● Congratulations Maria – New AOAP Operations Manager Position
● Recap of Meeting with NDPA
ADDITIONS AND DELETIONS DIRECTOR REPORTS
2.1
2.2 Assistant Director
3.1 MINUTES
ACTION:
Approve the minutes of regular meeting of the AOAP Board of Directors held on March 19, 2026
3.2 TREASURER’S REPORT
ACTION:
Approve the February Treasurer’s Report dated March, 2026
ADJORNMENT
ACTION:
Adjourn to the next Board of Directors meeting to be held on May 20 at 2:30 p.m. CST via Zoom.
ITEM
1.1:
ASSOCIATION OF AQUATICS PROFESSIONALS
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
DESCRIPTION: The Executive Committee is led by the AOAP President and is inclusive of the Strategic Plan, Research, Diversity/Equity/Inclusion/Justice, and Policy/Advocacy work groups. Monthly updates are provided by the President on the progress of each work group and goals accomplished during the previous month
UPDATES:
Strategic Plan:
- NDPA/AOAP Partnership discussion 4/7
Research:
- First meeting 4/2
o Intros, overview, identification of research pillars and subcommittees
o Shared access to research library
o Follow up meeting June 2 or June 5
DEIJ:
- First Meeting 04/15
Policy/Advocacy:
- Joey to reschedule first meeting
ITEM 1.1:
ASSOCIATION OF AQUATICS PROFESSIONALS
CONFERENCE COMMITTEE
DESCRIPTION: The Conference Committee is led by the AOAP Past President and is inclusive of the Education, Conference Socials, Volunteers, and Exposition/Vendors work groups. Monthly updates are provided by the Past President on the progress of each work group and goals accomplished during the previous month.
UPDATES:
Education: no update
Socials: no update
Volunteers: no update
Expo/Vendors: no update
ASSOCIATION OF AQUATICS PROFESSIONALS
ITEM 1.1: PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE
DESCRIPTION: The Professional Development Committee is led by the AOAP Incoming President and is inclusive of the Training, Tech School, Director’s School, and AqP work groups. Monthly updates are provided by the Incoming President on the progress of each work group and goals accomplished during the previous month.
UPDATES:
Training:
1. Met via Teams on April 8th with the Board Members to discuss goals and action items to be accomplished for the year
2. General Welcome Meeting for all Committee Members scheduled for April 14th We will review the year's action items and begin work on them.
Tech School:
1. Met via Teams on April 2
2. Present were: Bob Kappel, Connan Campbell, Bob Bradley, John Whitmore, and Mark Bassnight
3. Discussed: Developed a framework for the Reno Tech School that included:
1. Only one level of training
2. More time between sessions to allow for speaker and equipment swaps
3. Longer sessions of 90 to 120 minutes to allow for more hands-on time
4. Started discussions about topics
5. Committee indicated that we are targeting to have it’s work completed by June.
Director’s School:
1. Planning for next year’s Director’s School will begin in late April/May
AqP:
1. AqP will be part of the Professional Development Committee’s responsibilities. We plan to review the AqP test questions and update any that are out of date.
ITEM 1.1:
ASSOCIATION OF AQUATICS PROFESSIONALS
MEMBER ENGAGEMENT COMMITTEE
DESCRIPTION: The Member Engagement Committee is led by the AOAP Secretary and is inclusive of the Social Media, Membership, and Activities work groups. Monthly updates are provided by the Secretary on the progress of each work group and goals accomplished during the previous month.
UPDATES: The Member engagement committee had a welcome meeting for all volunteers on March 24, where we went over goals and broke up volunteers to work in specific work groups. Still waiting on 1 committee member to respond to what group they want to work in and 1 person hasn’t responded to any emails, so I am assuming they do not want to be on the committee.
Social Media: Kirsten created a social media takeover application that will go out in the April 8 newsletter. She also put together a guide that will be given out to those organizations selected. Lyncee is working on setting up a meeting in April with this work group.
Membership: Stephane sent out a welcome email to her group and is in the process of planning their first meeting.
Activities: I am working on getting the roundtable hosts filled for the remaining roundtables for this year as well as planning a meeting to set up roundtables for young professionals quarterly. This work group will have a meeting at the end of April.
ITEM 1.1: DROWNING PREVENTION COMMITTEE
The Drowning Prevention Committee is led by the AOAP T reasurer and is inclusive of the Education, Fundraising/Scholarship, and Grant work groups. Monthly updates are provided by the T reasurer on the progress of each work group and goals accomplished during the previous month.
DESCRIPTIO N
UPDA TES: Education: Committee Meeting April 14, 2:00pm
Fundraising/Scholarship: No Report
Grants: March applications (18 Lifejackets and 14 Swim Lesson) were reviewed by the committee.
Lifejacket A ward Winners: 7 agencies, 320 Life Jackets
Swim Lesson Grant Winners: Kearns Oquirrh Park Fitness Center: $500 YMCA of South Hampton: $500
ASSOCIATION OF AQUATICS PROFESSIONALS
ITEM 3.1: BOARD OF DIRECTOR’S MINUTES
DESCRIPTION: The Board of Directors meeting minutes for the regular meeting held on March 18, 2026, have been submitted for review by the AOAP Secretary on March 25, 2026. The minutes are inclusive of all items discussed during the meeting and have been submitted for the entire Board of Directors review no later than Friday, April 10, 2026.
RECOMMENDATION:
Approve the minutes of the regular meeting of the AOAP Board of Directors held on March 18, 2026.
ATTACHMENT: AOAP Board of Directors meeting minutes, March 18, 2026.
Board of Directors Meeting Notes
Wednesday, March 18, 2026
Meeting Called to order at 2:33 pm Central Time
I. Roll Call-
a) Attendees: Lyncee Bowman, Donita Grinde-Houtman, Manda Groff, Cory Hilderbrand, Tammy Jaster, Joey LaNeve, Helena Machado, Craig Merkey, Alan Mogridge, Gwen Willcox, Kirsten Barnes, Bob Kappel, Nathalie Martin, Mark Basnight, Juliene Hefter
b) Excused: Kate Connell, Kevin Goodrich, Ashley Ingram, Stephane Rebeck,
c) Not Present: SJ Idel,
II. Committee Reports:
a) Executive Committee-Joey
o Committee members reached out to those who applied to be on each of the committees
o Kate and Alan will take the lead for the DEIJ work group
o Nathalie is reaching out to her people for the Research work group
o Joey reached out to those who applied for the Policy/Advocacy work group, but SJ will be taking the lead on this committee
o No updates for the strategic plan work group at this time.
b) Conference Committee-Cory
o Volunteer organization-putting everyone in their specific workgroups
o Education- Education submissions went out and they are live now
o First Volunteer of the Month, Connan Campbell, was recognized in the AOAP weekly on Wednesday. Connan was very appreciative of this honor
c) Professional Development- Gwen
o Reached out to new committee members and working on scheduling that first meeting
o Tech School- starting to plan for next year
o Director school- will start planning in May
d) Member Engagement- Ashley
o Met on March 10, to go over committee goals and tasks for 2026
o Ashley sent out welcome email to those accepted to be on the committee and is scheduling a welcome meeting next week
o Social Media work group is working to start the social media take over and Kirsten already made the application form and will go through it during the Assistant director report.
e) Drowning Prevention- Manda
o We have selected the committee members and reached out to them, will hopefully get our first meeting scheduled for next Tuesday
Board of Directors Meeting Notes
o Craig was able to reach out to his work group members as well
o Received the grant applications for the swim lessons and the life jackets, and are actively getting those into the ranking sheets
o The amount of applications received was the most we have ever received during a submission period.
III. Announcements
a) If you haven’t reached out to your committee members, please make sure you get those emails out and meetings set up.
b) Make sure you are touching base on the strategic plan goals in your meetings and making sure that the work groups are aligned with those goals
c) Thank you for all of your conference ideas and feedback, there a lot of great ideas that will be really helpful as we look to plan for next year’s conference
d) Just a reminder that Kirsten sent out 2 links for moderating the upcoming roundtables and then signing up for blog post
e) Don’t forget to sign the Code of Ethics if you haven’t already signed it
IV. Additions and Deletions
a) No additions or deletions
V. Executive Director Report:
o Juliene has been very busy this past month doing conference wrap-up with the resort. After conference ends we have to wait to get the final bills, invoices, and every one of the BEOs, put all the bills together and review those thoroughly and get any mistakes corrected
o We try to pay things ahead of time as revenue is coming in, so this year we are actually getting a check back from the Broadmoor for $4,870 and we got a $5,000 check from our agreement from the convention and visitors bureau
o Meal numbers that we estimated were almost 100% spot on ( maybe 1 or 2 off)
o All of our partner groups have been invoiced and all but two have paid
o We have really worked on our sponsorships and we provided options for our current sponsors from last year to do a one or two year option and Kirsten will share more in her report about that.
o Working with 2027 partner groups, finalizing their needs and updating agreements
o United States Swim School partnership did not work out, and they won’t be doing their workshop in conjunction with us this next year
o We have 2 potential big partners coming up this next year and hopefully we will have more information in the next 30-60 days
Board of Directors Meeting Notes
o Juliene has been working with the Grand Sierra for the upcoming conference, updating the agreement, looking at our room reservations from this year and adjusting based on our partnerships from the last year.
o Estimating room reservations needs has been a little difficult, because we had so many people stay off site this conference and we have to estimate how many we ended up having all together We have to be careful not to overestimate, because if we don’t fill the rooms we are responsible for those room nights. We are looking to add an addendum where we can add more rooms if needed later on
o New this year, we will automatically add meal tickets to conference registration and exhibitor registration and then we will just estimate what percentage usually doesn’t attend those meals.
o We have really been looking at how we are going to promote our upcoming partnerships and how those are going to look this upcoming year
o 3 people signed up for lifetime memberships VI. Assistant Director Report:
o We have our Power Speaker list out of our top 10 speakers We based this on the overall response to the evaluations from sessions, as well as the comments on the overall conference evaluation They had to rank in all four categories and an average over what the average speaker rating was for conference We have sent that information out to those speakers and updated the website
o Working on advertising, we have signed a little over $7000 in additional advertising revenue We have some already on the books for March, but we are pushing for that $50,000 goal
o Working on conference for 2027 We have over $130,000 in invoices out for the remainder of year to our current sponsors We want to get that taken care of as soon as possible so that they can get all of the sponsor benefits for the full year Waiting on signatures from 5 sponsors for this year.
o 2026 Conference updates:
● Overall rating for recommending conference to peers8.58/10 (2025 rating was 8.54/10)
● The complaints we got most were about the cost of the food at the resort
● We didn’t get a lot of responses for session evaluations
● General sessions were rated highly
● Exhibit hall was rated high with lots of great incite
● Director School overall rating was 6.6 out of 7 (.8 points over last year)
Board of Directors Meeting Notes
● We didn’t get enough data on tech school
● Demographics- over 50% of people responding to survey was their first time attending the conference
● A lot of great ideas that we are going to use next year
VII. Deputy Director Report:
o Focusing on working with Juliene to gain additional partnerships
o Tech School- going back to a 1 track instead of 2 tracks
o Working on additional advertising
o Research and discussing ideas for socials for next year
VIII. Minutes-
a) February 2026 minutes
o Motion to approve- Tammy Jaster
o Seconded by- Manda Groff
o Motion Carried- passed as written
IX. Treasurer’s Report
a) Manda logged in and confirmed all accounts were accurate as reported, a lot of transactions going on and invoices coming in
b) February 2026 Treasure’s Reports
o Motion to approve report- Donita Grinde-Houtman
o Seconded by- Craig Merkey
o Motion passed- approved as written
X. Adjournment
o Next meeting: Wednesday, April 15, 2026, 2:30 pm CST
o Motion to adjourn- Gwen Willcox
o Second to adjourn- Craig Merkey
o All in favor of adjournment
Meeting adjourned at 3:16 pm CT
ASSOCIATION OF AQUATICS PROFESSIONALS
ITEM 3.2: TREASURER’S REPORT
DESCRIPTION: The March Treasurer’s Report has been prepared for review by the Board of Directors. The report shows revenues of $441,534.03 and expenditures of $182,949.25 with a balance of $258,584.73. Additionally, the overall account balance is $1,045,840.17.
RECOMMENDATION: Approve the February Treasurer’s Report dated February 28, 2026.
ATTACHMENTS:
1. March 2026 Treasurer’s Report
2. 2026 Budget Workbook Report
� � � � AOAP MONTHLY BUDGET REPORT
Report Month: March 2026
� � � Registration Summary Metric Count
Total Membership 1,989
Total Conference Registrants
Pre/Post-Conference Registrations
Technician School
Director’s School
Partner Groups
Exhibitors Booths: 44 Employees:
� Banking Account Overview
Primary Operating Account Amount – 2026 to date
Credit Card Accounts = $0 balance
Revenue - Banking Account Total (Year to Date: January 1 – March 31, 2026) Checking $522,527.22
Drennen’s Dreams Life Jacket/Swim Lesson Grants $ 24,268.94 Kathie Luecker Scholarship Fund $ 21,543.12
