Thursday, April 30, 2015

Recertification Required for all Officials Positions

Every three years, AMS Officials must recertify for the officials positions that they hold. Our current certifications expire at December 31, 2015. The new online tests, based upon the 2015 Rule Book, will be available on the USA Swimming website after May 1, 2015.

If an official certified/recertified for a particular position(s) during 2015, their certification will be automatically renewed to December 31, 2018. Any certification/recertification completed prior to 2015 requires recertification during 2015 in order to extend the expiration to 12/31/18.

In order to recertify, officials at these highest levels of certification must complete the following online tests before 12/31/15...

Referee - A Referee must take the Referee, Starter, and Administrative Official recertification tests. This will also recertify them at the Chief Judge and Stroke & Turn levels. In lieu of the Admin Official test, the Referee can alternatively take the Administrative Referee test.

Starter - A Starter must take the Starter, Timing Judge and Stroke & Turn/Timer tests. In lieu of the Stroke & Turn/Timer test, the Starter can take the Referee recertification test to recertify for both Chief Judge and Stroke & Turn.

Chief Judge - A Chief Judge must take the Referee recertification test. This will also recertify them at the Stroke & Turn level.

Administrative Official - An Admin Official must take the Admin Official recertification test.

Stroke & Turn - A Stroke & Turn official must take the Stroke & Turn/Timer test.

As indicated above, you have until 12/31/2015 to complete the required tests in order to extend your certifications for three years. Should you have any questions, please contact Bob Mermelstein at bob.mermelstein@gmail.com.

Wednesday, April 29, 2015

AMS Officials Rosters Updated

As of 4/29/15, the AMS Officials rosters have been updated and can be found on the AMS Officials website. Having accurate information about our officials is very important to our meet host clubs in communicating with us about their upcoming meets.

Please verify that your certifications are correct and contact Bob Mermelstein at bob.mermelstein@gmail.com if there are issues.

http://www.amswim-officials.org/TabGeneric.jsp?_tabid_=103253&team=lscamso

Look for new information tomorrow about officials recertification requirements. Yes, it's been three years!

Sunday, April 19, 2015

Donna Beyerl Named Jamy Pfister Official of the Year

Our first ever "Jamy Pfister Official of the Year" is Donna Beyerl!

Donna has been an AMS Official for a long time and has worked more sessions than any other official this year. In fact, she worked 20 meets and 70 sessions during the 2014/2015 Short Course season alone! She has mentored/trained many of our officials, is an active member of the AMS Officials Committee and is very deserving of being named the very first awardee.

The Jamy Pfister Official of the Year award was named to honor our very own Jamy Pfister who devoted over 40 years as a swim official. Jamy has mentored many of us in AMS and around the nation over the years and has left her indelible mark on USA Swimming, both regionally and nationally. 

Donna received her award at the AMS Officiathon held on Saturday, April 18, 2015.

Congratulations Donna!

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

New and Improved AMS Officials Sign Up for LC Meets

As a result of discussions at our Referee Roundtable last night, we've modified the AMS Officials sign up to allow for better management of the meets and our volunteer officials who have signed up to work these meets.

We are now using Volunteer Spot for meet session sign ups. Each meet for the upcoming LC season is listed (except Junior Olympics, which will be posted once we see the meet structure). Please use this link to sign up for all meet sessions you can work.

http://vols.pt/jN3CL9

Please pay special attention to the meets during the weekend of July 10-12. Due to venue scheduling issues, we have three meets scheduled for that weekend. As we know, having multiple meets on a weekend during LC is a challenge and having three meets is extreme. It is important that we are sure that we have adequate coverage for these meets as soon as possible. We know it's not Pittsburgh fashionable to sign up for anything this early, but we really need to know that we can pull this off...especially for the Referee, Starter and Administrative Official positions.

As always, your time and dedication to the sport of swimming is greatly appreciated. Should you have any questions, please contact Bob Mermelstein at bob.mermelstein@gmail.com.

See ya on deck!

Thursday, April 2, 2015

LSC Officials Chairs Quarterly Conference Call

Every quarter, Officials Chairs from around the country get together via conference call to discuss the goings on around the country related to USA Swimming officials and officiating. On April 1, we had our latest call. Here are the highlights of the call...

Jay Thomas, Chair of the USAS Rules & Regulations Committee discussed briefly the new guidelines that I forwarded you a few days ago about deck changing and our recommended approach to dealing with it. He reiterated that our first responsibility was to watch the pool. He commented that if we do see a swimmer changing on deck, make a note of the swimmer/team and inform the Meet Director and/or Referee of the situation and they will follow up with the team's coach. He suggested that it probably wasn't a good idea to approach the swimmer while s/he is changing as we certainly wouldn't want to leave the impression that we're watching them change! Makes sense. It's not an area of major focus here in AMS but, with LC upon us, if it's going to happen, this is when it will happen.

Jay also mentioned that he attended the national meeting of the NFHS and indicated that there didn't appear to be any rule changes at the High School level to be concerned about.

Upcoming rules to be addressed this year involve the Board of Review/Code of Conduct, governance, eliminating timing corrections from the timing section of the rules (we'll have to wait to see what this is), trans gender athletes and the 120-day rule (when a swimmer changes club affiliation). More to come as these play out.

A reminder that the online tests administered by USAS will be down for updating at close of business on April 15 and will not be back online until May 1. If you or anyone from your club has already downloaded a test, you must complete it by April 15 or it will expire. The new tests will be updated for the 2015 Rule Book. Also, the new tests will be 1 part tests now and not 2 part tests and apparently there will be hints as to where to find the appropriate rule being covered by a question. 

Bob Griffiths indicated that Deck Pass is currently being updated to include both LSC and National level certifications.

If anyone is interested in Open Water officiating, there will be an Open Water Clinic being offered at the 2015 Open Water National Championships being held 4/24 and 4/26 in Miromar Lake, FL. 

There will be more opportunities for our LSC officials who are interested in working on a national deck. In late July, Junior Nationals (San Antonio, July 30 - August 3) and the new Futures Championships (Greesnboro, NC, Gresham, OR, West Lafayette, July 30 - August 2) are being held at the same time. As they'll need many more officials to cover all the decks, you may have the opportunity to get out on deck at this higher level. 

That's it for now. I'll update you on these issues as more information becomes available.