MSA Minutes

Parent Meeting

Wednesday September 14^th, 2006

Attending Board Members: Greg Harrell President

Neletha Fuemmeler Secretary

Randy Horner Head Coach

Swim Families Represented: Bach, Buchanan, Bunge, Chang, Costillo, Croessmann, Dennis, Fuemmeler, Gray, Harrell, Harris, Holden, Imhof, Jagears, Johnson, Kellner, Lucht, Martin, Mullins, Peterson, Pilkington, Plank, Richmond, Taylor, Ting

Total of 28 members present. ( 5 new families )

Meeting was called to order by President Greg Harrell.

Minutes from the August meeting were approved.

Budget/ end of fiscal year report was presented by Head Coach Randy Horner. (fiscal year ended August 31^st, 2005) The fiscal end of year report is now current, with the exception of about $1,000 (estimated). This is because awards/recognition have not yet been closed out for the fiscal year. At this time there are some remaining awards that have not yet been received by the awards committee, thus causing the delay. Randy hopes to have this taken care of soon. Membership remained up during the month of August. This is credited to the pro-rating of dues for the month of August. Over-all the club will be starting out the year in good financial shape, unlike the previous fiscal year. The 2005 fiscal year was projected to show a -$7,000 loss, whereas the club came out of the year at a -$2,000 loss. Randy again reminded everyone of the “open door” policy. Any records concerning the club can be viewed by members at any time. Please stop by and see him.

Old Business:

Greg acknowledged Kim Lierz for her work with organizing team photographs this year. Marilyn and Denny Dennis were acknowledged for reserving the Cooper Estates clubhouse for our end of the season party. Marilyn thanked club members for their help with the after party clean up. Rita Johnson was also thanked for organizing the end of the season party.

New Panda and Cubs coach Bethany Pipes was introduced to the members. She has been swimming since age 7. She is a graduate of the University of North Texas where she swam for 4 years and holds several records. She was an age group coach for a summer league for 3 years, where she coached beginning swimmers through high school age swimmers. Bethany holds an undergraduate degree in Speech-Language Pathology and she is currently attending Missouri State to earn her doctorate degree in audiology.

Randy spoke briefly on the upcoming fall swim schedule. The JCKW meet has once again been changed. New date and location will be: Saturday October 22^nd at Webb City. The meet will be held at the Webb City High School. Warm up times and directions will be posted as soon as they are available. Also the JCKW meet will now be a one day event instead of two. This will be held Saturday November 19^th. There is also a possibility that JCKW may also host the January 28^th meet originally scheduled to be hosted by SPA. Randy will keep swimmers updated on any more changes.

Entries for the Halloween Classic have been posted on the bulletin board. There is still time for swimmers to enter this meet. Deadline is next Thursday September 22^nd. Please see Randy if you would still like to enter.

Pentathlon will be held Saturday October 1^st. The club will be hosting this meet. Warm ups will be at 9:00 a.m.. Swimmers will swim all 5 events and points will be assigned and added up. Awards will go to the top 10 in each age division and a High Point trophy for swimmers in each age group male and female. So far JCKW, and SPA have entered. The club hopes to host between 200-300 swimmers. There will be a Friday night set up and a job sign-up sheet will be posted prior to the meet. Randy will also assign parents where they are needed.

Liang-Yi inquired if Tri-States best times may be used to enter USSA meets. These are only valid for Tri-States meets. Katherine Ting questioned if the Intraquad meet times would count as best times. Randy explained that this meet is a “fun” meet and is used more as a format to introduction the new or younger swimmers into a meet type setting.

New business:

Elections for the office of Vice President were held. Dan Imhof and Rita Johnson spoke briefly on what they believed they could bring to the office and the club as volunteers to the board position. Ballots were cast and parent Vicki Peterson tallied the votes and returned them to President Greg Harrell. Rita Johnson will take office immediately and fill the Vice President seat that was vacated by Shawn Jones in August, 2005. Rita will finish the remainder of the term which will expire in December of 2006.

Randy spoke about the club’s name change which went into affect on August 28^th, 2005. He and Coach Jack Steck decided that the club needed to break away from the “Southwest” in the club title. After polling several independent sources they decided on Missouri State Aquatics. The Aquabear will remain intact as the club mascot. The club’s new cap design was passed around the room and will be on display in Randy’s office.

The apparel committee met and has selected new suits for the upcoming season. The female suit was passed around for parents to view. Cost will be higher ($42 as opposed to our old suit style and price of $38) The committee felt this would make a nice upgrade for the team. The board has approved a 2 year contract with Speedo to make our club an “all Speedo” team. Benefits from this will include discounts on apparel and equipment and many other “perks” such as individual online ordering. *you may view the term of this contract. Please see Randy. Products may be viewed on line through www.djsports.com . Apparel order forms will be in mailboxes by next week and suits should arrive before Halloween Classic.

Debbie Taylor announced that she has a Team Parka for sale. Please see her if you are interested. Neletha Fuemmeler also has Taylor Jones’ parka for sale.

Greg Harrell spoke briefly about recruiting club parents to volunteer to train as USSA officials. The club currently has 3 parents who volunteer for this and we are in need of more parents to step up. Officials work at swim meets (home and away) and are required to work 6 sessions over a two year period. This commitment involves a training class, testing on line and an apprentice training period. Benefits include, free meals while working a meet and you may use any out of town meet that you work as a tax write off. Anyone interested should speak with Greg Harrell or Landra Bunge.

Randy passed around information on our upcoming 2005 Swim-A-Thon (see attached sheet) and explained how the event would be differ this year. This is one of our most important fundraisers of the fiscal year and will set the financial “tone” for the remainder of the year. The club goal is for every family to raise $200. The club fell short of reaching its’ goal last year because most families only met the minimum fundraising requirement of $50.00. Information packets will be placed into the club mailboxes on Monday, September 26^th. The question was raised as to what counted as an “actual” lap. Randy clarified that each volunteer lap counter would record a lap as down and back (50 yards). Members were reminded that the club will be charged $1.00 per envelope for any non returned envelopes from their information packet.

Randy reminded parents about “parent etiquette” while at the pool attending practices. Please approach your coaches before or after practices with questions and remember not to interfere with the coaching process. Please feel free to see Randy if you have any problems or concerns.

Other New Business:

Annie Bach suggested that the club start serving snacks on parent meeting nights. Everyone agreed that this would be an excellent idea and the party committee will post volunteer sign-up sheets prior to the next meeting.

Liang and Neletha reminded everyone of the YaHoo e-mail group that has been set up. Everyone with an e-mail address should have already received an invite via e-mail to join. A second e-mail will be sent this week. If you have not received this e-mail, please contact Neletha or Liang.

Club renewal forms will be out in the mailboxes soon. This has nothing to do with the directory, this is for office use only. USSA swimming dues with also be do in November. Watch your mailboxes.

We may now begin excepting checks with Missouri State Aquatics or MSA. We will still be able to process checks if they say SWAB or Southwest Aquabears.

The website change is underway. The new address will be www.MSAquatics.org. Liang will notify everyone when the change takes place.

Our next parent meeting will be Thursday October 20^th at 6:15. Meeting adjourned.