I have been involved with USMS since college, when my collegiate team was cut.  I’ve created two new USMS teams, I’ve coached USMS athletes for 8 years and I’ve been involved with the Montana LMSC for several year….and I had absolutely NO idea how much work goes on “behind the scenes” in USMS-that is, until I attended convention this year!  The following is a recap of my experience as a new delegate at the USMS annual convention.

The number of delegates each LMSC gets is based upon the number of registered USMS athletes in each LMSC.  Montana only gets one delegate  (we have 280 registered members, if we get to 300 we get two), however Montana has two members who chair national committees (Donn Livoni-Long distance, Jeanne Ensign-finance).  This year, Mark Johnston was Montana’s delegate, both Donn and Jeanne attended as chairs of national committees and I was selected as an “at-large” delegate.  So Montana had more representation at this year’s convention than we normally do (as I understand it).  (for those money conscious members, the Montana LMSC is only reimbursing the convention expenses for one delegate, Mark—my expenses will be reimbursed by the Northwest Zone, and the national committee chairs get reimbursement from the national office).

I arrived in Atlanta on Wednesday afternoon.  After getting checked into my hotel room I picked up my registration packet (complete with a “help me I’m new sticker” on my name badge reserved for all new delegates).  The USMS convention is part of the United States Aquatic Sports Convention, so USA Swimming representatives were also present and attending their convention.   After a quick trip to the Atlanta Aquarium, just four blocks from our hotel, I met up with other delegates from the Northwest zone.  One of the biggest benefits of attending convention is getting to share ideas with folks in other areas.   If you want to read through any of the minutes from any of the things that occurred at convention they can all be found here.

DAY ONE

At convention the day starts out with optional swim workouts. This year workouts were from 6:00am to 7:00am. Being on east coast time this meant getting up at 5:00am when it really felt like 3:00am. There were five different coaches on deck each with a different focus for their workout. I chose the “distance” group with Coach Dean Hawks. It was awesome to swim with a group and be following the direction of a skilled coach—a treat I don’t often get as a swimmer who trains solo back home.

The first session of the house of delegates gave us a basic roadmap of the convention (which was good because our swim practice bus got caught in traffic and I missed most of the new delegate orientation). The newly hired CEO of USMS was introduced. We were also encouraged to share a link to the USMS goggle drive fundraising initiative aimed at raising enough funds to supply every swimmer participating in a grant funded Swimming Saves Lives program with a pair of goggles.  Click here to donate to the goggle drive.

Next up was a meeting for the Northwest Zone. This was a really informative meeting for me. I gained a better understanding of the purpose of this additional level of leadership contained in USMS. Each LMSC in the Northwest Zone gave annual updates and we heard about the various zone championships that were in the planning stage for 2017 (and we do still have a short course meters zone championship in November in CDA). There will also be an official’s certification course in CDA in our zone in the near-ish future. If you have any curiosity about the Northwest Zone, check out the website.

Next came the committee meetings. This was a smaller group opportunity to hear what each committee had been working on throughout the year and ask questions before any potential voting items went before the house of delegates.

My first committee meeting was the Fitness Education committee. I learned a number of surprising statistics during the “Swimming Jeopardy” portion of this meeting. I also learned that there were only 60 people in the entire membership who signed up for this year’s “check off challenge.” You can still sign up and participate until November….the swims can be done during workout…and the towels you get for signing up are pretty cool.   If you are interested in the check off challenge, here's the link.

Lunch was provided for new delegates at the “New Delegate Lunch.” This was a venue for us to try and sort through all the information we had gathered thus far…and eat pizza. 

LMSC Development was the next committee meeting I attended. This committee just revised/approved LMSC standards that are divided into mandatory and suggested standards. A survey will be sent out shortly to LMSCs to determine how many LMSCs are in compliance with the standards.

Next up for me was the Coaches committee meeting. During this meeting I was awarded my Level Four Coaching Certification. I was one of only two coaches awarded this certification this year and there are currently only 22 Level Four Certified Coaches in the US. I am immensely grateful to everyone that helped me achieve this level of certification. The coaches committee meeting also put together a National Coaching Clinic in San Mateo California in November. There is also about to be an opening for a coach to submit online workouts on the USMS page (which is an opportunity for coaches to receive a stipend to post workouts weekly). I see an incredible benefit in getting coaches as much education as possible and I will work to assist any coach in Montana wishing to obtain coaching certifications at any level. While at convention we were able to cement several coaching certification opportunities in Montana in 2017. We will have levels 1 & 2 in Bozeman on April 1, 2017 and level 3 in Missoula on August 19, 2017. Both those weekends will also include stroke clinics offered by Bill Brenner. Mark your calendars!

The day wrapped up with the second House of Delegates which included a panel of individuals running for Directors At Large. Also addressed during this session was USMS’s new strategic plan.

DAY TWO

The majority of day two was workshops.  I enjoyed workshops more than I enjoyed committee meetings.  I learned a lot of new information at the workshops.  I did start the day with one committee meeting.

The rules committee meeting had significant discussion over what timing systems were required (pad/button/stop watch) for various records.  There was also a discussion of USA/USMS dual sanctioned meets and a clarification that a “buffer” lane separating USMS athletes from USA Swimming athletes was not required.  There was also a lengthy discussion about how the rules permitted (and encouraged) creativity on the part of meet directors and that it was permissible to run a meet where the same event was ran more than once.

The first workshop I attended was titled turning resources into satisfied swimmers.  There was a big push for LMSCs to spend their money on the swimmers (some large LMSCs had as much as $300,000 just sitting in their bank accounts).  There were many great ideas here for ways to spend money on swimmers, unfortunately in Montana our LMSC account does not have an excess of funds.

Next up I attended the Adult Learn to Swim workshop which set forth a timeline for how to get a program ready for your team or workout group to run a free ALTS month of lessons to folks in the community during the month of April.    USMS has had a number of ALTS trainings for instructors nation wide and there are certified instructors in Idaho who I’m sure would be willing to come and train volunteers if any Montana groups are interested in conducting an ALTS program in April 2017.

I then attended the social media workshop which encouraged LMSCs to get information about our masters programs out on as many forums as we are able to manage (facebook, website, twitter, snapchat, instagram).  It was also stressed to have a well designed and frequently updated website for the best results.

Over the lunch hour we had a great presentation by a physician that was put on by the Sports Medicine Committee which stressed how we know that swimming is a great form of exercise but that there is very little research done on swimmers.  There is an ongoing research project this doctor is part of and he requested we pass around a survey (which once the research study is completed, the results will be shared with USMS).  Click here if you're interested in taking the survey.

At the third session of the House of Delegates we heard from the Rules Committee, the Long Distance Committee and the Legislation Committee on the items we would be voting on.

On the evening of day two delegates were able to attend the International Masters Swimming Hall Of Fame induction ceremony.  This was a very inspirational ceremony which celebrating some amazing athletes.

DAY THREE

I seemed to like each day better than the one before—or maybe I was just getting more comfortable.  Day three was mostly networking and speaking with other delegates.

I slept through swim practice on day two, so I was intent on getting up for workout on day three.  I had the honor of swimming Kerry O’Brien’s workout for Saturday’s practice (Coach Kerry is an amazing coach, who actually has a USMS coaching award named after him).  It was a mid-distance/pace focus.   It was quite different from my normal pattern of pace work, but I loved the variety.

The fourth session of the House of Delegates continued with Committee reports and there were a few hot button issues (related to various fee increases), but these items were tabled for the budget items on the agenda at the final House of Delegates session.

Committee Speed dating was next.  During this segment we had 10 minutes to visit with the chairs of the various committees to learn more about what the committees do and get answers to any delegate questions.  During this time period I visited with Open Water, Long Distance, Championships, Sports Medicine, Fitness Education, and Coaches.   Here were a few of the tidbits I learned through these quick segments:

*Open water committee developed a Safety Director Training (online) and an event director training will be the next online training developed.

*The Sports Medicine committee encouraged us to remind members that they can send in sports medicine questions that once received the committee will reach out to experts to obtain answers.  Sports medicine also has a booth in the vendor village at nationals typically.

The round table lunch was an opportunity for delegates to have discussions with other leaders who hold their same LMSC volunteer position.  As coaches chair for the Montana LMSC, I got to mingle with other coaches chairs from around the US over the lunch hour.  Having another delegate from a small LMSC in the group much of our conversation involved some suggestions from the bigger LMSCs on things we could try to both grow our LMSCs and increase the “virtual” or electronic engagement with our members (where we are pretty spread out with our membership).  Expect to see some great new things coming soon in Montana to help us connect with each other more frequently.  

The final House of Delegates session was probably the most exciting.  There were lots of things to vote on, but the items that seemed to have the most discussion were things that related to fee increases.  There was a proposed fee increase for single event fees (proposal was to increase the $15 fee to $18) which did not pass.  The remaining fee increases (annual membership fee, annual club fee, annual workout group fee, pool sanction fee, recognized event fee) all passed—most by a large majority, except the recognized event fee which only passed by 7 votes.

The weekend wrapped up with the USAS Awards banquet, this included annual awards from all aquatic sports and wrapping up an Olympic year this was pretty cool to attend.  Katie Ledecky won USA Swimming’s Athlete of the year, but unfortunately she wasn’t present to accept her award (she was off at college), but her brother accepted her award and gave a great acceptance speech. 

There are SO many ways to be involved with USMS and I would encourage you all to find some way to “give back” to the organization through volunteer work either at the local club level, the LMSC level, the zone level or even the national level.  You can really learn so much from engagement in the process that governs this sport we love.  Here is a link to application for joining a national committee, if you’re interested in getting involved at the Zone level contact Sally Dillon.  If you’re interested in getting involved at the LMSC level contact Jeanne Ensign.  I look forward to implementing some of the great ideas taken away from convention back home in Montana.