Dear Parents.

What a rewarding night it was on Monday. We have been waiting so long for the opportunity to watch our children swim on a Westhaven Team and it’s finally here!

Thank you to all of the volunteers who stepped up and thank you to all of the parents who were willing to step into a volunteer position (even though they didn’t sign up for one) as it became obvious that we needed more help. There is going to be a steep learning curve this summer and we appreciate your patience as we figure this out together.

Here are a few of the things that I would like to help explain:

Bullpens (We are changing the name to Heron’s Nests!):

We have the Heron’s Nests in order to keep track of the swimmers throughout the night. This is for 2 reasons… 1. So that everyone can volunteer and not worry about their child making it to the blocks in time for their event. 2. To make sure all of the swimmers get to their events on time so that the meet can run smoothly. Please make sure your child stays in their age group Heron’s Nest whenever they are not swimming. If you want to be with your child during the meet, please volunteer to help with their age group Heron’s Nest.

Event Line-Ups:

Every swimmer is allowed to swim 2 individual strokes (Fly, Back, Breast or Free), 2 relays and the 100 IM.

It takes a long time for the coaches to figure out which swimmers should swim in each event. Please be patient as we get to know your swimmers and their strengths. Now that we have some times, this should get easier. If your swimmer wants to try a specific event, please have them talk to the coaches. Sometimes we need a swimmer to swim a stroke (fly, breast, IM) because they might be one of very few swimmers who can swim that stroke legally. If your swimmers definitely don’t want to swim something, please make sure they let us know. We collect this information throughout the week (up until Friday) and do the best we can to give the swimmers their requests.

Relays:

Relays were pretty rough on Monday. We have a system of organization that we will be trying for this next meet, including having a Relay volunteer for each age group. If your child is entered in a relay and you don’t think they will want to swim it or you have to leave early for some reason, it is imperative that you let one of the coaches know by Monday mornings practice so that we can adjust the relays before the meet. We want to make sure that the other swimmers have the opportunity to swim if we can find a sub, but we shouldn’t be switching around the relays right before the event starts. We allowed it last week because it was our first meet, but it is not typical.

Scoring:

Williamson County Swim League sets the scoring. Individual Events are scored to 6^thplace (7, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 pts.) and Relays are scored to 3^rd place (12, 8, 2 pts.). We will hand out ribbons to 12^th place each Friday. If you miss Friday’s practice, we will have the ribbons available the following week during practice time. It takes a few days to get the ribbons completed and organized, so they will not be ready prior to Friday following each meet.

Volunteer Positions: As you observed on Monday, it takes A LOT of manpower to run a meet. We have made some adjustments to our volunteer sign ups by adding more jobs and splitting some of the shifts into two jobs. Please make sure you sign up for a position if your child is participating in the meet that week. With many hands, the load is light.

Swim 2 Facility: We are so lucky to have this beautiful new facility for our use. Let’s make sure that we take great care of it. There is no gum allowed in the pool area during our practices and meets. We need to make sure we clean up after ourselves and make sure tables and chairs are as we found them when we leave practice. We are creating a list of clean-up crew responsibilities (similar to the set-up list) and will have that ready for our volunteers after the meet on Monday.

Swimmingly vs Swimtopia: By now, everyone should be entered into the Swimmingly system and have their swimmer ID #. You no longer need to go to the swimmingly clubhouse on your computer and can just use the swimmingly fan app for real time info during our meets. Swimtopia houses our website, westhavenswimteam.com. This website is full of information about our team and the season. It is also where you declare your intention to participate in each swim meet or not, as well as, sign up for a volunteer position. Please declare that you will or will not attend each meet by Thursday before the Monday meet. If you know your schedule in June now, you are currently able to declare and volunteer for every meet.

I hoped I've answered some of your questions and given you some useful information.  Please let me know if you have additional questions or concerns.  We love seeing all of those smiling faces... and watching our community come together! 

Thank you for your support!

~Erin