CalM Advisory Board Meeting Minutes
August 29, 2018
6454 Colby Street, Oakland (Pamela’s house)
(7:00pm-8:30pm)
Attending: Steve Washburn (acting Chair), Gaku Ito (Head Coach), Leo Lozano (Social), Kai Stoeckenius (Newsletter), Ben Swiggett (Meet Director); Spencer Hawkins (Cal Rec Sports Director of Aquatics), Deb Kory, Tryn Riley, Mikaela Wapman, Pamela Waxman, Kendall Young
1. Coaching coverage (Spencer/Gaku/Tryn)
Steve: frequent absence/inconsistency of coaching coverage for workouts over the summer has been a problem, and improvement in this area becomes critical now in the fall in terms of recruiting and/or retaining membership; recent email from Gaku outlining coverage for the fall was helpful, but the evening workout has been particularly affected and remains in limbo; also wondering about the status of Tryn’s hiring as Lead Assistant—when might we expect to see her in the rotation.
Spencer: [some] good news on all that: Tryn’s hire is just about finalized after an involved Cal HR process (which is involves “on-boarding” and fingerprinting and can take some time), although there is no ‘official’ Cal ‘Lead Assistant’ position; also two additional assistant coaches have been interviewed and have paperwork submitted. Both would be available for evenings, and possibly full-time for summers.
Tryn: have commitments at other programs through October, but could do either a morning or 11am workout once “on-boarded” .
Current rotation is as follows:
• Morning Gaku (M-F)
• Mid-day Gaku (MW), Ryan (TTh), Spencer (F)
• Evening ? (likely Shaun Guest once hired)
• Saturday, LCM Sunday Kendall (Saturday), Gaku (LCM Sundays)
Steve: it is important to have back-ups, because inevitably there will be times the regularly scheduled individuals will not be available; equally important is early communication when someone will miss their shift—it’s worse when it comes as a surprise on the pool deck.
Kendall: emphasize disruption caused by the lack of on-deck coaching this summer; another issue is that the $15/hr pay for assistants is inadequate to attract and retain people, and doesn’t compare with pay offered elsewhere; in-kind benefits (e.g. complementary RSF membership) might help in this regard.
Tryn: might it be possible to offer Cal physical education credits to students who join and participate in CalM.
Spencer: don’t know, but this has the potential to raise CalM profile with respect to funding.
Action items:
• Spencer will report progress on Tryn’s hire and time horizon for adding the two new assistant coaches.
• Steve will work with Advisory Board to develop a list of possible incentives for coaches
2. Equipment (Pamela)
Pamela: had previously raised issue of shortage of certain sizes of fins and paddles
Spencer: New equipment order has arrived (fins and paddles); will be distributed mostly to Golden Bear with some going to Spieker as well
Steve: Kick-boards at Spieker still lacking
Spencer: Issue noted
Action items:
• Gaku will distribute paddles and fins to GB and Spieker as needed
• Spencer will follow up on outstanding items and kick-boards.
3. Fall CalM Advisory Board elections (Steve)
Steve: last election for Advisory Board officers was October of 2016; Board officers are elected for two-year terms so new elections should take place this October; there has been considerable attrition of Board members, and at the beginning of the summer there was some discussion of streamlining the Board to fewer positions.
• Review of current Mission and Advisory Board Organization
• Proposal for October 2018
Kai: when Conny had to step down as Chair (about the same time as Tiffany resigned the Head Coach position), and the Vice-Chair was not prepared to step into position there was considerable chaos, and it was proposed to reduce the Board to just the Chair, Social Chair, Newsletter editor, Meet Director and Membership Chair positions. (This was also when the Board recruited Steve to come in as acting Chair). The idea was that a smaller core group of officers would be easier to recruit and convene.
Steve: we do have a written mission statement and a description of the (original) Board offices; we could tweak that a bit and make it available to the membership ahead of new elections this October.
Ben: a better model might be to combine a very small core group of officers composed of people with the time and motivation to meet frequently and do most of the administrative work with an expanded Board of interested individuals that meet at most quarterly but would serve to keep a broader cross-section of the team involved.
Steve: regardless of Board composition, it is essential that meetings of the officers include the Head Coach and Director of Aquatics—it’s the interaction with those individuals that gives Board members a sense of purpose and the opportunity to have an impact on the team.
Action items:
• Steve will review and edit current mission statement and Board position descriptions and distribute for comment
• Board members to provide comments/ideas to Steve.
4. Harassment prevention status update (Deb/Mikaela)
Mikaela: while overall team interaction and the atmosphere around workouts are respectful, supportive and positive, there have been instances when members have been made uncomfortable or felt unsafe due to certain behaviors. In those instances, the people affected have been unsure of what—if any—action to take, or of any recourse available to them to address their concerns. Deb and Mikaela have written and are submitting a proposal to the Advisory Board for a standing committee to create a team code-of-conduct covering interpersonal behavior including sexual harassment during workouts or other team events, and to provide a channel for swimmers to communicate violations of the code-of-conduct and determine appropriate responses.
Spencer: Cal does have already in place a process for filing incident reports of sexual harassment to an office (OPHD) set up to handle such matters.
Mikaela (and others): a primary purpose of the code-of-conduct will be to raise awareness of behaviors—even pervasive ones—that do not necessarily rise to the level of filing an sexual harassment incident report, but are nonetheless making some members uncomfortable and are outside the norms of team values and standards of appropriateness.
Steve: it could even be a matter of behaviors that are un-intentional or someone exhibiting such behaviors being unaware that they making others uncomfortable; in such cases, it would definitely be appropriate to raise awareness and advantageous for the team have a mechanism by which the Board or a standing committee could make such persons aware of the effect they are having without necessarily involving the offended party.
Action item:
• Mikaela will act as point person and recruit assistants to draw up a team code-of-conduct and proposal for a follow-up mechanism to be submitted to the Board.
5. Other issues
[Broad-ranging discussion of what might help raise salaries, e.g. growing membership and/or gaining academic status for the program allowing students to earn P.E. credits for participation. This leads to issues of updating publicity materials including most importantly the web presence of CALM, which updating is impeded by University bureaucracy.]
Action item: Steve, Kai and Tryn to follow up on ways to update web info.
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