Minutes of the Full Officials Committee 29Th September 2016 - FINAL

Minutes of the Full Officials Committee 29th September 2016 - FINAL

1 Members present

Jeff Marsden JM Secretary

John Elward JE Chairman / South Rep

Tom Marley TM Education & Training

David Jessett DJ Field Rep

Linda Cushing MW East Rep

Sue Hooper SH Starter/Marksmen Rep

Lynette Harries LH General Council Rep

Brian Alvey BA Timekeeper Rep

Olive Dobson OD Race Walking Rep

Alan Currie AC Track Rep

Tom Marley was welcomed to the meeting as the Welsh Athletics Education and Training representative

2 Apologies for absence

Marian Williams

3 Minutes of the last meeting

The minutes of the previous meeting held on 7th April 2016 were accepted.

4 Matters arising

There were no matters arising

5 Education matters

TM gave a quick update of education matters.

Since January there have been 37 courses:

3 Assistant Officials

10 Endurance

24 Track & Field

A total of 132 Unique Officials

A total of 23 Officials have been upgraded

Since April:

2 Assistant Officials

2 Endurance

14 Track & Field

A total of 78 Unique Officials

TM is currently setting up courses following the Officials Strategy. He will be going out to clubs and seek their requirements.

Planned Courses

A level 1 Track Judges and Health & Safety course will be held in Colwyn Bay on 22nd October 2016.

The following courses are not yet confirmed:

2 Health & Safety Courses – 1 for RVAC and 1 for Cardiff

Field Judge course in West Wales

Track Judges Course in West Wales

Timekeeping Course in Newport has been postponed

Endurance and Risk Awareness Course in West Wales in November

The Officials Conference will be held on 7th January 2017

6 Officials Development & Mentoring

LH gave an update on the Mentoring Scheme, the main points were:

· Pilot has now finished

· 2nd phase underway

· Looking to roll out to new recruits and 3s looking for advancement

· Regions need to get involved to identify those need Mentoring, including new officials

· Someone is needed to drive it forward

Thanks were expressed to LH for all her efforts. It was greed to decide who would drive it forward at the next meeting which will be after the AGM.

7 Meeting Updates

Track & Field Committee & General Council

JE gave a quick resume of the latest Meetings; his notes are at Annex A:

Full minutes can be found on the Welsh Athletics website at: http://www.welshathletics.org/about-us/our-structure/meeting-minutes-and-committees.aspx

8 Correspondence

1. A request had been received from Malcolm Rogers for nominations for younger officials to assist at the IAAF 2017 World Championships, criteria being up and coming officials with potential. It was agreed 3 Welsh Officials should be nominated.

2. JM said he’d received a letter of complaint from an official who was Field Referee at a Junior League event. The compliant was about in-experienced officials and helpers deliberately ignoring her instructions.

It was mentioned another Field Official had also written a complaint to Welsh Athletics about other officials ignoring their instructions at a meeting in Newport.

James Williams was dealing with both of these complaints.

It was agreed any abuse of Officials should be reported to the Meeting Manager/ Competition Director.

TM was asked to arrange for a 15-30 minute slot in the Clubs Conference so JE could present a request for clubs to help in providing officials, and, explain when inexperienced officials are used they need to understand their roles and they need to follow the instructions of Chiefs/Referees. Action TM/JE

A letter should also be sent, by Welsh Athletics, to all clubs reminding them of the above, and, Officials should be treated with respect. Action TM

9 Inter-Regionals

Following the issue regarding Officials at this year’s Inter-Regionals it was agreed in future they should be treated the same as all other Welsh Championships and officials should be selected by this committee.

10 Development of Cardiff & Vale Teaching Staff

This item was carried over to the next meeting

11 Proposal’s from Welsh Athletics

This item was carried over to the next meeting

12 Race Walk Judges – new pathway

OD updated the committee on the new pathway for Race Walking Judges and explained Wales are at the forefront of the implementation with WA including walks in the Leagues and Olive and Martin Bell as tutors.

13 Sue & Rob Hooper – Upgrading

SH updated the meeting on her and Rob’s reports. Sue has 5 positive reports and needs 1 more before she can submit her application for Level 4.

Rob has decided to concentrate on Starter’s Assistant and has got 2 positive reports.

14 AOB

1. Congratulations was given to JM for joining the PF peer group and thanks were expressed for his efforts as the Welsh Officials Secretary

2. SH was considering taking on the role as Officials Secretary. (Post meeting – After very careful consideration and a lengthy talk with Rob she has decided not to pursue the position of Officials Secretary. Having gone through what she is already involved in with athletics and her job she feels this will be a step to much. She will continue with the Start/Marksman representative, Masters duties and officiating)

3. A new email requesting Officials to update their availability by the 15th October is to be sent out. Action JM

4. AC raised an issue with Meeting Management not realizing what Referees are responsible for, DJ explained he’d attended various meeting with James Williams to discuss Management roles and understood Rhiannon would be attending the UK Management course in November.

11 Date of Next Meeting

The next meeting will be: 03 Nov 2016

Annex A – Meeting Notes

General Council Notes.

In conjunction with 2017 Track and Field World Championships UKA are launching a legacy program for coach and official’s education, linked to schools to ensure as many schools as possible are providing athletics programs. WA will develop a program linked to UKA program.

The Coaching Conference will take place on 2nd October at the Vale Hotel. The Clubs Conference will be held on 19th November and the Officials Conference on 7th January; both will take place at the Park Inn Hotel, Cardiff.

JW suggested that there is a need to be more creative in terms of competitions as U17/U20 athletes don’t want to be at competitions for 8 hours. WA also needs to be more creative in the way youngsters are communicated with as they use social media rather than websites. It was stated that competitions are held too close together and on bank holidays have caused problems this year. Parents are frequently reluctant to transport their children to events. Both Swansea Harriers and Cardiff AC were congratulated on reaching the YDL finals this year but noted that a number of teams struggled to get U20s out. It was suggested that WA need to be more creative with timetables as officials have very lengthy days as well as athletes. Athletes appear to specialise too young today and many will only compete in one event then leave the meeting. A committee member said that in many cases it’s the parents who won’t stay at meetings, which has a knock on effect for relays.

There is a need for more female representation including; coaches, officials and all committees. It was observed that there are not many higher level women coaches or women who coach senior athletes

A grid was supplied for the attendance at Welsh Athletics events by members of the Performance Team. It was felt that more events should be compulsory for members to attend rather than optional. Should Council members suggest events that should be covered by performance team members? It was commented that the number of athletes between 17 and 20 is declining and that it had been noticed that performance staff were not in attendance at many events. It was pointed out that office based staff and network officers are at events, many as volunteers in their own time

The lack of attendance by Senior athletes at Welsh Champs was embarrassing. It was asked if they had to sign a contract. Apparently, athletes are supposed to seek permission of HOP to excuse themselves from Welsh Champs. It was suggested that some athletes may be in breach of their contracts if they had not sought exemption from the HOP. It was stated that it isn’t just elite athletes who have not attended Welsh Senior Championships, adding that many athletes are not turning up; they are not targeting the Welsh Championships as part of their programs. It was suggested that The Welsh Championships are perceived as just an ordinary competition. It was asked if the rules for competing for Wales should be revisited.

Policy for Committee Minutes

Track and Field Committee

Championship meetings:

· Senior Champs w/select U17 events – 9/10th June – Cardiff

· Junior Champs – all age groups – 19/20th August – Wrexham

· Combined Events – 24th June – Newport (potentially a two day Champs)

· Welsh Schools Champs – 1st July – venue tbc

· Inter-regional Champs – 3rd June – Brecon

Senior League

· 22/23rd April

· 20/21st May

· 25th June

· 12/13th August

Junior League

· 29/30th April

· 28/29th May

· 8/9th July

· 22/23- July

· 26/27th August– Cup/plate final

· 9/10th Sept – Gerald Codd / Les Davies

The Senior champs should not include U17 events; it was felt that it would be more appropriate to hold U18 events as these would not be championship events, but purely to support athletes looking for qualifying performances for the World Youth championships. The committee were unanimous in supporting this. If WA decide to go ahead with this anyway, it is crucially important that the information as to which events are involved is sent out much earlier.

It would be preferable not to hold the age group championships in August as there appeared to be no allowances for downtime with the current structure. It is often the only time parents can take their holidays.

The situation with Officials is likely to be critical next year with the number of fixtures planned.

Given the number of fixtures, the committee are extremely concerned with the pressure on athletes in their formative exam years.

3rd June is entirely unsuitable for the Inter-regional championships for the reasons given in item 2.3 above.

Celtic Games – credit should go to the organisers for a well organised meeting. There had been some very good performance from a number of athletes including 5 new CG records. The behaviour of the athletes both on and off the track had been superb. As it had been a ‘home’ fixture it had been decided to increase the size of the coaching staff team to give opportunities for coaches to gain international experience.

John Elward suggested that the Inter Regional championships need to be looked at in terms of officials as it seems to be a little confused at present. If it is a Welsh Athletics event, then should they not be sorting out officials?

Newport track has a number of major issues which make it a less than desirable host for championship meetings. Swansea is a much better option.

Concern was expressed about Wrexham track; although it was felt it had been an excellent venue when it was used for the Junior championships in 2014. It was agreed that the Junior championships should be located in North Wales.

There appeared to be a lot of dates given over to the Junior leagues, although James Williams is trying to convene a meeting of competition providers to address both the length of the day and number of competitions.

Welsh Leagues

The lack of officials has again proved problematic with some clubs not sending any officials at all and others not providing sufficient. Team management was also a similar issue for some clubs. It was pointed out that this should be part of club development, and if the situation continues it may be necessary to amend the rules of the competitions. It seems that the problem is across the board and not just restricted to field judges.

The system used to allocate starters and marksmen to the various meetings works very well, but given the lack of officials both on the track and in timekeeping, it was suggested that this may also be a good way of ensuring that meetings have chiefs in those disciplines too. John agreed to take this back to Officials Committee to see if this was a possibility.

There is clearly a problem so it was suggested that this is an issue that should also be referred to the board, and presumably James will need to discuss this with the competition providers when he has sorted out a suitable date with them both.