MINUTES OCEANIA SWIMMING ASSOCIATION CONGRESS 3 August 2015 Kazan, Russia DELEGATE ATTENDANCE Mr Matthew Dunn - Vice President (occupied the Chair) Mrs Liz Wells - Honorary Treasurer Mark Anderson Australia Damian Van de Berg Australia Lucy Erasito Fiji Trisa Cheer - Fiji Brent Layton New Zealand Christian Renford New Zealand Billy Brown Palau Don San Agustin Guam Jenina Cruz Guam James Panuve Tonga Valrick Welch - Northern Mariana Islands Colin Thompson - Northern Mariana Islands Sarenah Pini Papua New Guinea Kerrie - Samoa OBSERVERS Dr Julio Maglione FINA President Husain Al Musallam - FINA First Vice President Dale Neuberger FINA Vice President Tamas Gyarfas - FINA Vice President Cornel Marculescu FINA Executive Director Chris Fydler Australia Dr David Gerrard New Zealand Lesley Huckins New Zealand Ryan Arblaster Australia Diane Farmer New Zealand Teresa Goddard Australia Ryan Pini Papua New Guinea Sharon Smith Fiji Terence Erasito Fiji Christopher Harrison CEO of Water Polo Australia Phillip Garling President of Water Polo Australia Glyn McGuire - The Reporters Academy APOLOGIES Dennis Miller - President Mr Lawrie Cox - Honorary Secretary Mr Ron Clarke - Executive Member Bill Sakovich Executive member
1. CALL TO ORDER 2. OPENING OF THE CONGRESS The Vice President opened the meeting and welcomed all delegates and guests to the Oceania Congress 2015 held on the occasion of the FINA World Championships in Kazan, Russia. He wished all teams the best of luck for the competition, noted the high quality of the venues and that it was the first time that the athletes have been accommodated in a village style environment. He welcomed members of the FINA Executive Board in attendance. 3. ROLL CALL OF FEDERATIONS/APOLOGIES The Vice President conducted the roll call and confirmed that a quorum of Federations was present. A number of apologies were noted. 4. CONFIRMATION OF THE MINUTES OF THE PREVIOUS CONGRESS The Minutes of the previous OSA Congress held Auckland, New Zealand had been distributed to all Federations, which were noted and approved by the Delegates. Moved Australia Seconded Guam Passed unanimously 5. PRESIDENTS REPORT The Vice President noted the apology of OSA President, Mr Dennis Miller, due to medical reasons and that all our thoughts are with him during this time for a speedy recovery. He presented the Presidents report. (See Annexure A ) 6. FINA EXECUTIVE PRESENTATIONS Dr Julio Maglione (FINA President) welcomed all delegates to Kazan and wished them the best for the upcoming competitions. He reiterated that our thoughts are with Dennis Miller during this time. He noted that the IOC has confirmed FINA as a tier one sport for the first time in its history. This ranking is determined by the television ratings from the Olympic Games and will have a positive impact on FINA s development and high performance activities for many years to coming. He noted that FINA is only as strong as its member federations and that they are FINA. He thanked the Oceania Federations for their ongoing support and the contribution to FINA they collectively make. Husain Al Musallam (FINA First Vice President) noted that the Asian Swimming Federation has always had a strong history in supporting OSA and that he looked forward to strengthening this relationship even further. As Director General of the Olympic Council of Asia he congratulated Ryan Pini (PNG) as being recognised as Oceania athlete of the year by ANOC. This award is to be presented to him at the ANOC dinner to be held in Washington DC, USA later in the year. Dale Neuberger (FINA Vice President) provided an overview of the various development programmes that FINA is currently running as well as other FINA Technical Swimming Committee activities. Tamas Gyarfas (FINA Vice President) provided the Congress with a status update of preparations for the FINA World Championships 2017 to be held in Budapest, Hungary.
Cornel Marculescu (FINA Executive Director) welcomed all delegates to Kazan for the FINA World Championships. He provided a general update on FINA activities. He noted that Oceania currently has very strong representation throughout all levels of FINA including technical officials, FINA Committees and the FINA Bureau. He wished all teams the best for the championships. 7. FINANCIAL REPORT The Honorary Treasurer presented the draft financial report. Due to the timing of the Congress, the report was still in draft form. The Treasurer indicated all payments that had been made were in accordance with the authority of the President. The statutory declaration will be supplied to the auditor and signed in accordance with normal practice. 8. OCEANIA DEVELOPMENT The Vice President provided an update on development programmes currently underway in Oceania. This included an update on the Pacific Sports Partnerships (PSP) Program on behalf of Nancy Miyake, Development Officer of OSA. 9. OCEANIA CHAMPIONSHIPS 2016 - HOST PRESENTATIONS There were two federations bidding for the opportunity to host the Oceania Championships 2016 being Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Fiji. Both bids were of a very high quality and were equally viable options to host the championships. The Honorary Treasurer, being from PNG, excluded herself from any selection process due to a potential conflict of interest. The Vice President advised that a process to select the host federation would be communicated in the coming days. (NOTE: Host bid documents were circulated to OSA Member Federations on 6 August 2016 for review and consultation with their Boards. Mail votes were requested to be submitted prior to 12pm Kazan time, 8 August 2016 from which Fiji was confirmed as the preferred host federation by a majority of votes.) 10. MISCELLANEOUS Pacific Games 2015 The Honorary Treasurer and the Vice President provided an overview of the Pacific Games 2015 from their involvement as Swimming Competition Manager and Swimming Technical Director respectively. Both advised that the swimming competition was one of the most successful events of the Games. 11. GENERAL BUSINESS The Reporters Academy - Glyn McGuire of the Reporters Academy took the opportunity to address the Congress and thanked OSA for supporting their involvement in covering the championships. He wished the teams the very best of luck and looked forward to providing good media content to the various media outlets throughout Oceania region. Revised OSA Constitution The Vice President provided an update of the move towards a new constitution and for OSA to become an incorporated association. Initial advice on this process, provided by sport lawyer Darren Kane, was distributed to all delegates.
12. NEXT MEETING The Vice President confirmed that the next OSA Congress would be held on the occasion of the Oceania Championships in 2016. Date and place to be confirmed 13. CLOSE As there was no further business, the Vice President declared the meeting closed.
Annexure A Presidents Report Dear Friends, Sorry I cannot be with you today but as you are aware medical reasons have prevented me from travelling. I was looking forward to meeting up with you all again in Kazan but that will now have to wait for another time. There have been many interesting and exciting developments in the Oceania region since we last met. Of course, the wonderful Pacific Games in Port Moresby are the most recent memory, and my sincere thanks and congratulations to Liz Wells and her team for delivering such a great festival of aquatics at the new facilities that PNG Swimming has inherited for the benefit of our sport in PNG. The Pacific Sports Partnerships Programme, while somewhat slow to get off the blocks, is now moving ahead and gaining momentum, with input from Marty Roberts' work on a development strategy for the OSA and our Development Officer Nancy Miyake who has been working away on developing a 3 year work programme. Funding is now locked in for the PSP work for the next few years so we can now move forward with more confidence than we initially were able to. Work on the PSP has brought to the fore a number of issues related to the governance and management of the OSA. It became clear quite early on that OSA needed to revise its constitution in order for it to implement various elements of the PSP, including relatively simple things such as contracts and insurances. A new draft constitution has been drawn up by an experienced sports lawyer and this will have been circulated to you for review. It is my hope that the proposed new statutes can be adopted as soon as possible. I also hope we can finalise the venue for the 2016 Oceania Championships very soon - preferably while federations are all in Kazan. I am aware that a couple of federations will be presenting bids and I look forward to this outstanding issue being resolved. Nest year will also see our Mandatory Congress and Elections for members of the OSA Executive and our representatives on the FINA Bureau 2017-2021. Our continental association enjoys the respect of the FINA Leadership and I wish this to continue under the elected leadership for the next term (2016-2020). Once again, OSA is working with our friends and colleagues from The Reporters Academy to deliver news and results back to your island homes. Please make the most of this opportunity. Finally, all the best to all the teams participating in Kazan - it will be a great FINA World Championships! Dennis Miller President Oceania Swimming Association Vice President, FINA.