Minutes, November 5, 2018
AGM
Canadian University Rowing Association
Monday November 5, 2018
St. Catharines, Ontario
Minutes
1) President Welcome and Introductions
2) Approval of the Agenda
3) Approval of the Minutes of the Previous Meeting
4) Business Arising from the AGM Minutes –15min
5) Correspondence
6) Executive Reports--25 min
a) President’s Report – C. Pond
We have been moving through this with the mind to move forward through constitutional and rules reviews and have achieved an amount of success. Next
Acknowledge Pete Somerwil for being on the board for 9 years/10 years and all of his committtment to this organization.
USPORT DISCUSSION
JK. USPORT relationship is finalizing their framework. It will stream how they manage championships, eligibility. Core sports are NSO championships hosting model. Rowing will fit into the invitational category – there may be some structure around eligibility, hosting and some social media. They are about a year away from that, that would put us at 2020 as part of the intake process.
AS. Would it be beneficial if the PSO were more involved?
JK. The NSO would be the only one that could be involved.
MP. What would be the impediments to going down this path.
JK. Once USPORT goes through with the framework, how rowing fits into that, what RCA is planning and where CURA fits in.
MP. Do we have an advocate in this? AD’s.
CP. Adam Parfit is working on this and looking at what RCA is prepared to bring to the table.
ML. Are there concerns about the direction of going into USPORT
JK. There are rules in USPORT that would impact rowing as it will impose a bit of a rigid framework. USPORT is showing some flexibility in eligibility and/or age. There is also a potential impact on campuses on how programs are designated. Certain schools who cannot meet the criterion of USPORT might step away from our sport. If the school puts up their hand and declares for rowing for 2019 there will be a requirement that the school signs off on this
b) VP Eligibility– K. Edwards
We have had a good process and while things are headed in the right direction it would be good to automate them. There are still individuals
Is the deadline too early? What is the bottleneck
DL. There is a lot of work that goes into it. There was discussion regarding Regatta Central.
AVS. Regatta Central will not be able to service our needs, Regatta Data might be the solution and we can discuss with R. Curry to see if this can be a solution to import from webreg.
AS. Can we have an interim solution with google documents?
DL. We would need to have a few fields to clarify and we will sor this out.
i) Presentation on how motions move through the system
A powerpoint will be available to the membership that will walk through the various processes of the organization.
Ro
September 1stand December 1stfor proposals to be due.
Sub committee reports due Oct 8/Jan 8
Secretary forwards reports to membership Oct 15/Jan 15
*reminders need to be sent out in timely ways
c) VP CURC-D. Bechard
CURCs 2018 -thank you to Peter Somerwil
CURCs 2019- UVIC and that seems to be going well
CURCs 2020- Letter of proposal needs to be sent out well in advance
*there is a hosting requirements document – bids will need to submit applications and it can go to competition.
St. FX and McGill are both looking to host 2020 and making this decision in January would empower hosts to be effective in hosting roles. Mc Gill will need to submit a bid
AVS - Moved that decision that we vote on the 2020 hosting bid in January.
ML. Seconded
AS. McGill is considered central
PS. Every 5thyear is open to other, if no one goes to Other, if nobody bids it goes to central. McGill would be a central and logical conclusion.
DB. It is a great observation that it is exposure for our sport and covering the East Coast.
KE.
Carried.
DL. Is this the appropriate time to have a discussion around a standing regatta committee
CP. There was discussion at the Executive that there are people that would break out and do peripheral things that can be farmed out.
AS. We need to have a discussion about increasing fees or building a committee.
CP. I’ve been tasked with bringing in the PSO to help run the regatta.
MP. What would the PSO take care of and what would that cost
PS. Wondering why we had a close to a 20% drop from 2 years ago. Feel that the cost is an impact.
The fewer people you have the more expensive it gets. What is RCA spending on this event?
There is a tremendous amount of money being spent without a direct impact on the athletes.
Action: We need to ask this question of an audit of the umpires ourselves at the AGM- new president
ML. Could we look at why numbers were down this year?
DB. There were a lot of shifts in major personelle in schools and that has impacted the ability for schools
McMaster – McMaster dropped fees and membership doubled – it is a very cost driven thing.
KE. Inconsistency is not only from personelle, Some schools did not commit to attending. It is a combination of growth of the sport that is happening.
ML. The fact that there are only four schools that sent complete tams is a concern.
FISU – Want to thank Rick Crawley, Aalbert Van Schothorst and Mark for their work as well as hosting.
It is a program that depends on the hospitality of the school as well as the generosity. Last year we attempted an eight project as winner of CURCs but there were no UVIC membership. RCA did an incredible job of supporting the project including travel, accommodation, host preparation,
USPORTS provide the liaison between CURA and FISU. Lack of a CURA voice during selection, feeling excluded from the selection procedures, organizing around accommodation was challenging that was an outstanding bill to pay upon arrival and equipment. Shows a great link that is possible between NSO, CURA and USPORT. Would like to step back and pass it over to someone else moving forward.
MP. Costs on all of these things were expensive and that needs to be taken into consideration.
AVS has volunteered moving forward.
d) Secretary/Treasurer Report – A. Van Schothorst
Pleased with the progress of the organization in Playing Regs and Constitution.
Next steps include
- Simplified annual calendar
- Structure around
e) Past President Report- P. Somerwil
J_McMaster - Regatta Central is creating enough problems that the collateral damage is big enough to have a voting block to dump regatta central.
7) Regional Updates
i) Atlantic – Regional Championship Date/Location – K. Edwards
UNB, Dal UFX – Dal won women’s banner and ST FX the men’s banner
Consistency in the coaching is impacting results.
ii) Central – Regional Championship Date/Location – P. Somerwil
Stable in ON- 13 schools, numbers are consistent – predicted severe weather on Sat. Collapsed regatta into one day.
Novice and JV events with fastest time out of heats. Results were accurate. Western won both banners.
iii) Prairies – Regional Championship Date/Location –M.Laidlaw
Hosted in Leduc as a test to propose as an other location for CURCs. Weather is a coin flip. Day of racing was 0 to minus 2, then next two days were 20degrees. Would not feel confident in committing the venue to a CURCs bid.
Club benefited from the event by purchasing starting platforms. Overall Uvic UBC Regina, Sask, FV.
UBC won both banners. Consistently 20 minutes behind all day.
Coaches meeting for the first time the night before to discuss the future of the event. Have slated a meeting at the January Conference.
iv) Coastal – Regional Championship Date/Location – M. Pearce
N/A
8) Committee Reports -20 minutes
i) Constitution – P. Somerwil (board liason)M. Waddell, Swede Burak
(1) Housekeeping issues
(2) Non Confrontational
(3) Complete constitutional voting
(4) Put forward a permanent motion that we have a bi annual voting meetings
(5) Put forward a motion for the permissibility of teleconferencing
ii) Rules and Regulations - P. Somerwil (board liaison) A. Schweinbenz, G. Parks, C. Love
Motion for Capsize Rules and Procedures
Moved AS
Seconded MW
Carried
iii) Nominations P. Somerwil- Jake
(1) President – nominations: Katie Edwards
(2) Secretary – nominations Katie (Queens)
iv) Eligibility –,D. Legere, P. Hedrei. R. OUIT
Katie needs to step down as
Nominations- D. Legere
Motion to suspend the constitution to deal with housekeeping non-controversial.
P. Somerwil Moved
M. Laidlaw Seconded
Carried
Motion to deal with House Keeping non-controversial
MW moved
PS Seconded
Carried.
TOR motion that constitutional committee they be part of the constitutional document
M. Waddell moved
P. Somerwil
Discussion:
KE add an appeals committee in a floating bubble
Carried
Motion that semi annual general meetings become permanent.
MW moved
K.E. Seconded
AS. in our approved rules and regulations needs to amend the language that moves the language in the Playing Regulations as well and that is a notice of motion in January.
Carried
Motion for Teleconferencing
MW
MWilliams
Carried
9) New Business
a) Safety/Regatta Sanction/Regatta Central impact on hosting
PS. One of the issues that we ran into this year is who is in charge of the regatta.
Building this out internal to the organization doing the exact same from year to year.
Need clarification on where the boundaries on where the umpires and LOC devide
KE. A committee that has a level of expertise.
CP. That makes a lot of sense to get it into a committee with skills with key people on board with more communication can hit it out of the park. That committee would sit under VP CURC.
PS. I very much like that this committee sits within our organization and is consistent. With Row Ontario, there was people that changed every year, and the OUA it has changed as well. Pay scales are entry level with low pay scales.
DB. I think this is a bad idea.
Pilot. Allison and Garrah as part of the committee Liz to see if they are willing.
- Sanction
- Sponsorship- Jennifer Fitzpatrick, Liz Pons
- Entries
- CU
b) Review RCA membership structure impact on University and Novice rowing
i) Novice
ii) Varsity
iii) Club
iv) Alumni Performance
v) Alumni Participant
Province to province membership, and international membership
c) RCA website redesign – update Uni rowing page
Elections
Katie Edwards – President
Dave Legere – Eligibility
Katie Breuggeling – Secretary
10) Adjournment