School is Out! Time for Practices to Change! Meet sign ups and more!

Congratulations, Torpedo swimmers, for wrapping up another school year! 

Before I go further, I do want to recognize all of our high school graduates, including those from years past. Congratulations to all of our assistant coaches this year, as well as several former Torpedo members who graduated/are graduating this week. Well done, we are proud of you, and we wish you all the best going forward into whatever endeavors may lie ahead!

Monday marks the change in our practice schedule.  

To Recap:

8 & U: Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday 5:30pm-6:15pm

9-10/11-12: Tuesday-Friday 8am-9am

13-14/15-18: Tuesday-Friday 9am-10am

First Home Meet:

Saturday, June 17 we host Shelby and McDowell. We will plan on running 6 lanes for competition. We will need people to help out in various capacities, and we'd love to have one person from each family volunteer during the meet. You can sign up to volunteer here: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/508084CABAE2AAAF58-shelbymcdowell

For home meets, we will allow seating on the tennis courts and in Rotary Park, but not on the pool deck. You're welcome to come on deck to watch the swimming or get concessions; however, the best action is behind the blocks, so PLEASE VOLUNTEER.

So, how do you go about making sure that your swimmer or swimmers are going to swim on the 17th and for each meet going forward? You can use the sign up sheets located at the pool/fitness counter for each meet. Please write the swimmer's name under the correct side and age group. The sheets for all of June and the July 8 meet will be downstairs. 

IF YOU SIGN UP AND CAN'T MAKE IT: Please scratch your name off. It is helpful for us to know who is really going to be here, as we want to make sure that we place all the swimmers in the best position for the entire team. The coaches decide what events everyone swims, and much thought goes in to that, usually several days in advance. It helps us to know EXACTLY who will and won't be at the meets. That said, if you didn't sign up ON THE PAPER (not via text, email, facebook, remind, smoke signal), there is no guarantee your child will be entered. This is very much an opt in process.

Please look at the away meets and figure out carpools as necessary. We want to represent well, and we should have more than enough car seats amongst the team to get swimmers to away meets if you are unable to provide the transportation. 

I am very excited for this season to get started! The swimmers have been working hard since we got in the water, and we will continue that progress over the next two months until everything culminates here.

Shirts and other swag!

 Happy Friday!

Thanks for a great first week of practices. It has been a lot of fun working with the swimmers, young and old, new or veteran. We will have one more week of after-school practices at 3:30pm and 4:30pm, then we will switch on June 12. When we do switch times, there are no Monday morning practices, just Tuesday-Friday morning. Evening practices run Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday for 8 & Unders.

 We will start taking orders for T-Shirts on Monday, June 5, and finish this order Friday, June 9. There is about a two week turnaround on the shirts. Shirts will be $15.

We do have some caps on hand. They are a black latex ($5) or a silver silicone ($15). The silicone is a more durable cap, but is prone to sliding off if a swimmer has finer hair. Latex caps tend to stay in place.

You can order shirts and pick up caps at the fitness counter. Payment for these items may be made with cash or check made out to Valdese Swim Team. If a shirt is not paid for, it will not be ordered.

If you aren't on remind, please be sure you join us! That is my primary form of communication with everyone. 

Have a great weekend!

IT'S FINALLY HERE! PRACTICE TIME!

Good afternoon, Torpedo family!

I hope you all are as excited as I am to start practice today!

We've had a request to push back our start time to allow for some of our older swimmers to get from school to the pool this week and next, and so we will oblige them.

Any swimmers over 11 will be from 3:30pm-4:30pm this two weeks.

Any swimmers under 10 will be from 4:30pm-5:00pm this two weeks.

We will shift to morning practices on June 12, while 8 and unders will continue to practice in the evening. I encourage you all to have some carpooling worked out in the event you need to have someone take your swimmer to practices.

Parents, if you haven't signed up for Remind, please do so. I primarily use that for communication during the season, and if you send me anything through Messenger, it may take days for me to answer as I only access it on my desktop.

MEET VOLUNTEERS:

Just to go ahead and get everyone thinking about how you can help, we will be hosting our first meet here on Saturday, June 17. We will warm up at 8am and start the meet at 9am. I will send out a SignUpGenius for you to choose how you want to help the team.

We can help with anything listed with additional training. It isn't hard, but we just need to take some time to train you a bit.

We will need the following at meets for two or possibly three shifts:

Timers (6-8, total of 24)

Head Timer (1, total 3)

Heat Winner Ribbon (1, total 3)

Starter (1, total 3 - requires some additional training)

Scoring Computer (2, total of 4 - requires some additional training)

Timing System (2, total of 4 - requires some additional training)

Stroke and Turn Officials (2, total of 4 - requires some additional training, test)