UPDATE FOR THE WEEK OF JUNE 11

Happy Sunday, Torpedo!

I hope you had the chance to get out to the graduation ceremonies for our schools this past Friday and Saturday! We have some fantastic young people starting new chapters in their lives, and I again applaud and congratulate them on their success and wish them the best going forward.

This week marks the beginning of our split practices. As a reminder, our 9-10 and 11-12 swimmers will practice 7:30-8:30am, and the 13 and ups will be from 8:30-10am. Our 8 and unders will practice from 5:15-6pm. All practices are Monday-Friday, unless otherwise specified due to a meet or coach announcement. For example, please remember we will not be practicing this Friday, June 15th.

In the past we haven't required any training gear (fins, paddles, etc.), but this year I want to encourage our 11 and up swimmers to consider purchasing fins, and a snorkel. I want to encourage paddles for our swimmers 13 and up in addition to the fins and snorkel. We will use these items in practice on occasion, but again, they are not required. If you had to choose between them, please look into fins first, then the snorkel and finally paddles.

If you are interested in some awesome Torpedo swag or getting any of the above mentioned training gear, please check out our SwimOutlet.com store. I've linked to it at the bottom of the page (or here for mobile viewers: https://www.swimoutlet.com/valdesetorpedo/). If you have an account on the site, be sure to link it to the team store. We do receive a portion of sales that come through the store, and you all get awesome gear!

Speaking of swag, t-shirts and cap orders were due on Friday. If you missed this deadline, we will go ahead and start collecting names for a second run. I have only heard from a couple of swimmers regarding silicone caps, and we do not have enough to make an order at this time. We are hoping to have the shirts available for our pictures on June 21st, and caps should be in by then, as well.

I will put out the sign up sheets for this season's meets tomorrow morning (Monday) in the VTST folder at the fitness counter. In order for your swimmer to be entered in a meet, they need to be signed up by the date provided on each sign up sheet.

In anticipation of our upcoming meets, I want to encourage all parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, etc. to find a way too assist us at our meets. We ABSOLUTELY NEED YOU ALL. I have included a link to the training videos for starters and stroke and turn officials at the bottom of the page. Please see if you can assist with either role, and let me know via email if you are interested. We will need timers, runners (collecting materials from officials), heat winner ribbon giver-outers, scorers and console operators. I will send out SignUp Genius links as the meets approach. Each role is vital to running a great meet, and you all have done an awesome job in the past. I'm looking forward to that being the case again this year!

If helping with meet operations may not be your thing, please think about helping out with our Boosters at their concession stand at home meets. You can assist by donating desired goods, or helping run the stand during the meet. Please speak with Jackie or Carol about opportunities for this.

Let's have a great week! See you all at the pool!

UPDATE FOR THE WEEK

Good evening, Everyone!

It looks like we might have some clear weather this week, so we are really looking forward to getting some good work in with all of our swimmers. With that said, it is summer time, and we ask that swimmers be flexible should any storms arise this week.

As a reminder, we will change schedules after this week starting on June 11, with our 9-10 and 11-12 year olds practicing from 7:30am-8:30am, and our 13-18 year olds swimming from 8:30am-10am. Our 8 and Unders will swim from 5:15pm-6:00pm. All practices are Monday-Friday unless otherwise announced.

If you are interested in getting a shirt for the summer, please be sure to get your order in by Friday afternoon at the latest. Likewise, if you are interested in a silicone swim cap, please let me know so I can get numbers in line to place an order.

We have several swimmers participating in graduation celebrations this weekend, and we want to wish them congratulations and all the best! Please take a moment to congratulate our seniors when you see them on deck this week. We are very proud of all they have accomplished!

In addition to the best wishes to our upcoming grads, I have a two bits of information to share with everyone. First, I have recently accepted a full-time position with the Town of Valdese Recreation Department as the new Aquatics and Fitness Supervisor. I will be continuing in my coaching duties with the team, as well as assuming several new roles at the pool and fitness center. I am really looking forward to the new opportunities this provides the community, myself, and family. Second, as a result of this transition, I will be attending a day-long training in Asheville on Friday, June 15th. We will have a long weekend with no practice that Friday.

Torpedo Pictures

Good evening, Torpedo!

I wanted to share a quick bit of news with everyone regarding our team pictures. This year we will take pictures before the June 21 home meet against McDowell and Granite Falls. Our make-up date will be the July 12 meet against Black Mountain.

In either case, individual and team pictures will be taken at 3:30pm.