BOA Annual General meeting and BOA news (Bulletin 228)

In this Issue:

Excel Compressors are currently sponsoring our referees courses, which is saving the BOA at least £100 - every time we run a course.

If we can get them some recommendations, this may be extended to cover referees kit.

Compressors are used in a wide variety of places, from car servicing and MOT stations, to ships, food production and manufacturing of all sorts.

If you have any reason to use this company, or can call them for a quote don't forget to mention the BOA which might help future sponsorship.

Annual General Meeting and National Squads Meeting

The BOA Annual General Meeting and National Squads Meeting was held in a meeting room at Ponds Forge Sheffield on Sunday 14th July.

The meeting was attended by 28 members from 11 different clubs.

The BOA currently has 1284 members although we know of many more people who play and should be members of the national association.

We know of 107 clubs but only 67 are fully active with registered Chairman, Secretary and Treasurer.

We have created a new Committee position for a Student Representative to forge closer links between the BOA and student clubs.

The new Committee elected at the AGM are:

Chairman	Ken Kirby
Vica Chairman	Richard Adams
Secretary	Janet Fletcher
Treasurer	Lewis Saleem
Membership Secretary	Phil Thompson
Competitions Manager	Andrew Stillwell
National Chief Referee	Nathan Peall
Merchandising and Shop Manager	Sean Phillips
Sports Development Officer	Jo Pitchforth
Web Master	Matt Nunn
Student Representative	Torris Rasmussen
Ordinary Member	Georgina Lamble

Andrew Stillwell is also the National Squads Manager and will oversee the news editor role.

National Squads

Squad	Coach	Manager	Captain
Ladies Elite	Jacquelene Bouwman	Georgina Lamble	Sophia Tapper
Open Elite	Bernie Tarling	Richard Adams	Graham Fletcher
Ladies Masters	Allison Galashan	Allison Galashan	Jo Pitchforth
Open Masters	Glen Schofield	Kenton Arkill	Richard Adams
Under 23 Ladies	Ed Firth	Georgina Lamble	Laura Smith
Under 23 Open	Andrew Stillwell	Andrew Stillwell	James Finnimore
Under 19 Open	David Bailey	Dan Bailey	Billy Sarsfield

Affiliation with BSAC

The AGM unanimously approved the affiliation agreement with BSAC that we have been working on for the last year,.

This means we will be recognised as a national governing body through BSAC..

If you need to quote a recognised national governing body you can quote BSAC.

BSAC will also oversee and advise us on safeguarding and are currently re-writing their safeguarding policy accordingly.

BSAC will run our Disclosure and barring service checks which were formerly known as CRB checks.

BSAC will assess and award Clubmark to 2 clubs per year who can meet the criteria. This is important for clubs who train youngsters and I will be pressing clubs to go ahead to get accreditation.

We will be allowed two articles per year in the BSAC's Dive magazine.

I see this as a massive step forward for the BOA giving our sport the recognition it deserves.

Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS)

What was formerly known as CRB checks is now the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS).

To be included on the BOA authorised members list you must have an up to date disclosure.

To apply for disclosure contact BOA admin who will send you the forms.

When filling in the form you choose one of 4 types of reason for requiring disclosure.

• 'Child Workforce'. Use this for any position that involves working/volunteering with children.
• 'Adult Workforce'. Use this for any position that involves working/volunteering with adults.
• 'Child and Adult Workforce'. Use this for any position that involves working/volunteering with both children and adults.
• 'Other Workforce'. Use this for any position that does not involve working/volunteering with Children or Adults e.g. security guard.

I suggest we should be covered for volunteering with children and adults.

You will be asked if you wish to join the update service. This is a system that allows any-one that you give permission to check if there has been any change to your disclosed situation.

BSAC will develop a computer system that checks all permitted disclosures on their database at regular intervals to ensure there has been no changes.

If there has been a change in your circumstances you will be asked to apply for a fresh disclosure, if no change the disclosure will last indefinitely. .

There will now only be one disclosure certificate which will be sent to you, we will no longer be sent a copy.

On receiving your certificate you will need to send it to BOA Admin to be verified and then it will be returned to you.

You may use the same disclosure to present to any other body you are involved with who might need evidence of a check, and the BOA will be able to accept disclosures made through other organisations providing they are the same category as previously mentioned.

Referee qualification

Since Andrew announced that all clubs coming to tournaments from next year must supply qualified referees there has been a flurry of questions on how to get people qualified.

The BOA runs referee courses as part of your membership benefits so the only expense to you is your time, the cost of travel and your lunch.

We need local clubs to organise courses in their own area and to liaise with the National Chief Referee to find a course tutor.

The course is run in a classroom from 0900 to 1700 (5pm) with an exam at the end. (There is just too much material to do the course in an evening).

Practical in water time is then achieved by shadowing a qualified referee in tournament game conditions. The reccommendation is for at least 5 hours experience but that depends on when a level 2 or 3 referee assesses that the candidate is ready to qualify, which might be more or less that 5 hours. Ideally this time should be during BOA tournaments but if a level 2 or 3 referee is happy that the game you are refereeing is under similar circumstances and you are getting proper and valuable experience then they may send times in to referee(at)gbuwh.co.uk to be logged.

Your refereeing time and qualifications are logged electronically on the web site and you can see your progress by clicking on 'profile' in the top right corner of the web site when you are logged in.

Level 2 courses are harder to arrange as the candidates are not all from the same area.

Last year we ran a level 2 course on the Friday before Nautilus in Sheffield. This will be Friday 31st October 2013 if there is enough interest to do that again.

For any questions, sending in logged time or applying for a course contact referee(at)gbuwh.co.uk.