Great First Day!

It was so great to see such a good group out this afternoon for our first practice, especially knowing that we still have a good number more who weren't able to make it today. It is definitely going to be a great summer season! Keep on telling your friends to come out and join us! It isn't too late!

A few items of housekeeping:

The practice times for swimmers 11 and Over is 3:30-4:30 and for swimmers 10 and Under is 4:30-5:15. This will run until school is out. Our first day of our summer schedule will be June 11. Unless you have spoken to Coach Andersen about being at a different practice, please DO YOUR BEST to have your swimmers at the correct practice.

If you haven't found us on twitter, we are @valdesetorpedo. Right now we're posting to it somewhat infrequently (daily), but we will be utilizing it much more as the season progresses. To make sure you stay informed, please follow us there, as well as please be sure to join the text message service.

T-Shirts will hopefully be in hand by June 18 for the opening meet against McDowell. We are working with a vendor this year who we hope will be able to get quality things to us quickly.  If you haven't ordered a t-shirt and think you may want one, please go ahead and order. It will be cheaper in the long run to order more shirts earlier than have to do fewer shirts in a second run.
With this in mind, please feel free to submit any design ideas for the front logo of the shirt to Coach Andersen, preferably before June 11. Depending on the quality of ideas, we may pick yours to use on this year's shirts!

June 2 is our Stroke and Turn Official clinic at 10am at Valdese. Colleen Gillan, an experienced USA Swimming Official who works closely with the high schools, Special Olympics, and has ties to the McDowell Mariners, will be helping us to make sure we all know what it legal. Even if you don't want to officiate this year and are a beginner to the sport, it can help you as a parent to understand why certain things may be called or not. We REALLY need to have volunteers attend this meeting. Without officials and volunteers, we can't have a truly great meet. Come down to learn a little bit about officiating and meet some good folks while doing so. It will help you and the team out tremendously. If you can't make it, but have an interest in officiating, please speak to Coach Andersen on deck before or after practices.

Last year we began using the Meet Mobile app for our meets. Heat sheets and results, as well as line-ups, were free to users unless we as meet directors decided a small fee was warranted. In January, Meet Mobile became a subscription-based app. That is to say, the app remains free, as does posting results, etc. to it. However, any users wishing to access the information will need to pay a small fee. There is a monthly and annual option for this service. Monthly will cost roughly $2 for a monthly subscription, and $6 for an annual one. As we are a two-month season, and many of the teams will be using Meet Mobile, it is up to you as to whether you believe it to be worth the investment. The only meet this year that we (Valdese) will charge additionally for a heat sheet will be the Sprint/Distance meet. IMPORTANT: As it is a subscription, you need to be sure to cancel after the season is done to prevent future charges against your account.
 

See you all tomorrow!

Happy Memorial Day!

Good afternoon, everyone!

This weekend is Memorial Day. Please take a moment to remember those who have served in defense of our nation, and those who continue to do so. To those in our Torpedo family who have or continue to serve, thank you all very much.

Tuesday practices will start at 3:30pm. Please be on time to get in. 3:30pm-4:30pm will be our 11 and Over group, and 4:30pm-5:15pm will be our 10 and Unders. We look forward to seeing every single one of you as we start another great summer season of swimming. There is still time to get more people in the water, so keep on spreading the word and bring your friends!

In the meantime, take a moment to read the recent article from SwimSwam,com about summer leagues: http://swimswam.com/what-summer-rec-leagues-are-all-about/.

See you all Tuesday!