime Achievement Award. The FINA Short Course World Championships will be held in Indianapolis October 7-11, and will be followed by the FINA World Sports Medicine Congress on October 12-13. San Francisco will host the Masters World Championships in 2006. Cayman Islands will be the site of the 2006 World Open Water Championships. Jim Wood and Tom Wilkens will serve on the Trials selection committee for 2008.

Registration: There will be workshops at Convention - LSCs are encouraged to send their Registration Chairs. One-day registration set to go forward.

Offices to be elected at Convention: The following candidates for positions were announced: Technical Vice President - Jim Wood; Coach Director - Sharon Power, Ellen Johnston; Age Group Non-Coach - Patric Close Mills.

The Chair thanked Maine for providing an excellent meeting site and for arranging a group dinner and boat tour. Meeting was adjourned at 2:55pm.

Respectfully submitted,


Patric Close Mills
Substituting for Isabelle Fraser