Parent Education

Welcome to Tsunamis Swim Team!

So you have signed your swimmer up to join the swim team, now what?

Below is some helpful information to help you become adjusted to your new role as a "Swim Parent"!

Timeliness: It is important that your swimmer is on time for their practices and swim meets. We encourage our swimmer to arrive 15 minutes prior to the start of practice and 20 minutes prior to the warmup time at a swim meet. This allows enough time for the swimmers to stretch and be physically in the water by the start time. We believe in teaching responsibility and readiness; it all starts with our youngest and newest swimmers and developing good habits early on, this includes pre-practice and meet stretching.

Practice times:

The start time is the time a swimmer should be ready to physically get in the water.

Bronze: 4:30 – 5:15

Silver: 4:30 - 5:30

Gold: 5:30 – 7:00

Blue: 5:30 – 7:30

Green: 5:30 – 7:30

Senior 1: 5:30 - 7:30

Senior 2: 4:30 – 6:30

     - Being on time for a swim meet is also important. Being late could result in your swimmer being switched on a relay, missing warm up, feeling rushed, and potentially being physically and/or mentally not ready to compete.

Attire:

Swimmers should come to practice and swim meets dressed appropriately.

Female swimmers must be in tight fitting one-piece suits for practice (solid color, team suit or tech suits for meets). Girls must also wear a swim cap at every practice.

Male Swimmers should be in a tight-fitting brief style suit (preferably) or a tight-fitting jammer (no jammers at swim meets). If a male swimmer has long hair, they should also be wearing a swim cap at practice.

- Caps – female swimmers must wear a cap for practice and swim meets. Boys must only wear swim caps for swim meets – unless they have long hair that gets in their face when they swim.

- Board shorts and rash guards/swim shirts are NOT permitted at practice. All swimsuits should be tight as to eliminate drag and help the swimmer learn proper technique without their suit dragging them down.

- Other attire: Parkas for cold weather, sandals (sneakers for swim meets), extra set of dry clothes (this stays in a swimmer’s dry bag at practice in case we need to do dry land).

Training Equipment: Each group has an assigned set of training equipment they must have with them every day at practice. It is easy for swimmers to fall behind and become discouraged when they do not have what they need to keep up in a practice. Everything can be found in our team store: CLICK HERE (Our team is sponsored by Arena and is it required that every swimmer have at least one piece of Arena equipment, if not all, in their swim bag). All training equipment should be stored in a wet bag (mesh bag) and left at the side of the pool during practice.
    - Swimmers must have goggles with them at practice – your swimmers count on these to be able to see what they are doing. You want to make sure they are good quality and having extra is always a plus.

Communication: Our team primarily communicates via email or the “Remind” app. We send information about swim meets, practice calendars/updates, etc.

• Remind: We use as app called “Remind” to send quick messages, similar to texting. You will need to download the “Remind” app to your phone and join with the class code @tsunamisw. This is where we send out last-minute information, reminders, and updates. If you need to ask any of our coaches a question that requires a fast response, this is where you will want to send it.

However, we rarely check messages once practice has started as we try to keep phone use to a minimum. We also ask that you keep remind communication within our “office hours”. Please no messages after 7:30pm. If you have something you would like to let us know later in the evening, we ask that you please send us an email and we will check it the next morning.

• Email: it is important that you check your email om a regular basis. We do not want kids missing out on meets and events because emails are not being seen.

Team Unify sends emails with reminders of auto billing, invoices, and if a card of file needs to be updated or if a payment has failed.

Team Website: We update the website as often as possible. It is helpful to be logged into the website while viewing. Some content cannot be seen while not logged out. This is where you will be able to view training calendars, our weather policy, access the team store, equipment list, fee schedule, swim lesson information and time standards. Please take a minute to get comfortable with the site as it may help answer questions you have later.

Weather: If the weather is questionable, please refer to our weather policy (posted on our website). If the weather is bad enough to cancel early, we will message on Remind. If we message saying we are getting in, and no other messages are sent, please know that practice is on. Please do not send us individual messages asking about practice as there are more of you than there are of us and receiving multiple messages can impact our ability to send messages if we are trying to communicate to the whole team. We will always try to hold practice, even if we do dry land.

“SE Motion”: SE Motion is an app for your phone, and it connects you to your online account. Here you will be able to view invoices, RSVP for swim meets, view your swimmers’ best times, check attendance, and compare time standards (also posted on our website). As your swimmer gets older, they should have access to this app to help RSVP for meets, view their own times and check time standards.

Swim Meets: These are swim competitions. You MUST RSVP for swim meets. (This can be done through the SE Motion app). Even if you are NOT attending, please decline so we know you did not forget or did not see the meet. We will never enter a swimmer for a meet that they did not rsvp “yes” to. All meets come with meet fees; therefore, we do not enter swimmers without knowing they can go since fees are owed by the team even if the swimmer does not swim. PLEASE take the time to read the information page, located in SE Motion, for each meet. This will tell you what type of meet it is, who is eligible to compete, if there are certain time standards, the location, times, and a copy of the entry list once entries have gone in.

     - Example: Southern Zone Sectionals – This meet is only open to swimmers that have qualifying times in certain events. The meet information page will state that this meet has time standards. If you scroll down to the meet packet pdf, you can view the order of events and times needed for each event. Other meet with time standards may be: BB champs, Senior Champs, Age Group Champs, Winter Champs, Futures. – meets can have time and/or age restrictions.

Payments: Auto billing runs on the first of every month. Whatever your account balance is by the 1st, is what will get charged to the card on file.

• Meet Fees: Meet fees are invoiced once entries for a meet have gone in. These fees must be paid before the start of the meet to avoid a $10 late fee. Fees are due regardless of swimmer’s attendance at a meet. Once they have been entered and entries have been submitted, Tsunamis swim team is responsible for paying the bill sent to us by the host team. Again, this is based on the entries not the attendance.

• Manual Payments: To make a manual payment to your account, you will have to log in via the website. Click log in in the top corner, go to your account and select “payments and invoices” and on the top it will say “manual payment”.

Parents on deck: USA swimming does not allow parents to be “On Deck”. Parents may enter the facility to bring swimmers in and pick them up. If a parent intends to stay on deck, they must stay in the spectator’s area.

• Township: This is the area under the tent on the east side of the pool.
• Calypso Cove: This is the picnic table area on the south side of the pool.

Parents are not to talk to the swimmers while they are in practice as to help eliminate any distractions. Once practice is over, please allow your swimmer to pack up their own belongings and come to you.

Advancement Procedures/expectations: When determing eether a swimmer is ready to move up, there are a varity of things we take into consideration. Move ups are only done a few times a year as we evaulate all groups and see what space is available in each group.

• Age and previous experience
• Level of maturity and personal responsibility
• Space availability
• Level of commitment
• Practice attendance
• Times

Swimmers may qualify to move groups at the completion of a championship season in December, March/April, or August. 

Results from championship meets will be considered to place swimmers in groups for the next season.

*Reminder: When a swimmer is moved up to a higher training group, the expectations and commitment level go up as well!!