COACHES EDUCATION:
Coaches must meet all safety and background screening requirements to be registered. USA Swimming coach members are required to show current proof of training in First Aid, Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) and Safety Training for Swim Coaches. They will not be allowed an interim coaching (grace) period. Failure of a coach to satisfy the safety and background screening requirements will be grounds for termination of coach membership status and loss of insurance coverage.

Clubs must have at least one properly registered coach to register as a USA Swimming club. This does not change the fact that all coaches must fulfill the safety requirements.

COACHES BACKGROUND SCREENS:
USA Swimming members are subject to a background screening every two years. Members will need to renew their background screen during the 2008-2009 swim year. The first group needing to renew their screen will be that group of members that participated in the pilot program in October, 2006. These screens expire on October 31, and must be updated prior to that time. Screening expiration dates are noted on all Coach Member cards in the same area as the safety certification expiration dates.

Important: Members are strongly encouraged to update their screening at least by the first week of the month in which their screen expires. The process will typically take only 3-4 business days, but several factors can cause the process to take longer. Allow plenty of time for your screen renewal to be approved before their current screen expires.

COACHES SAFETY TRAINING:
Safety Training for Swim Coaches has two components - a four-hour classroom session and a four-hour water session. Coaches can opt out of the classroom session by going online and passing the 26-question STSC written test. Coaches who pass the online test will receive a confirmation email from USA Swimming. Print out the email and take it to the local ARC chapter, and schedule the water session. Every ARC chapter has LGIs and WSIs, and these are the people, who can now teach the water portion of Safety Training for Swim Coaches. If the instructor doesn't know that s/he can teach STSC, tell her/him to go to the ARC website and visit Instructor's Corner. All the information is right there. Upon successful completion of the water session, you will receive your Safety Training for Swim Coaches certification.

Coaches, who prefer, may take the four-hour classroom session and the four-hour water session.

The ARC instructor is not allowed to give the four-hour water session to a coach until that coach has completed (a) the four-hour classroom session or (b) passed the online test. The ONLY time a STSC card will be issued is after BOTH components have been successfully completed. Coaches who have a lifeguard certification are also required to take the 26-question online Safety Training for Swim Coaches written test when it is time to renew that certification requirement. These coaches will send in a copy of the email confirmation that they have passed the test, along with their updated lifeguard certification.

Any coach who needs to renew his/her Safety Training for Swim Coaches requirement - or any new coach joining for the first time - must present one of the following:

• STSC card issued by an ARC chapter (now the course record sheet is also acceptable) OR
• Lifeguard card from the approved list, along with a printed copy of the email certifying that the coach has completed the online STSC written test

The date of successful completion of the online STSC test will be recorded in SWIMS. The STSC card will expire on the first date of expiration of the Lifeguard card or the expiration of the STSC test.

CLUB SAFETY COORDINATOR:
Each USA Swimming club must have an active Individual Member as the Club Safety Coordinator, reporting to the club's head coach and/or parent board. This person may not be the same person as the named Head Coach for the team. The Club Safety Coordinator is responsible for disseminating safety education information received from USA Swimming and South Texas Swimming to the club's athletes, coaches and other members and shall make recommendations to the club concerning safety policy and its implementation. The Club Safety Coordinator needs to be involved or aware of every accident involving any of the club's facilities or members. The Club Safety Coordinator works with the coaches, parents, board, and meet management staff to promote the importance of the Report of Occurrence and ensure its timely completion. The Club Safety Coordinator is responsible for making reports to Pat Corbett, our LSC Safety Chair.

ATHLETE REPRESENTATIVES:
USA Swimming mandates 20% athlete representation on LSC Committees. It is suggested that each team within the LSC name an Athlete Representative from the team, so that a pool of recommended athletes will be available for selection to serve on committees. Teams willing to comply with this suggestion are requested to send the name and contact information of the team's athlete representative to the South Texas Office.

ATHLETE CARDS:
The USA Athlete Registration Membership Cards are designed to honor outstanding swimmers and to become a keepsake for swimmers. This year's athlete is Tracy Caulkins, who won national championships and set American records in all four strokes and the individual medley events over a range of distances. This versatility brought Tracy Caulkins many titles and awards, and as a result she is considered one of the greatest swimmers of all-time. By the time she retired from swimming, Caulkins had set five world records and an incredible 63 American records (more than any other American swimmer, male or female).

USA Swimming is concerned that the membership cards are not being distributed to the athletes by the teams. Since the advent of SWIMS, it is no longer necessary for teams to retain the athlete cards. Requesting a membership recon, is an easy process, and will provide teams with a list of all currently registered swimmers. If a team feels that it is necessary for the team to retain a copy of the athlete cards, the team may retain a photocopy of the card for their files.

USA Swimming strongly encourages all teams to make sure all athlete membership cards are given to the swimmers.

CHILDREN'S ONLINE PRIVACY PROTECTION RULE:

USA Swimming Privacy Policy:
To clarify the issue of publishing information regarding USA Swimming members by USA Swimming and its LSCs, the Board of Directors has approved the following policy.

The following information, and only the following information, shall be acceptable for publication in any form, including but not limited to the World Wide Web, regarding any USA Swimming member without the express written authorization from the athlete, if of majority age; the athlete's parent/guardian, if a minor; or a non-athlete member:

USA Swimming membership numbers may not under any circumstance be published together with the name of the member or in a series of reports that when taken together will reveal the name and membership number of the member.

The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act was passed April 21, 2000 and applies to the online collection of personal information from children under 13. If you operate a commercial or general audience Web site and have actual knowledge that you are collecting personal information from children, you must comply with this act. Since you actually never know, who might be inputting information (child or parent), USA Swimming recommends that you do not do the following:

• Do not request the following information on line: Full Name, e-mail address, screen name, physical address, phone number, social security number, etc. Instead, give your phone number so that they may contact you for more information.
• Do not have bulletin boards, chat rooms or team on-line blogs associated with your website. In such forums, people often give out personal information, which could end up making you liable.
• Do not post anything on your website containing identifiable information. Newsletters, other than general content, are best sent out to a mailing list maintained separate from your website.
• Teams must have written consent to publish a child's name and picture on the internet. If you publish pictures, do not put the child's full name with the picture.
• Do not put Happy Birthday's on the website or in newsletters, unless the site is password protected.
• If your team conducts on-line team registration, since this is requesting the collection of personal information, the team should mail a COPA notice for a parent's signature.

All clubs need to review their publications and website to determine if there is any information published therein which is not permitted pursuant to this policy, such as a member's address, telephone number, birth date or USA Swimming ID number. If prohibited information is published, the club needs to take steps to remove the information immediately.

SWIMS and TIMES:
SWIMS and TIMES workshops, dealt with actual hands on usage of two programs, the actual process details being of little interest to non-users. A demo was presented on how Autosweep works on the internal side of SWIMS to provide additional report options

Available Reports:

• Top 16 Reports for all athletes nationwide and LSC specific.
• LSC "Top Times" list
• Athlete Time Reports to verify existence of times.
• Meet Reports to verify specific times were included in a meet or to review meet times for an event.
• Event Reports to identify unique qualifiers for a standard to use for athlete rankings.
• IMXtreme Reports to determine athlete IMX rankings within the LSC, Zone, or Nation.
• VCC Club Score Reports to show club rankings nationally and within the LSC
• Meet Statistics Reports to research the number of individual and relay swims in a meet.
• Club Rosters
• Count of Members to generate total number of members.
• Count Across Sex Report to show the total number of male, female, and unknown gender members within the LSC on an annual registration basis.
• Count Across Disability Report to show how many members it has with each of the tracked disabilities within the LSC.
• Count Across Ethnicity Report to show how many members of each ethnicity are in the LSC.
• Count Across Outreach Report to show the number of outreach athletes and year-round athletes within the LSC.
• Registration Reconciliation Report to identify unregistered swimmers and swimmers with USA ID errors. (To request this report, teams need to export a Registration Reconciliation zip file and e-mail it to the South Texas Office. To create this file in Team Manager: Click on File then Export / Registration Reconciliation and TM will export the file.) The file will be compared with the SWIMS database and a Registration Reconciliation Report will be generated.

Summary of New USA Swimming Records

• World Records - 20
• American Records - 45
• U. S. Open Records - 20
• NAG Records
  • SCY - 34 Individual Records; 18 Relay Records
  • LCM - 33 Individual Records; 19 Relay Records
• All Star Relay Records
  • 14 Short and Long Course Relay Records broken
  • 33 Short and Long Course relays better than NAG Record times

Scholastic All America

• 947 successful applicants
• 576 women; 263 men
• 71 % of applicants achieved a 4.0 GPA (weighted)

These numbers are down 25% from last year due to the implementation of the 2000 Junior National Time Standards as a required standard. The Junior National Time Standard is being used rather than the previous requirement of swimming in a sectional meet to create a more representative team of All American status. This year there were many more YMCA swimming applicants. These athletes did not likely participate in sectional meets due to conflicts with YMCA championship level competitions.

Age Group Recognition Program

• For 2008-09 age 18 will be added as a single age group to reflect the same opportunity provided in the relay recognition.
• Certificates will be provided to all athletes ages 11-14 and for 11-12 and 13-14 relay teams. Listing on the web site will be for all age levels.
• Lists to be published in SWIMS in 2009 according to the publisher's criteria.

Disability Swimmer Recognition

• The Tunes & Recognition Committee will implement a quarterly recognition program for USA Swimming members who are disabled swimmers.

ON LINE MEET ENTRIES:
This seminar reviewed steps for setting up on-line meet entry enhancements. Previously there was an application fee required from the host tem to use the on-line meet entry system (OME). The application fee has been replaced by an increased credit card transaction free of 4.5%.

AMENDMENTS TO 2008 USA SWIMMING RULES & REGULATIONS:
Actions by the USA Swimming House of Delegates September 27, 2008 Here is a link for reviewing all of the actions: http://www.usaswimming.org/USASWeb/_Rainbow/Documents/83dd1a3d-f8ed-49c3-b215-5a1ac3d898fa/2008%20Legislation%20Passed.pdf