AquaHawk Family - 

As we approach Labor Day weekend, here is the update on things! 

• Senior group is off and running, but we are missing people. Let’s make the commitment to get back into the water to prepare for the upcoming season. Mornings will become very progressively added back to the training calendar starting after Labor Day weekend!
  • If you are a Fall sport athlete at DCHS, be sure to sign up for the Senior Multi-Sport (more info at the bottom) at registration to be able to train in the mornings (Tues, Wed, Thurs, and Sat). 
• Registration for the 22-23 swim year is now active on the website (and linked here). Button will be on the front page of the website! As a reminder for our families, all swimmers must be registered on the team website by Monday, September 12th to train!
• Updated September calendar is linked here for review. Reminder for Senior group, no practice on Monday for Labor Day!
• Gold and Navy groups will get going with the Short Course season on Monday, September 12th!!
• Elsmore Swim Shop will be on site on Monday, September 26th for team suit fittings and equipment purchases from 5:30-7:30pm!!
• First set of training dues will be charged to accounts on October 1st! 

The fees for the 2022-23 year are listed on the website (and linked here) for you to review. In terms of training fees, there is a small increase of fees for each training group, but for our senior parents, you might see a larger increase. This is due to eliminating one month of training fees being charged to senior accounts (7 payments in 2021-2022 and now 6 payments for 2022-2023). As normal, the registration fee for middle and high school swimmers will include their team shirts for that season as well. To qualify for outreach, a family must meet one of the following criteria (linked here) and also provide proper documentation to Coach Grace after registration on our website is completed. One addition to the Outreach qualification is if you receive Reduced/Free lunch or textbook assistance from the school district, you will also qualify for Outreach. I would just need a copy of your verification letter from the school district.

On the sheet, you will see a more direct note on how the registration fee is divided up for the year. The registration fee will not include the USA Swimming registration fee for 2023, since that process is now handled directly by USA Swimming and its new website. With the updates to the USA Swimming website that are launching on the 1st of September, it now becomes the responsibility of the parents to register and pay for their child with USA Swimming on that website. For all of our returning members and those registered on the website for the 2022-23 season, I will send out an email with the club specific link to register your swimmer(s) on October 1st. This way, it will allow the updated website to be up for a month and hopefully all of the hiccups that are encountered are rectified before you initiate your registration there. With more information coming over the week and through the first few days of this rollout, I’ll send more information on this process before we need to complete the registration process. 

Last item for this email, there are two “new” groups for the club for this season and moving forward. The first group is the White Group. White group will now be our intro group for the club and meet for one hour a day, three days a week. We have found that the gap between swim lessons and the longer Navy group practices were a little bit too much, so we have adjusted by adding this group to the offerings. The Navy Group will now go for ninety minutes, four days per week to aid in their progression from year one to year two. Finally, we have created (more like reimagined) a new Senior Multi-Sport group. This would be for our athletes who either are looking for preseason high school training or will swim year round on a limited basis due to competing in other DCHS sports or activities. These athletes will have access to morning training available each week and can move in and out from this training group to full time senior group training (like in the summer). Those who want to utilize this option should be sure to read the fee document on the requirement/options for USA Swimming membership. USA Swimming will be required at all times, but there is an option for Fall only swimmers, beyond the normal membership options. Questions on this or additional information: reach out to Coach Grace.

As always, if there are any questions or comments, please feel free to reach out!!! Have a safe, wonderful Labor Day weekend ahead. We will be back to full schedule very shortly!!

~ Coach Grace