MINUTES OF HPC MEETING DECEMBER 4/5 1998

In attendance: Alain Gravel, Chairman; Arthur Nault, Disabled Archers Coordinator; Bruce Savage, High Performance Coaching Coordinator; Marthe Cusson, Athletes Representative;

Assistant: Pascal Colmaire, Technical Director.

Budget meeting: $0, i.e. all the participants attended at their own expense.

Alain thanked the participants for attending with a $0 budget for this meeting.

January ‘98 HPC minutes.

Adopted.

Reports.

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Very little money was allocated: ‘98 World Junior Championship and some operational budget (Info-Excellence, ....). HPC has a very small budget, most HPC projects have been run with $0.
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HPC structure & Operation

Marty’s term will end on August 1999. A call will be made in the February issue of Info-Excellence. Marty will write down the election process to be followed, and E-Mail it to the HPC members and the FCA office.
 
 

Excellence Program.

‘98 REVIEW

Ski-arc.

* ‘98 Results (some of them) - see attachment. Great achievements with quite few members!

* Membership - a bit low.

See above.

The ICQ meeting is scheduled on the second Monday of each month.

99/2000 BUDGET.

The HPC wish some clarification regarding the use of the Excellence membership, and the Olympic Grant. Alain will take care of this.

Talent Detection.

See above.

Recommendations to other FCA Committees.

Alain adjourned the meeting on Sunday at 12:37 p.m., he underlines the excellent job made by the committee which was able to find solution to quite old issues. The previous communication made by E-Mail has helped a lot.

Thank you Arthur for hosting the meeting.

Athur Nault:
Consernant le nombre de personne en fauteuil rouland le nombre est demeurÈ le mÍme que l'an derniÈr mais nous avons …ric Ö..qui avait dÈbutÈ l'autonne dernier qui travail au centre National cette annÈe et qui semble faire de bon progret
 

Pour se qui est du Championat Mondial de cette ÈtÈ  il est vraiment domage se qui est arriv ? Alec car sa prÈsence aurait ÈtÈ surement marquante. Je voudrais fÈlicitÈ Norbert pour son excellance performance soit une 6e place a sa premiËre participation ? une compÈtition international

A cette mÍme compÈtition j'ai agit comme DÈlÈquÈ Technique de la compÈtition et suivi un cour pour Ítre en mesure de mieux clasifiÈ les archers qui sont handicapÈ dans la bonne catÈgorie.
 

Cette hiver il devrait se tenir en Itali une clinique pour le Ski-Arc pour personne handicapÈ, cela devrait se dÈroulÈ au mois de fÈvrier. J'attend toujours des nouvelles car le prÈsident pour le Tir-? l'arc internation a eu certain problËme avec la trÈsorie de IPC mais cela est du passÈ depuis la fin de novembre, ce qui explique les dÈlais dans la prÈparation de se stage

Le prochain Championat du Monde se dÈroulera en Australi sur le site des Paralympique et comptera pour le classement des archers Èligiblent au Jeux Paralimpique de 2000

The project to do identify active Archery coaches in Canada has not progressed much this last year.  My volunteer time has been taken up with being the Team leader for the Junior World Championship in Sweden.  A very rewarding experience, but too costly from a personal perspective.
 A Database of level 3 and 4 coaches has been compiled. A few coaches responded to a questionnaire sent out with the initial letter.  The response was not large enough to come up with any indication as to the services the HPC could or should be providing to coaches.  The list of NCCP coaches is still too large - many coaches listed are no longer active.  The NCCP policy of removing names that do not file their practical hours every 2 years may make our job easier to identify the active coaches.

 One of the original reasons for wanting to create a master list of active coaches was to provide information and support for them to develop national level athletes.  At the present time the FCA cannot support this effort with funds for mailing costs.   Another reason for the project was to increase the participation of coaches as Team leaders and support staff for International Team.  With the current financial limitations, we have nothing to offer the coaches.  To be a team leader means volunteering your time and spending a lot of your own money.  Until the FCA has recovered from its financial difficulties, it may be best to put this project "on the shelf".

 The success of the FCA web page may afford an opportunity to open a "coaches corner".  A page where coaches could list email addresses and start a bulletin board form of communication.  It will only access those online, but may be a low cost way to start some dialogue.

 There has been some response to the call for support staff for the Pan Am Games.  The offer of financial assistance has certainly accounted for this response. There are 4 applicants -  David Kungel, Lisa Bertoncini, Gary Gillies and Jenn Brenner. There have been 2 volunteers for the support staff to Senior Worlds.  The applicants are Pascal Colmaire and Gary Gillies.

It is encouraging to see new faces on the list, but it poses a problem.  If the new people are not encouraged, the HPC may be seen as a "closed shop" and discourage others from applying in the future.  On the other hand, there are people on the list that have volunteered many hours and lots of money in the past that may feel taken advantage of if not selected for an event that has some money associated with it.  "Damned if we do and damned if we don't" eh!!

Bruce Savage

 I’ve been  an HPC member only since February.  I did 3 Excellence Info since then.  The fourth one is waiting since last September...

 As a communication coordinator, my duties are to produce an ExcellenceInfo every odd months. At the beginning everything was fine.  The paper was sent on time  and the archers had the information on time . I’m very disappointed that since July, the ExcellenceInfo have been sent late to the archers and I’m not talking about the last one. I always had a good collaboration from the other HPC members who had to send me some articles.  I thank them for that. The problem is with the traduction and the edition of the paper.

I know those two people work hard and are really busy.  That’s why I want to suggest two things :
1)  People who can write in French and English should send me the English and French versions of their articles.
2)  I can traduce myself the articles that are not based on laws or selection criterias.  Alain will only have to make sure the English writing is OK.  I don’t have problem to translate English articles in French, so it will be faster if I do it by myself.

What I’ll be really strict about is that I want to review all the articles before sending them to the FCA office.  I’ve seen some mistakes in the ExcellenceInfo received by mail, but strangely, those mistakes were not on my ExcellenceInfo version... I care about the archers and I care even more about writing in a proper way.  Teachers hate to see mistakes on a sheet of paper...

However, I want to say that I really appreciate working with the other HPC members and I think that we make a good team with good people who want to help our sport.
 
 

Caroline Labrecque
HPC member

1998 seems to have been rather a complicated year as far as the equipment program went.  I think the only part of it that went fairly well was the part that dealt with equipment other than arrows and bows.

I think the arrows and bow programs need a thorough review.

Arrows
I recommend the arrow program be limited to those who are on the ranking list in the outdoor target categories.  They should be given out automatically to the top ranked archers based on the final ranking list for the year.  Since there are 16 dozen arrows, the top 4 ranked archers in each of the Ladies Olympic, Men Olympic, Ladies Compound and Men Compound category will receive arrows.  They should not have to apply for them.
If an archer refuses arrows, then they are offered to the next highest ranked archer in the same equipment category.  Only archers Red Squad and above are eligible.

Bows
I recommend that the bow program be limited to those who are on the ranking list in the outdoor target categories and given automatically to the top ranked archers based on the final ranking list for the year.  Using the Olympic category as an example, in 1999, 2 bows will go to the Ladies Olympic category and 1 to the Men’s Olympic category.  If a bow is refused, it is offered to the next person on the ranking list in the same category.  No one below Red Squad will be offered bows.  If there are bows remaining and no archers in a category, the bow will be offered to the next ranked archer in the other category.   In 2000, this will reverse, with 2 bows being offered to the Men’s Olympic category and 1 to the Ladies Olympic category.

The bow must be used as either primary or backup equipment.  When the equipment is offered, it will be stressed that if the archer already has two bows and they want a third, that he / she will have to justify to the Athlete Services Manager why they need that bow.  The decision on whether they get a third bow will be made by the High Performance Committee.

All people receiving bows will be asked to sign a document stating that the bow belongs to the FCA and is not being used, it will be returned to the FCA for redistribution.  After 2 years, the bow becomes the property of the archer.

Before any equipment is offered, a list of who it will be offered to will be submitted to the High Performance Committee for approval.   All offers of equipment will be made in writing and if it is declined, the archer will be requested to put that in writing too.  After the equipment has been distributed, a list of who received the equipment and who declined the equipment will also be submitted to the High Performance Committee.

Other Equipment
Each InfoExcellence should list what equipment is available.  It will be given out on a first come/first served basis to those that apply for it.  A list of this equipment and who it was given to should be sent quarterly to the Athlete Services Manager.  All Gold, Red and Blue squad members are eligible for this equipment.

1998 - Team Selection
Championships of the America - Havana, Cuba
Athletes were selected according to our criteria.  Those at the top of the ranking list were chosen first - if they could not attend, the next person was selected until there were no more Red Squad athletes.

There were no difficulties with this process - except that it was not started soon enough.  All eligible athletes should have been asked for their intentions rather than going down the list one by one - which took far too long.

Junior World Championship
There were several problems with Team Selection for this team.
1. There were quite a few juniors that did not know what the process was and were not members of Excellence and thus ineligible.

 Reommendation:
(a) Team selection criteria should appear in every InfoExcellence
(b) Criteria and short description should be posted on the FCA Webb page
(c) Criteria and short description should be sent to every province with a request to publish in provincial newsletters.

2. There was a request to change the criteria for selecting the team after the closing date for Team Selection.  After considerable discussion amongst the HPC by email, a decision was made not to modify the criteria at such a late date.

Recommendation
Please see item ( ? ) below

1998 World Field Championships
There was no interest in this tournament and Canada did not send anyone.

The Ranking List
An Access97 database was created to better manage the ranking list.  This slowed down the regular production of the list during the summer, but since it was completed, it has improved it’s accuracy as well as dramatically reducing the amount of time taken to enter scores.

Every score received for every archer is entered into the database, regardless of whether they are members of Excellence or not.  As well, the database contains every archers address, phone number, email address, coach, and date of birth (if we have received this information).  When the ranking list is printed, of course, only those who are members of Excellence are shown.

An initial attempt has been made to put this list on the webb site.  I don’t think this has been successful.  The method used was too time consuming for the Webbmaster and I am not satisfied with the format.  This will receive more work over the winter ? with the goal being for me to enter new scores in the database and have them up on Webb site with no more than an hour’s work by me and the Webbmaster.

The creation of the database has pointed out several potential problems with the ranking list.   For instance, suppose a junior is Junior Gold Squad (average has a major event) and is ranked 10th overall.  However, if the average is calculated without the major event, this archer could be Senior Red Squad and ranked 6th overall.  This discrepancy could make a difference in team selection and whether he/she receives equipment.
 

I think it is time to make some changes to the Ranking procedure and made the following suggestions for discussion by the HPC:

(a) Senior vs Junior Categories
(i) Change the age for Juniors from 21 to 18.  The age of 21 was selected many years ago for 2 reasons ? first, it was the Canada Summer Games age and secondly we seemed to loose most archers between 18 and 21 perhaps because they could not be competitive with those over 21.

There are no more Canada Summer Games for archery.  We don’t seem to have a problem with 18  21 year olds ? they are pretty competitive with the seniors.  As well, 18 is the FITA age for juniors and for the FCA for everything except the ranking list.  This would make the ranking list more consistent with the rest of archery.   I realize that there will be a Canada Winter Games in the future, but it would probably be less confusing to have that one exception.

(ii) Remove the junior category completely and rank all archers together.  If this is the choice, we might consider lowering the blue squad average.

(iii) About 5 or 6 Cubs and Cadets have joined Excellence over the summer, expecting their scores (shot at cub and cadets distances) to be displayed on the ranking list.  Some time ago we had a category call Excellence 2000 for those shooting short FITA’s.  Should such a category be re-instated?  If so, for what distances?  It should be the job of the provinces to rank archers at this level, but the provinces don’t do it, should we?

(b) Squad Averages
(i) Compound averages were estimated last year for the change to no inner 10.  I think the Gold squad averages are too low and need adjustment.
(ii) I would like some discussion on the senior Gold squad averages.  When do we stop raising them?  In the senior categores, would we be better off if we did not raise the average every year, but did it every second year and try to build a larger pool of people who could make the average?  Would this help to encourage people to strive for that score?   I recognize that our Gold Squad averages are not even close to world class scores, but do we need to build a volume of archers at that level and then try and raise the level?

Team Selection ? 1999 and Beyond
There is clearly a problem with team selection for the Olympic category for The World Championships and PanAm Games.  There are no men in Gold Squad and only 3 women.  Our criteria state that team members must be Gold Squad.  If we do not send Olympic archers to the World Championships, we cannot earn medals and spots for Canada at the 2000 Olympic Games.  Since this is the only category and can get our funding restored, it is shooting ourselves in the foot not to send them.

If we change the criteria at this late date, the change cannot affect the three women or the compound archers who have already met the announced criteria.
 
 

I have two options that we can discuss to solve this problem.   But, I am out of time to do it in this report and will describe them to you at our meeting.

Thanks for your understanding.

Joan

                       ATHLETE  REPRESENTATIVE REPORT

As all the previous years this has been a very active year.  As an athlete’s rep. I attended several meetings such as COA congress, Athlete’s Can Forum held in Vancouver this passed October.  I  am receiving the weeklly news bulletin from CNMM which I must return by fax to the athlete’s representative to the center since he does not have e-mail.  Maybe HPC should ask the athlete’s representative at CNMM  for a report, since his position had to be approved by HPC Chairman.

I had many meetings with the athlete’s group, among those there was one at the Arizona Cup, where the athletes express their displeasure and grievance regarding equipment allocation, and their expectations from a Team Leader.  They brought forward solutions to these problems, which in turn I brought to the HPC meetings on ICQ.  As for the equipment matter everything has been said! ! ! One must understand that I am merely bringing forward the athlete’s opinon and suggesstions.

Among other meetings there was the National Championship, where there were discussions regarding the Canadian Championship format.  I went around talking to as many athletes and members of FCA as I could from all the Provinces present, asking them to send me their suggestions regarding this matter.  I received only ONE answer and suggestions from Andrew Webber.  One must wonder are the athletes really interested?

During this mandate I participated to many ICQ meetings during which many subjects were discusted. Also as a National athlete’s rep. I liaised a lot with the Provincial Federations.

But now you see the time has come where I beleive I have done more than my share. I was told at one time I had done and was doing a lot of good for Archery, and I beleive I did, and I still do.  I have always been truthful to my organization, and I will remain so!  There is a time where one must step out before it is to late.  I beleive I might have reached this point.  This is going to be my last mandate, unless there is none else to asssume this position.  I will stay on to the end of my term, which will end in July or August whenever the Canadian Championship is held.

But let me make some suggestions:  first of all this position consist of three positions in one and even more.  By saying three position, I beleive it should be held by two or three persons.  First of all the Athele’s rep. at HPC has to be voted in by athletes, and this person has to attend HPC meeting on ICQ, FCA bord meetings and yearly HPC meetings plus reports.  Also has to attend COA Congress which is three days including traveling plus a report has to be turn in.  The Athlete’s Can Forum, which also is two to three days plus a report afterward.  These two latter do not have to be the official athlete’s rep. it could be someone else appointed as a replacement or alternate to the Athlete’s rep. and could even be a different person at each meetings.  As long as we have an Athlete’s rep. voted in by the athletes and sit on the FCA board as a voting member of this board; COA, Sport Canada and Athlete’s Can know by now that FCA is well managed, this would not affect our organization in any way if we were to receive fundings.

Now with all these tasks, time spent traveling, writing reports, answering e-mails, talk to athletes, promote FCA.  This implicates lots of time and money that an athlete could well use for his/her training and competing.  For some one who is studying or/and working and training full time, there is no time for all this work.

Marty Cusson

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