Clinic Guide Lines

Clinic Guidelines
The following guidelines should be followed when planning an I.A.C.O. sponsored I.H.S.A. Certified Officials Clinic.
Clinic Setup
The following items should be discussed and decided 10 to 12 months before the actual Clinic date.

  1. Choose 2 Saturday dates, which are approximately 3 or 4 weeks before the start of the I.H.S.A. sport season.  The Saturday just before the first day of practice is a good target date.
  2. The Clinic Chairman shall report on the status of their Clinic at each I.A.C.O. Board meeting before the Clinic.
    1. The Clinic Chair shall periodically present copies of Clinic associated bills and invoices for approval and payment.
    2. A complete final financial and overall clinic report is due at the first I.A.C.O. Board meeting following the Clinic.
  1. Recruit the appropriate I.H.S.A. Certified Clinician(s) for the Clinic. The Certified Clinician(s) selected will then become Clinic staff member(s).
  2. The Clinic Chair should contact several centrally located High Schools to determine if their facilities are available on the selected dates.
    1. Be certain to inform the schools that the Clinic will be an I.H.S.A. Certified Clinic.
    2. Determine if the school will charge a facility rental fee.  Most schools will only charge a minimal fee for any official I.H.S.A. function
    3. Some schools may charge only for the cost of custodians, others may charge for the custodians plus a facility rental fee.
    4. Some schools may charge a fee for using Audio-Visual equipment and an AV operator.
    5. Determine if the school will allow I.A.C.O. to provide the required food service help, or if school personnel must provide this service.  Starting at 6:00 am we require that someone either from the Clinic or school staff be available to make coffee and set up the continental breakfast. The same staff will work until after lunch has been served, and the cafeteria area cleaned up, usually around 2:00 pm.
  1. Discuss the potential clinic dates and locations with the I.A.C.O. Clinic Coordinator (Vice President) and your Clinic committee.
    1. Choose the best date and site.
    2. Obtain and execute a rental agreement contract with the school Business Manager.  The rental agreement shall indicate:
      1. If applicable, the rental fee
      2. The hours we will be allowed in the facility
      3. The rooms we will be allowed to use
      4. Personnel the school will provide
      5. Any equipment that the school will provide
      6. Any other special criteria pertinent to the use of the school facility
    1. Inform the Business Manager that the I.A.C.O. has liability and medical insurance coverage under the National Federation of State High School Associations policy or a private insurance vendor. A copy of the N.F.H.S. insurance coverage can be obtained from the I.H.S.A. website (www.ihsa.org), directly from the N.F.H.S., or the private insurance vendor.
    2. Provide the school Business Manager with a copy of the appropriate insurance coverage certificate.
  1. Organize the Clinic.
    1. The I.H.S.A. Certified Clinician or Clinic Facilitator shall complete and submit a Certified Clinic application form to the I.H.S.A. office.
    2. Verify that the Clinic is correctly listed on the I.H.S.A. website as a Certified Clinic.
  1. Choose the overall Clinic format.
    1. Separate sessions for baseball and softball
    2. Separate sessions for new officials
    3. Beginning officials with 1 to 3 years of experience.
    4. Separate sessions for experienced officials.
    5. Combined sessions for all
  1. Plan for the possibility of providing a signer for Hearing Impaired Officials who may sign up to attend the Clinic.
  2. Contact the previous Clinic Chair to determine the location of I.A.C.O. owned clinic equipment and resources.
  3.  If the following year Clinic Chair has been assigned, encourage the incoming Chair to become actively involved in the current Clinic organization and planning.
  4. Unless previously approved by the I.A.C.O. Board of Directors, the I.A.C.O. shall not pay a speaker an honorarium or expenses.
  5.  Invite official equipment vendors. At previous clinics, the vendors have included:
    1. Honig’s Whistle Stop
    2. Parsons (POS+)
    3. Hyatt Officials Supply
    4. Referee Magazine.

While vendors are not charged for attending, we do request that they extend the lowest possible prices to the attendees. Most have a beginning official’s package, which provides the basic uniform and equipment at a discounted price.

  1.  Solicit each I.A.C.O. member organization to recommend speakers, and the topic they are qualified to present. Then, attempt to fit the available talent into the chosen format of the Clinic.
    1. Clinic speakers must be knowledgeable, experienced officials, and, in addition, they MUST BE PROFICIENT PUBLIC SPEAKERS.
    2. An I.H.S.A. Certified Clinician must present the required topics of “Professionalism” and “Conflict Resolution”.
    3. Remind Presenters that I.A.C.O. Clinics are based on National Federation High School Rules and Mechanics, not collegiate.
    4. Assign a “Presider” to introduce each speaker and help each presentation session to proceed smoothly.
    5. The use of video and/or Microsoft PowerPoint presentations is encouraged and recommended.
    6. Each clinic presenter is required to provide either a written outline or the text of his or her presentation. In order to be included in the Clinic notebook all presentations must be provided to the Clinic Chair no later than 10 to 14 days before the clinic.
    7. Assemble the Clinic notebook and binder.  Binder covers are required for the Clinic notebook.
    8. Each I.H.S.A. Certified Clinician, along with their I.H.S.A. registration number, must be listed on the index page of the Clinic notebook.
  1. A Clinic brochure must be designed. The brochure shall be provided to the I.H.S.A. in time for mailing with the rulebooks.  It must be printed on 8″ by 11 paper. It can be printed on both sides and folded in half, but it cannot be a trifold. One side should contain a registration form, and as much Clinic information as possible. The other side should provide additional Clinic information, such as topics, speakers, and the date, time, and location.  Stress that it is an I.H.S.A. “Certified Clinic.”  Point out that clinic pre-registration can be completed online with a credit card at iaco-official.org.  It may be advisable to post a printable version of the Clinic brochure on the I.A.C.O. website.

    Check with the I.H.S.A. Official’s Department to determine the quantity of brochures required and the date when they are needed. The clinic brochures can be printed by a local print shop such as Kinko’s, or by the print shop in a local school.  Some schools can produce a quality job while using it as a school fundraiser.

  2. Prepare a Clinic press release. The Clinic Coordinator has samples of previous press releases that may be used as a guideline. About 3 months before the Clinic, send a copy of the press release to Referee Magazine. About 6 weeks before the Clinic, send the press release to all of the local newspapers. Invite local sports writers to attend the Clinic as our guests.

Clinic Support

  1. Arrange for food service.
    1. Assign a qualified staff person to make coffee and pick up donuts and sweet rolls for the continental breakfast. The I.A.C.O. owns its catering-sized coffee pots.
    2. The same person should also pick up orange juice and some milk.
  2. Arrange for lunch.
    1. I.A.C.O. has a contractual arrangement with “Lee and Eddies” catering service. They provide Italian Beef, Fried Chicken, salads, rolls, condiments, and Jell-O for a very reasonable cost.
    2. Unless special arrangements have been made with the host school, appoint someone to pick up the lunch and soft drinks.
  3. Line up your Clinic Staff (Non-speakers).
    1. Coordinate the advance registration process with the I.A.C.O. Webmaster.
    2. Designate a Clinic Registrar
      1. To have overall responsibility for the registration process
      2. To process advance registrations
      3. To coordinate the walk-in registrations.
    3. Assign staff to check in all attendees.   This staff should arrive about 30 minutes before the doors opening, and stay there until about 11:00 am when registrations are closed
      1. In order to make change, provide a “bank” of about $100.00 in cash.  Caution: NEVER LEAVE THE BANK UNATTENDED!
      2.  Badges should be printed for all of the advance-registered attendees.
      3. Provide an alphabetical listing of all pre-registered attendees. Check off pre-registered attendees as they arrive.
        Hand out Clinic notebooks
      4. Process the walk-in registrations.
      5. Extra staff may be needed to process walk-in registrations.
    4. Conference Assignors, host school staff, I.A.C.O. Clinic staff, and I.H.S.A. staff are not charged admission to I.A.C.O. clinics.
    5. The I.A.C.O. Treasurer shall be responsible for accounting for the Clinic’s receipts.
    6. At approximately 9:30 am, the Treasurer and/or the Registrar should plan to provide a count of the pre-registered and “walk-in registrations” for the final meal count.
  4. Confirm that the equipment vendors that were invited will be attending and when they plan to arrive. If they wish to set up their area on Friday evening, verify with the school authorities to confirm that the vendors can be admitted on Friday evening. Be present when the vendors arrive to layout and assign their display area.
  5. Make up signs on white poster board for each Clinic session. The morning of the Clinic, tape these signs, using double-sided carpet tape, outside the assigned rooms.
  6. Obtain the I.A.C.O. computers and projectors. Coordinate their deployment throughout the Clinic.

Day of the Clinic

  1. Arrive early at the Clinic location. If the doors open at 7:00 am, the Clinic Chair should arrive at 6:00 am. Have the clinic food service staff there to make the coffee and set out the donuts and juice. Have the remainder of your staff (non-speakers) arrive by 6:30 am to help with the signs and last-minute details.
  2. Make sure EVERYBODY who enters the building has a name badge and receives a two-piece meal/raffle ticket. One half of the ticket will be surrendered when they pick up their lunch.  The second half is retained for the raffle drawing.
  3. Staff the registration desk until about 11:00 am. At that time, close registrations and pick up the registration records, receipts, and the “Bank”.  Along with the Treasurer, the Clinic Chair should count and verify the Clinic receipts. The receipts should be placed in a secure location. You will probably have about $1,000.00.


Other Duties

It is the Clinic Chair’s responsibility to welcome the attendees. The I.A.C.O. President and/or Vice President may also make opening comments. START ON TIME.   During the clinic sessions, circulate through the various classrooms. Your presence in a room will contribute. If you find a presenter in trouble, throw them a life preserver. Help them out.

At lunch, supervise the serving. The caterer should deliver the food and set it up about 1 hour before the scheduled serving time. Work with the equipment vendors. We do not charge them for attendance, but we do ask them to pay $5.00 each for their lunches. They are usually willing to provide some kind of door prizes. After lunch, ask the host school’s Athletic Director, or a well-known official, to draw a door prize ticket from your raffle box. Have that winner draw the next ticket and so on. We usually award the most valuable prize last. Be certain to frequently mention and acknowledge the contributors.

After the lunch break, assist the school staff with the clean-up of the cafeteria. Allow them to do their job, but show them we wish to co-operate.  After the classroom sessions are complete, work with both the Clinic Staff and the school staff to pickup clinic materials and restore the classrooms for Monday morning classes. Again, let them do their job, but show them that we care about their facility.


Clinic Evaluation

After each of the final Clinic classroom sessions, remind clinic attendees that their attendance at the clinic will be automatically submitted to the I.H.S.A. office, and credit should show in their Official’s Center within a week. Additionally, remind them that they will receive an email asking them to evaluate the overall Clinic experience.  In addition, each Clinician must be evaluated.

After the Clinic classroom sessions are complete, the attendees will be released.

Wind Down
At the end of the Clinic day, meet your Clinic staff and your presenters at a local watering hole and unwind. You have all earned it. Compare notes and get ready for next year.