Meeting of the Athletics Ontario Board of Directors Date: Saturday May

Meeting of the Athletics Ontario Board of Directors Date: Saturday May 12, 2012 Meeting Start time: 10:07 am Location: LOBBY BOARDROOM, 3 Concorde Gate, Toronto, ON, M3C 3N7 Minutes: Present: Bill Stephens (Chair), Harry Stantsos, John Craig (staff) , Roman Olszewski (staff) , Sue Wise (staff), Anthony Biggar (staff) , Lisa Ferdinand (Vice Chair), Stuart Smith (teleconference), Leslie Estwick (teleconference), Suzanne Leroux (10:22 am) 1. Welcome: Bill welcomed everyone and thanked them for giving up yet another Saturday morning for the sport. 2. Motion to Accept the Minutes of the February 11, 2012 Board Meeting. Stantsos and Ferdinand Carried 3. Business Arising: Roman provided an update on the application recently submitted for the inclusion of athletics in the Ontario Winter Games. We should know by June 25 as to the status of the application. We still need to know if the chosen host city will have a venue appropriate for our sport. Lisa advised that she did meet with Wendy (bookkeeper) regarding the generation of new financial reports for Board review, but that this is an ongoing process. 4. Approval of Agenda: Roman asked that ‘Policy Change Addition Proposals’ be added to the agenda. Motion to approve the agenda: Stantsos and Leroux Carried 5. Staff Health, Safety & Wellness: John provided an update on staff wellness. 6. Budget/Government Funding: John provided an overview of the 2012 Base Funding application and process, advising that, while the number of questions on the application had been reduced, the burden of proof for membership had increased and that, as a result, there would likely be a shift in funding amounts across the sports sector. He also expressed some concerns with respect to the emphasis on LTAD planning and other areas which the Ministry was championing. Given the budget that was approved at the 2011 AGM, and given some of the issues that have arisen from the Base Funding application, John predicted a significant deficit in the budget for the coming three year cycle. While Athletics Ontario has enough members equity to survive the projected deficit, there will have to be some critical reviews of ongoing budget items and expenses in an effort to better align funding amounts with program costs. 7. Officials Budget: John thanked Lisa for providing the first officials’ budget in several years. The officials’ budget had been reviewed by Wendy, Suzanne Leroux, Lisa and John and approved with respect to program expenses and reasonable costs. John noted that the officials’ budget required an increase in Association spending of about $21,000 over the previous year, which is in line with expectations. 8. Update on inclusion: John advised that a collaboration of PSOs and Disability Multi-Sport Organizations (Para-Sport Ontario, Ontario Blind Sports, Ontario Wheelchair Sports, Athletics Canada, Ontario Amputee and Les Autres Sports Association and Athletics Ontario) has been formed and was approved for a Trillium grant of $296,000 for a four year project to bring athletics for athletes with a disability into Athletics Ontario programming. The application lead is Athletics Canada. While the project is just getting started, there have been some positive meetings with respect to the next six months. John will continue to keep the Board up-to-date on significant developments. 9. Policies & Procedures Update: John provided an update on the review and redrafting of Association Policies and Procedures. The P&P manual for the conduct of provincial championships has received a thorough review with input from John and Roman, and policy with respect to the Board and the Association by-laws will continue to be re-drafted so that it is more complete and up-to-date with respect to current thinking and best practices. The target date for a review by the Board is September 2012. 10. TITFG Update: John provided an update on the status of the Toronto International Track and Field Games; there is optimism that some funding will be forthcoming from the Ontario government through their sport hosting policy. Potential corporate sponsors and partners are showing some interest in the Games, though a commitment to a partnership will not likely happen until next year. Flotrack has agreed to provide live video feeds online of all NTL events, including the Toronto competition. In the meantime, there is a possibility that a major television network will increase its commitment to our sport in the coming years and may provide some advance publicty for the NTL and the Toronto meet in particular. John also outlined that agreements are already in place for some high profile athletes who will compete in Toronto 11. Records ratification: Roman reviewed his recommendations for record ratification as presented. Suzanne asked that more Technical Committee meetings be hosted in conjunction with the Board meetings so that records and other technical concerns and issues can be discussed prior to the meeting. Roman agreed to try to schedule such meetings in the future. Motion: to adopt the new records as presented by Roman. Stantsos and Leroux Carried 12. Special Funds in Support for Ontario Athletes on Self Funded National Teams: Roman discussed his recommendations, as previously circulated, on how to provide funds for Ontario athletes on self-funded teams in a fair and reasonable manner. The Directors agreed that such funding should be determined on a calendar year basis as opposed to a fiscal year basis. Roman’s formula for funding provides no discrimination between levels of competition or age categories. John advised that current NCAA rules would disallow NCAA athletes – or those hoping to become NCAA athletes – from accepting such funding. He advised, however, that NCAA rules governing such funding were under review and may be changing. He will continue to correspond with the NCAA to make sure all Ontario athletes who wish to be part of the NCAA system are in full compliance or are aware of the rules. There was some discussion about athletes who do some fund-raising to support their participation on National teams. This issue was discusssed and there was concensus that these athletes should still be eligible for funding. The Board also agreed that funding support should go to an athlete’s club and the club would be responsible for splitting the funds between the athlete and club in accordance with the source of funding originally provided. Anthony suggested that advising athletes and clubs that some funding will be available to support athletes who make self-funded teams will be important when athletes consider whether or not they can join such teams. ACTION: Anthony will post a notice on the AO website advising that, while exact amounts cannot be determined, some funding will be available to athletes who make self-funded teams in 2012. ACTION: With more details to be worked out, Roman will circulate a final document and ask for a motion from the Board to accept the funding formula via email. 13. Co-hosting Agreement: This item was tabled indefinitely. 14. LTAD Events (600m instead of 800m for some ages): Bill proposed that we move to 600m from 800m for bantam and midget age groups. ACTION: Roman and Bill will draft a motion in support of this idea for the next Techncial Committee meeting. Bill asked if we could work with OFSAA to get them to adopt the LTAD to a greater degree. John suggested we leave this to the cuurent LTAD committee dealing with this issue and invited Bill to be part of this committee. ACTION: Bill will approach Peter Morris of OFSAA to see if Athletics Ontario can get a representative back on the OFSAA Track and Field committee. 15. High school membership: Bill wondered if Athletics Ontario could develope some sort of high school membership, suggesting as an example that we could have a $200 membership for a high school team. This would make it easier for athletes to join AO in the summer. Suzanne noted that Quebec and Manitoba offers the same type of thing - $1.00 per meet for elementary kids. In return the associations provide the meets with officials and insurance. We could consider the same approach for Universities. ACTION: Bill and Suzanne will form a sub-committee on this subject and present ideas for a new membership category for approval at next Board meeting. 16. Registration: Bill led a discussion on how we can reduce long line ups of athletes picking up bib numbers at AO Championships – especially those indoorsand especially those at the Toronto Track and Field Centre. There are several problems associated with this registration process, including paid vs not-paid registrations, the physical limitations of the facility, the number of volunteers required to manage registration, and various options on number pick up. While the problems continue, no specific resolutions were found as the solutions are unproven and complex. 17. Succession planning: Bill advised that some very real consideration must be given to planning for Board of Directors elections in both 2012 and 2013 as there will likely be some considerable turn-over in the make up of the Board. 18. AO Championships co-host funding report: Suzanne presented some figures showing revenues generated by the new championships co-hosting agreement, now in place, which will have AO paying for the venue costs from its share of the 50/50 split of meet revenues. She advised that the response from all co-hosts has been good and makes sense for a lot of reasons. 19. Enhancing AO Rankings: Bill and Suzanne discussed the reasons for having Suzanne provide separate and different ranking lists from those provided by Athletics Canada. Suzanne feels she is enhancing our rankings by including meets not included in AC rankings.

Load more