Present:		Ron Wyzynski, Bob Price, Keith Burke, Don Burroughs (arrived 8/15 9:25am), Stephen Donahue, Adam Evans, Art Faura, Michelle Fox, Tom Kohl, Al Herbert, Gary Hesse, Terry Miller, Loren Paulozzi, Patty Salvatore, Hank Trimble, Emi Vishoot (departed prior to 8/15), Bill Zehler
Not present:	Michelle Hills, Brian Hemelgarn, Nick Nystrom
Guests:	Gretchen Niebling

Administration & Governance

Election of OVR Commissioner

• Bob Price was re-elected as OVR Commissioner.
  Motion: Herbert. Second: Donahue.
  Vote: 10 for, 0 against, 1 abstained.

Legal Review

Mike Fultz (the OVR's lawyer) arrived for the next discussion.

• OVR documentation will make explicit the fact that officials are independent contractors, not employees. The OVR may need a contract with each official for each event clarifying that the official is an independent contractor. OVR could offer a generic contract for all tournament directors to use without have to create their own.
• The OVR requires a waiver signed by each member. Since the region requires the signed waiver, you have to stop them from participating if they do not submit the form. The current insurance company determines how long you need to keep the waivers.
• Mike Fultz is working on an update to the Due Process document.

Future Board Meetings

• The next BOD meeting will be Sunday, October 25th, at 10am at Westerville South HS.

CEO's Report – Ron Wyzynski, OVR CEO/Executive Director

• The region membership increased slightly from last year.
• Tournaments with an injury must have an Injury Report Form and a Medical Claim Form.
• A quantity of clubs never asked for a Certificate of Insurance from the OVR, even though it does not cost them anything to get it.
• The OVR will distribute rulebooks which will now be stable for 2 year instead of a single year. All officials will receive a rulebook and each team should receive a rulebook. All new coaches at IMPACT clinics received a rulebook.
• GCCC 2010 events:
• February 6-7 is the WinterFest
• April 17-18 is the Adults' Championships/Bid Tournament
• May 8-23 is the Girls' Championships for three weekends.
• Presidents' Cup Tournament is coordinated by Dayton Juniors VBC. The Early Bird Tournament has withdrawn from the dates. Dayton Juniors is interested in obtaining the dates from GCCC. Ron has been negotiating with the GCCC on Dayton Juniors behalf. The plan is to run the Open tournaments in Dayton. They will run the Regional Divisions in the GCCC. They hope to take everyone who would like to enter.
• The OVR rents the courts to other events. If the region rents out more than 40 courts during the year, it helps to pay the storage cost at the warehouse.
• The OVR will receive an AED.
• Adult registration will have to change next season in that players must pay before they play. There has been a 10 day grace period before they had to pay after the register. Some individuals played in a tournament but then never paid their membership dues.
• Ron is working with the Hyatt to rent more rooms and get a lower cost for the OVR GCCC events.
• The OVR is entering an agreement with Kaepa to sell their products within the region. The OVR will receive some per cent of the profit.
• The OVR will not rent any facility for any OVR sponsored regular season tournament at more than $325 per court per day. This will help the OVR to break even for OVR Sponsored Tournaments.
• The OVR is working with the photographer to get pictures up on the OVR web page.

Miscellaneous Administration

• All OVR equipment needs to be inventoried. Please send model and serial number to Bob Price.

Juniors' Volleyball

High Peformance

• HP Report was reviewed. It was noted that the HP Program is not a pipeline to USAV’s teams. So why are we funding the program? Other regions are funded by the participants and not the region. USAV has indicated that the HP Tournament is a fund raiser for the A-1 and A-2 national teams. Not as a way to find new talent to invite to those teams.
• Should the OVR fund the program for such a few OVR members? The OVR spend $22,500 for 59 OVR members. Is that a wise investment? There was an abundance of college coaches in attendance at the tournament. Terry feels the money is well spent.

Juniors' Advisory Board

• Gretchen Niebling (Lineshot VBC) has been asked to look at ideas for forming a Juniors' Advisory Board. Should be the Board be geographical or division level (National, American, Etc.) Would the JAB have to physically meet or could they discuss ideas via electronic means? Should a representative from the JAB be a paid staff position in the OVR organization? A member has already submitted a request to Bob Price to be accepted as that said position.
• A motion was made by Alan Herbert to assign Gretchen Niebling to organize a JAB. Art Faura seconded. In favor: 11. Opposed: 0.
• She is to present a plan at the October Meeting.

Boys' Volleyball – Loren Paulozzi

• Loren previously submitted a report showing the status of the season. Boys' teams increased slightly. There were 23 boys' teams at the Boys' National Championships in Atlanta. Bob will check on availability of a facility for the Boys Regional Championships on February 27-28.
• Mixed gender tournament idea was not received.
• The boys playing schedule is formulated for next year. None have been sanctioned yet so they will not be published until then.
• How can the region encourage girls clubs to offer boys teams? Maybe start with co-ed involvement.
• Girls' high school coaches helped to push the explosion of girls' junior volleyball. More boys' high school coaches need to get more involved with club volleyball.

Juniors' Rosters

• Restricting National Players to National Teams: Teams have moved players from the National teams down to their regional teams on a tournament be tournament basis. One club moved the entire roster of their National team down to their Regional team and back. Will be tabled for now and will be brought back up later.

Junior Officials' Development Program – Gary Hesse

• Only 55% of teams had both a certified scorekeeper and R2. This may be lack of data entry by club showing certified players.
• Due to the changes to the net violation and center line violation definitions for next year, Gary will require all junior R2s get recertified this year.
• Should the certified junior scorekeepers and R2s have their cards court-side?
• Should clubs be required to run a junior official clinic? Not effective for smaller clubs with minimal teams.
• Could a short 15 minute scorekeeper and R2 clinics that tournaments could provide before their event starts? Yes.
• No electronic devices (cell phones, iPods, etc.) being used by support staff members. To be discussed later.
• Gary will present a change in the time when the support officials need to be courtside.

Coaching Eduction – Don Burroughs

• USAV is developing a Code of Ethics form for all adult members associated with juniors to sign.
• All head or assistant coaches must be an adult and IMPACT certified. The region can define the age of assistant coach to include minors. The head coach would still need to be an adult. USAV may require all coaches be at least 21 at National events possibly including some qualifiers.
• OVR will offer CAP modules for coaches to maintain their certification.
• Could the OVR create a cadre of qualified coaches to be hired by a club to give a coaching clinic on various techniques? Don will look into this.
• Don would like to order coaching materials to make available clubs to assist them with improving their coaches' knowledge. He will present a list of materials at the October meeting for potential purchase in November.
• Motion passed: The OVR will purchase two laptops or tablet PCs and two projectors to be used by coaching education.
  Discussion: The cost will be about $2,400.
  Motion: Evans. Second: Trimble.
  Vote: 12 for, 0 against, 0 abstained.

Juniors' Officiating – Bill Zehler

• Bill Zehler suggests that three court juniors' tournament be allowed to hire only 4 officials rather than 5. This may already be approved. He also recommended for major events to hire 1.33 officials instead of 1.5 officials.

Special Events Coordinator – Al Herbert

• Several Regional teams asked for the opportunity to play in the OVR Bid Tournament. An option would be to offer a Play-In Tournament for a limited number of Regional Teams. The top one or two teams would be invited to participate in the Bid Tournament. No opposition.
• Club Directors' Meeting Topic: Could the OVR allow clubs to charge admission to attend their tournament? A discussion was held with no decision.
• Bill Zehler suggested that the OVR offer a 17 American, 16 American and 15 American Division for 2009-2010.
• A coach suggested that in the four court tournament that the brackets be separated into Gold-Silver-Bronze-Copper instead of eight teams to Gold. It would take one fewer match. This was for 13s and younger teams.
• Since many teams are eliminated from the high school playoffs before the championships, why can't clubs run a tryout among the players that have been eliminated? It wouldn't be fair to those players still in the playoffs because they would not be allowed to participate in the tryouts. Recommendation is to leave the tryout policy in effect.

Girls' Volleyball – Bill Zehler

• An online ASEP course was offered in addition to the class in Westerville in December. The club director must be ASEP certified.
• The OVR Girls' Championships had over 1,000 teams participate. Not a single team failed to show up to play.
• For the 2010 OVR Girls' Championships, a suggestion is to play the top 24 National teams in a National Division. Any others would drop down and play in the American Division.
• Should the OVR increase the maximum amount that a tournament can charge to $175 instead of $170? Clubs that rent facilities are being charged more for the use of those facilities.

Board Decisions Affecting Juniors' Volleyball

• Motion passed: The OVR will add 17 American, 16 American, and 15 American division to levels of girls' competition.
  Motion: Zehler. Second: Donahue.
  Vote: 12 for, 0 against, 0 abstained.
• Motion passed: The OVR will increase the maximum single day tournament entry fees by $5.
  Motion: Zehler. Second: Evans.
  Friendly amendment (Fox): "for juniors' tournaments only".
  Vote: 6 for, 6 against, 0 abstained. CEO broke tie.
• Motion passed: Regular-season, multiple-day juniors' tournaments will be allowed to increase the maximum entry fee by $5 per day of the tournament.
  
• Motion passed: The following policy will be adopted for junior warm-ups: Any support official who will be working during a match is responsible to report to the official on the court as follows: The R2 and scorekeeper shall report to the court official at the coin toss. If these two officials have not reported by the beginning of the serving team's timed warm-up, a point will be given to their next opponent. An additional point will be given for each additional minute that they have not reported. The assistant scorer, scoreboard operator, and the line judges shall report to the court official no later than the beginning of the receiving team’s timed warm-up. Failure to report to the court official by all the work crew by this time shall give up one point to their opponent. An additional point will be given for each additional minute that the work crew is incomplete. This is to be administered by the tournament director. If no additional matches are to be played in that tournament, the tournament director shall file an incident report with the OVR commissioner and a $50 fine shall be imposed.
  Motion: Trimble. Second: Miller.
  Vote: 10 for, 1 against, 1 abstained. Motion: Zehler. Second: Evans.
  Vote: 7 for, 5 against, 0 abstained.
• Motion deferred: The OVR will return to the former pre-match protocol.
  Motion: Evans. Seconded: Burke
  Discussion: Miller feels the players and coaches like it. Evans feels that the players and coaches do not like it. The motion was withdrawn until the October meeting.
• See Use of phones, musical devices and other electronic devices (excluding medical devices) is strictly prohibited by support officials [...] in Officiating and Rules, below.

Adults' Volleyball

Adults' Tournament Director – Michelle Fox

• Michelle reviewed last season. Adults' schedule for next season is to be posted by the end of this weekend. There will be several large adult tournaments throughout the season. Most of these tournaments will be in volleyball facilities and not just schools.
• Adult players must be registered paid and waiver signed before they can play. Last minute add-ons must have the paperwork handed in to the tournament host. There is a $5 per player charge for this service.
• Michelle scheduled an Adults' Forum at 1 pm on Saturday. No one sent in any ideas for discussion. No one showed up.
• Bob Price: How do we get adults to come to a meeting to get their ideas on how to grow the adult player membership? How about meetings on 1/9 and 1/17 at the Kickoff Tournament?
• The region will look for people in areas of the region to run clinics about how to run a team/club and how to play volleyball for adults. Registration for members will begin Sept. 1st.
• Is the "Team Ohio" concept causing a problem for the growth of adult playing? It was originally intended for AA only as a way to help teams pick up players for a specific tournament. Now all levels are in Team Ohio. Should there be a regional restriction like Team Southwest, Team Northeast, etc.? It is difficult to seed team in regionals because the players move all over the divisions and teams.
• Can a player be registered with a category level teams (like Women's AA, A, etc.) and with an age level teams (like Women's 45s). If so, what category level tournament must the age division team play in? Yes, Bob will work with any team to help facilitate the decision.
• Could the adult playing season start in November? Yes. Michelle will see if there is any interest. All players would have to be fully registered before they can play.
• Michelle Fox proposed a change in the adults' registration process be change to eliminate the "Team Ohio" club. AA players will be allowed to play with any combination of 6 or more players at a tournament. They may pick up non-AA players from their local geographic area. She will publish the new policy soon.

Board Decisions Affecting Adults' Volleyball

• See Use of phones, musical devices and other electronic devices (excluding medical devices) is strictly prohibited by support officials [...] in Officiating and Rules, below.

Officiating & Rules

Referees' Update – Brian Hemelgarn

• Will update the officials' handbook.
• Brian created a reciprocity agreement with Ohio High School to allow OVR officials to become high school officials by just taking a test.
• Officials' clinics for 2009-2010 are now defined. The OVR will offer an officials training camp at the WinterFest.
• Brian is recommending a tiered structure for fees for officials. In today's economy, it may not be the right time to offer a raise.

Scorekeepers' Update – Terry Miller

• Some regions are allowing the Libero to serve. Brian does not recommend this option. College and high school allow this.
• USAV recommends that all coaches be certified scorekeepers.
• Encourage recognition of outstanding scorekeepers and R2s.
• Captains now must sign scoresheets as well as R1.

Board Decisions Affecting Officiating

• Motion passed: The Head Referee shall be paid an additional $5 per court up to a maximum of $15 per day.
  Motion: Herbert. Second: Evans.
  Vote: 6 for, 5 against, 1 abstained.
• Motion failed: Approve the tiered structure of pay scale for officials, as described in the handout.
  Motion: Miller. Second: Trimble.
  Vote: 0 for, 11 against. 0 abstained.
• Motion failed: The pay for National officials will be raised to $180 per day.
  Motion: Miller. Second: Zehler.
  Discussion: The more experienced officials should be compensated for their years of commitment.
  Vote: 0 for, 7 against, 4 abstained.
• Motion passed: Use of phones, musical devices and other electronic devices (excluding medical devices) is strictly prohibited by support officials. If anyone from the support team is found using one of these devices, their team shall give up ten points to their next opponent. This is to be administered by the tournament director. If no additional matches are to be played in that tournament, the tournament director shall file an incident report with the OVR commissioner and a $50 fine shall be imposed.
  Motion: Trimble. Second: Miller.
  Vote: 11 for, 0 against, 0 abstained.