Swim Parent Etiquette

Last night was a tough meet!  We swam a very talented team and gave it our best shot, but came up short on the win.  I saw a lot of great sportsmanship by our Sea Dragons and some amazing  swims and relay finishes by our Sea Dragons .  We even set a few pool records!

There were several difficult situations last night however that affected our meet.  Situations that could have been prevented by YOU-the Sea Dragon Parents!

1.        Adhering to the meet sign out procedures is critical!  If you are going to miss a meet, you must sign your child out of the meet by 8pm on the Saturday prior to the meet!  When you fail to communicate your absence or sign out late, it changes the lineup for 100+ swimmers.  The impact of this is HUGE!  Last night we had so many late sign outs that we delayed the start of the meet because we did not have an accurate lineup to set up our relays.  The bigger impact is on the kids.  When our lineup is changed on the day of the meet, it creates a stressful environment for our team of volunteers who are trying to get changes on the fly or even look for kids that aren’t even there!  Summer swim team is about FUN not stress.  The kids and volunteers deserve to have a FUN environment!  We also have to scratch relays when swimmers cancel at the last minute.  One child missing cancels the relay and the other three swimmers on the relay team, who were looking forward to swimming-another real bummer for the kids!  To avoid all of this, SIGN YOUR CHILD OUT OF THE MEET BY 8PM ON SATURDAY IF YOU ARE NOT ATTENDING!

2.       Parent volunteer positions-as I have said all along, it takes a village to raise a swim team!  We have some amazing dedicated volunteers on this team who volunteer over and over again, some who don’t even have children swimming on the team, and still work several full meets/season.  We also have families who have not reached their 3 meet volunteer commitments.  Last night we were short volunteers, and we were asked to provide extra volunteers to accommodate their 10 lane pool.  Our volunteer coordinator had to scurry around at the last minute to find people.  Thankfully some parents stepped up and did double “shifts”.  We should NEVER have to worry about having enough volunteers at a meet!  We have more than enough families on this team to share the work.  If you have not volunteered to sign up to volunteer for your required 3 meets, do so now, http://www2.mysignup.com/cgi-bin/view.cgi?datafile=seadragonvols15 !  Just to note, at last night's the best seat in the house was a volunteer position, because you got to see the meet.  Otherwise the spectator seating wasn’t even poolside! Please ensure that you do your part and sign up to work a position.  If you do not know how to do something we can train you, just sign up!

We have several more fun meets and activities ahead of us this season, with community team work we look forward to making them all successful! 

Go Sea Dragons!