Wednesday Dec.3rd.

  A meeting was held before the official start to cover the restructuring

of USATF that would be voted on that evening .

  Walter high opened the Annual Convention by reporting that only the

Wyoming Association was under permanent suspension . This was followed by

the Necrology and President Bill Roe giving special remembrance to Bob Fine

who was killed by a car the previous day while on a training run in Reno .

Bob was one of the original founders of Masters T&F worldwide as well as the

first National Masters T&F Chair . He had in fact written the first

Constitution for WAVA and was currently serving as SE Region Chair for MT&F

.

  Bill gave Presidents Awards to :

          Bill Mongovan                        Joan Benoit Samuelson

Laurie Boemker

          Adam Nelson                        Joetta Clark Diggs

Cathy Griffin

         Skip Stolley                            Mary Elizabeth Aude

Patrice Wilson

         Bob Rush                              Charlene Englehardt

Herb Nicolls

         David Greifinger

  The entire Convention voted to approve the restructuring which will

significantly reduce the Board size from 31 to 15 members and is planned to

greatly increase the diversity of the Board and will allow the Board to

select its own chair .

  The 3 candidates for new USATF President were announced as Stephanie

Hightower , Dee Jensen and Bob Bowman .

   Bob Hirsch (IAAF Rep.) reported that all of NC's Antonio Pettigrew's

records were nullified following his admitted drug use . Beginning in 2010

World Team Championships will be modified to include 4 teams representing

different areas of the world . The 4 teams would be

                             Europe

                             Africa

                             Asia/Australia

                             The Americas

The World Indoor Championships would be changed so that all finals would now

be run on Sat. and Sun. afternoons to offer a better TV Package .

The 2010 Youth Olympic Games  would be held in Singapore and the 2011 World

Youth Championships would be held in Lille France .

   The USATF Foundation reported that it was able to offer grants to 75

athletes and 65 youths .

   Bill Roe reminded everyone that USATF now had a new CEO in Doug Logan to

replace Craig Masback . Also the USATF HQ was being moved to shared offices

in the new Hoosier RCA Dome , and that as no sponsors had come forward it

was unlikely that the World T&F Championships would be held in the USA any

time soon .

 

   MT&F Meeting on 12-4-2008

      NC President Eric Braschwitz was voted as one of the active athletes

with full voting rights at the Convention along with myself as NC MT&F rep .

    Graeme Shirley reported on L&L particularly affecting MT&F as follows ;

      Item 90+92   Include WT Throw in National Masters T&F Championships

Tabled

      Item 93  Raise Throwathon to a Nat. Championships. It was proposed

that first we need to define the specific events , weights , order of events

, points table to be used etc.

Passed

      Item 94    Actual Time schedule to be sent out with initial

information .                          Rejected

      Item 96   Propose to run any event with 8 or fewer competitors as a

final at the time scheduled for the heats   Rejected

      Item 97   Outdoor events of 800m. or longer and long hurdles would be

run as timed finals .                              Rejected

      Item 99   Non Club Teams should not receive awards

Rejected

      Item 100  Give non-USATF Championships Medals to non club teams .

Rejected

      Item 102  WMA has established Long Hurdles for W70+ to be run as the

last 200 of a 300m. race with the same hurdle placings etc.

      New Items Team Champs in race walking should be changed from 5 year

AG to 10 year AG                             Accepted

                         Exclude AG championships in RW from National

Championships (i.e.. make it the same as a 10K track race). Accepted

 

     MT&F Meeting on 12-5-2008

               Vice-chair Janet McCarty-Smith requested better response to

Masters skills survey .

               2009 Indoor MT&F Championships will be held from March 20 to

22 at Landover MD , which has a newly resurfaced 6 lane unbanked Mondo Track

. The track can easily be reached by the Metro and the two host hotels are

about 1-2 miles away and both will provide shuttle busses to the track .

Officials will be provided with meals and a free shared room .. The 2010

Meet is scheduled for Boston .

               The 2009 Outdoor Championships have been changed from

Clermont FL to Oshkosh WI and will be held from July 9-12th. Oshkosh's

nearest airports are Appleton and Green Bay (45 mins.) , or it is about 2.5

hours drive from Chicago's O'Hare . The facility has two 400m. tracks and

one can be used to warm-up .  2010 Championships will be held in Sacramento

CA and Cleveland OH was awarded the Meet in 2011 .

  A brief wrap-up was given for 2008's Championships in Spokane . There was

good media coverage and Spokane hope to replace the existing facilities ,

and with improved facilities (If funding is available from the Washington

State House) hope to bid again for the 2012 Championships .

             2009 Multi-Event Championships (Dec. for M+W and Hept. for W)

will be at Seattle on Aug. 15/16 and in 2010 will be in Dallas

             2009 Ultraweight and Superweight Championships will be in

Portland OR on Aug. 22/23 and there is strong interest in Illinois hosting

the 2010 and 2011 Championships .

             The 3 Delegates to WMA were   Gary Snider (automatic) and

Jerry Donnelly and Carroll DeWeese with Mark Cleary and Marilyn Mitchell as

alternates

 

      MLDR Meeting on 12-5-2007

          We voted for Athlete of the Year in 5 year age groups .

          Performer of the year was Joan Benoit Samuelson .

          Otto Essig Award went to Mary Rosado over Lloyd Stevenson and

David Katz .

         Harrier of the Year   Female Kathy Martin

                                          Male     Peter Magill

        Bill Quinlist asked delegates to go back to their associations and

see if there were races or Directors that could put on a National Masters

X-C Championships . The minimum cash awards were now $6,000 for the 5K X-C

and $30,000 for the Team X-C . He reported that an excellent 5K X-C

Championships were held in Greensboro NC last October . Syracuse was

accepted for the 5K RR Championships for both 2009 and 2010 with a guarantee

of $9.000 available for cash awards . Buffalo is holding the 15K RR

Championships on 9-1-2009 (Labor Day) and The Twin Cities Marathon in

Minneapolis is holding the Marathon Championships in 2009 and 2010 and they

are bidding for a 5 year extension which , if accepted , would give them the

National MLDR Marathon Championships for 25 years .

 

  Joint MLDR and MT&F Meeting on 12-5-2008

          Norm Green lead a remembrance for Bob Fine followed by several

members giving their thoughts .

          New members of MLDR H-O-F were ;

                                 Kathy Bergen           Joe King

                                 Tom Langenfeld       Audrey Lary

                                  Roger Pierce           Marie-Louise

Michaelson

                                  Bob Ward

                      This brings membership in MLDR Hall of Fame to 106

Men and 56 Women

            MLDR and MT&F formalized an agreement to give $5,000 p.a. to

National Masters News

            MLDR now has All American standards based on top 5% of finish

times and has originated a new award (Pheidipedes) to be given based on

runners competing in a large number of RRs .

            It was announced that there would be a runoff for USATF

President between Hightower (304 votes) and Jensen (250) while Bowman had

been eliminated .

           The following nominations were confirmed   Rex Harvey for WMA

President and Marilyn Mitchell as women's rep to WMA .

            Next WMA Championships are in Lahti Finland from July 28 to

Aug. 8 2009 . This Meet should be better run than this year's NCCWMA Meet ,

that was held in Clermont FL and had many problems with poor officiating ,

implement weigh-ins and cultural problems . The Finns are very serious about

Track & Field and most speak English . Supplemental Entry Forms are

available on the web and must be sent to Sherri Quack at Indianapolis HQ

Also all athletes must wear USA Uniform tops that are available on the web .

Both 2000 and 2004 vests are acceptable .

Any items to be submitted to WMA must be received at least 120 days before

the Meet .

 

            Southeast Region MT&F Meeting on 12-5-2008

    Bob Fine had been SE Chair for many years and following his unfortunate

accident the previous day I was unanimously voted in as the new SE Region

Chair for MT&F . Joy McDonald volunteered to try and resolve the financial

situation as the SE region had only claimed $272 out of its $2,500 budget

and we knew that Bob had spent considerably more than this . Bob Cahners and

Sandra DeNoon both volunteered to go to Bob Fines home (at an acceptable

time for the family) to sort out any SE region material such as Medals etc.

In 2008 the Se MT&F Championships were held in Birmingham AL but attendance

was very poor (about 40 athletes) and Bob Fine had already asked the SEM

group in Raleigh if they were prepared to permanently hold the SE Regional

Championships from 2009 . This Meet regularly has about 250 athletes so we

are assured of a much larger turn out . I plan on keeping the meet in

Raleigh for several years until we can find sites in other states willing

and able to put on a good meet . In the new year I will be putting out a

calendar of meets that are being held in our 7 state region and will

hopefully be able to find some additional Meets in later years .

 

     MT&F Meeting on 12-6-2008

           Media Committee (Bob Weiner)   A Media committee has been

established for Masters T&F specifically separate from the USATF Media

Committee , which has never adequately covered Masters . He has received

great co-operation from committees , L-O-C etc. and showed TV clips from

both Boston and Spokane in 2008 .

 

     Budget     The annual budget is approximately $80.000 p.a. and is

expected to be in balance for 2008 .

 

     Region Chairs  We hope to increase clinics available to Masters

runners either associated with Meets or as stand alone . Mark Cleary

requested that each Region's budget be increased by $1,000 to increase their

ability to put on clinics focused on Masters . A one day USATF membership

was discussed to make it cheaper for athletes to compete in one or two meets

p.a. as is done by several NGB .No decision was made . The regional Chairs

were trying to put together  a 2009 Meet Schedule .

 

     Records   Sandy Pashkin covered all the necessary requirements for

getting records approved as many officials and meet directors do not

currently follow all the steps .

 

  Drug Testing     Drug testing at an event costs approx. $10,000/day for

20 tests and thus a very little amount of testing is done at Masters Meets .

 

   Diversity    Dexter McCloud said that Open Programs frequently follow

Masters programs and plans on diversity .He defined diversity to include

under-representation in leadership positions of any group e.g. blacks ,

Hispanics , women . Para-Olympians etc. He is applying for a grant to

compare diversity at USATF with other Nabs . Dexter also discussed how the

new Board members must be vetted by a diversity committee to determine the

effect on Board diversity if that person is nominated .

 

    Invitational Masters' Programs .   Mark Cleary talked about the

problems that he ha dexperienced with persuading Open Meet Directors to

include Invitational Events for Masters . They usually request that the

Invitational Masters Races be limited to a sprint (100 or 200m) or to one

Middle distance race frequently the 1 Mile . He had never been able to get a

Field Event included . The needs are to have quality fields made up of top

class athletes who are prepared to pay their own way to Meets . This year's

National Open Championships he hoped to have Invitational Races as follows

Indoor   1500m.M   and  400m.W    and Outdoor   400m.M   and 1500m.W

 

  Chair (Gary Snider)     MT&F selects delegates for each WMA Meet , which

means that MT&F keeps changing their delegates , which puts the USA at a big

disadvantage versus other countries who maintain a continuity of delegates ,

as does the MLDR group of USA (of which I am one of the two USA delegates )

. This question would be discussed in the Exec. Committee meeting to follow

.

   Possible nominations for the one spot on the new USATF Board reserved

for MT&F/Associations etc. were Rex Harvey , Phil Raschker . Jerry Donnelly

, Willy Banks and Sandy Pashkin .

   MT&F had tried to find common ground with Senior Games and The Huntsman

Games , but both organizations limit participation to athletes of 50+ .

Huntsman would like to host a USATF RW Championship .

   Gary emphasizes the need to go to outside organizations to explain and

to push for MT&F , He said that he was preparing a disc that would outline a

presentation to give to outside groups .

 

  New President  It was announced that Stephanie Hightower was voted in as

new President of USATF by 326 votes to Dee Jensen's 306 .

 

Sunday 12-7-2008  General Meeting

 

Site Selection  The Annual Convention had already selected the Sites for the

next 3 years as follows

                                     2009   Indianapolis

                                     2010   Virginia Beach

                                     2011   St. Louis

 and they vote to accept the following sites for the 3 subsequent years

                                     2012   Daytona Beach

                                     2013   Indianapolis

                                     2014   Anaheim

 

Submitted by Maxwell C. Hamlyn