8:00 p.m., August 3, 2002
Albert at Bay Hotel
Ottawa, ON
Albert Tschirhart (Chair), Roman Olszewski, Marc Christie, Joe Sax, John Metcalfe, John Craig
Denis Landry, Dave Watt (Treasurer)
Membership was discussed at some length. In general, the Board agrees that: everyone who participates in our sport at the OTFA level MUST be a member of the OTFA. The Board needs to think in terms of a non-competitive, but mandatory, OTFA fee in order to make all participants OTFA members. There are a lot of reasons for this, including the need to protect all participants through insurance.
The OTFA should make it mandatory for all new members to be recreational members until they join a club, then allow them to upgrade to full membership category. This will allow new athletes and clubs to be protected while the athlete decides which club to join and tries some out.
The OTFA should consider a new membership category - $10 for new member who wishes to try out clubs to find an interest level, or workout with clubs - a mandatory fee just to get on the track and be involved. This fee would be sent to the OTFA to cover insurance. $30 should remain as the first year introductory fee. A single standard fee for all athletes should cover the rest of the members - one fee for all.
Action: The OTFA office will do research on a revenue neutral membership, recognizing that Athletics Magazine will likely go from $12 to $14 in 2003, there will be inflation and other costs and services should be considered. The GST should also be built into this fee. Wendy to do the research.
Albert suggests any championship contract should continue to generate revenue for the OTFA, yet continue to create revenue for the hot club as well. Albert suggests that future contracts stipulate that host organizations will get the first $2,000 of revenue from the meet, plus they will keep the gate from the meet, local sponsorship and merchandise sales provided they provide a facility up to OTFA standards and requirements. The OOC will get a 'standard per-entry fee' from the entry fee and will cover their own accommodation, food and travel costs from their share. The OTFA retains all other revenue, including the levy on each entry. Host club pays facility costs, equipment costs, bib numbers, pins, etc. as in the past.
The concept needs some review, but should form the basis of a new contractual arrangement with all host clubs.
Action: John M. will contact the OOC and see what they think of this concept. John Craig will research previous years expenses and revenue with respect to Officials funding.
This contract would apply to the Supermeet for 2003.
Covered under item above: clubs who have written in showing an interest in hosting championships in the future include: London-Western and Windsor for the Supermeet; BMJ indoors has interest from York U: Speed River and the amalgamated club (Mississauga, Saugeen, Guelph) for cross country; the amalgamated club (Mississauga, Saugeen, Guelph) for the two indoor meets - relays/allcomers, and combined events/allcomers. The OTFA office should keep the Juvenile/Senior indoor meet.
Action: The new criteria for the Supermeet should be sent out before any bid is accepted or entertained. Roman and John C. to coordinate.
Action: Roman will confirm successful bids and call for more bids for cross-country
The OTFA will host a meeting at the SuperMeet 2002 with respect to the screening initiative; we need to have this in the works by next year. Police checks for all coaches will be mandatory in 2003.
Albert suggests that he may have some interest from a National Sponsor to work with Fun in Athletics.
Action: Albert will put the interested people in touch with John C. to follow up.
Perhaps we can work with them on the provincial level to begin with, and then they can move to the national level as appropriate.
OTFA needs to make more use of the existing athlete development model, which clearly defines the specifics about participation. Perhaps the existing model should go out with membership forms for 2003 in addition to the “Where Does My Membership Fee Go”.
Action: John to action.
Bill Stephens will help define a schedule of competitions across the province for indoors, Albert will try to do the same for outdoors. This process will help coordinate a schedule so there are competitions across the province on an ongoing basis. This coordination should include dates to reduce conflicts, and an effort to ensure all events are adequately represented. One OTFA member advised that he had only had one opportunity this year to compete in the discus. A comprehensive approach needs to be developed.
Albert is also interested in developing (or looking at) the concept of qualification for OTFA Outdoor Championships, which should enhance local and regional competitions as the lead-up to the OTFAs.
Albert and Bill will try to coordinate, not just schedules, but the events as well, so that there are opportunities in ALL events for a good competition schedule leading up to championships.
Marc and Joe believe that the OTFA office needs to update the computer systems in order to make the office better at communications and to improve and make more professional our public face. Currently the office uses 486 computers, dot-matrix printers and other outdated equipment.
Phase one is new equipment, phase two would be to get lots of our old files onto a computer.
Maybe Sheridan College would be interested in office design as a class project.
Action: John Metcalfe will contact a guy at Dell to see if we can get some free estimates on new office ideas and computer systems.
Joe and Marc will consider some ideas and advise.
OTFA will ask to get Nathan Percival if he is interested in being involved in getting the clubs to make meet entries via email.
OTFA has a license to provide clubs with limited use Hy-Tek Team Manager programs so that entries can come via disk or email.
To do this, Nathan Percival may need to return the website stuff to the OTFA office in order to work more closely on this project.