Michiana Marlin Swim Club Weekly Announcements for Week of 09/22-09//28

John VanDriessche

Dear Marlin Families.

Practice Schedule

Penn High School

Splash 1 & 2: Monday and Wednesday 6:00-7:00

Splash 3: Monday and Wednesday 6:00-7:00, Thursday 5:30-7:00, & Friday 5:00-6:30

Fins Flex: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 5:30-7:00, & Friday 5:00-6:30

Fins Compete: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, 5:30-7:00, & Friday 5:00-6:30

Elite AM: Wednesday and Friday 5:30-7:30

Elite PM: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 3:45-6:00, & Friday 3:45-5:15

New Prairie High School

Splash: Monday and Tuesday 5:00-6:00 CST

Fins: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday 5:00-6:30 CST

Elite: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday 5:00-7:15 CST

Knollwood CC

Splash 1 and 2:

Monday and Wednesday 4:30-5:30 or 5:30-6:30

Tuesday and Thursday 3:30-4:30 or 4:30-5:30

Practice Notes:

New Prairie families continue to use door N18 to enter the building. Penn families use door D. If you arrive at Penn and the gallery door is locked, please feel free to get my attention on deck to let me know. Here is the link for this week’s practices. Please share these with your athletes

Splash 3 will be practicing on Friday this week and not Tuesday. Whenever there is practice on Friday evening Splash 3 will practice on that day.

Parent Meetings

Here are the dates for our parent meetings at each location.

The KCC parent meeting will be held in the downstairs lobby on Monday September 23 at 5:45 EST.

The NP parent meeting will be on the pool deck on Tuesday September 24 at 5:30 CST.

The Penn parent meeting will be in the cafeteria on Wednesday September 25 at 6:00 EST.

My presentation typically takes around 25-30 minutes followed by a question and answer session.

CON Skypoint Invite/Elkhart Aquatic Center/Nov. 1-3

The meet information has been posted. We are changing the commitment date to one week from today, Sunday 9/29. Everyone should have received an email this morning with the new deadline.

DUNE Sweater Weather Swim Spectacular/Hobart High School/Oct. 5&6

You can view our entry by clicking here. You can also view your swimmers entry by logging on to our website and clicking the same button you did to commit your swimmer. You can also use one of the apps listed below under the TeamUnify section. Our entry will be sent out first thing tomorrow morning

All pertinent time information will be listed in next week’s email.

Mental Performance Coach

Some of you may have heard that we have employed Ava Kaylor as our mental performance coach. She has worked with my teams and athletes, including my own children, for several years. She will be working with both Elite and Fins groups throughout the winter season. Ava is also available to work with your swimmer individually as well. If for any reason you have reservations about your athlete working with a mental performance coach please let me know. Here is her brief bio with her contact info.

Ava Kaylor is a Mental Performance Coach that works to help individuals and teams develop mental skills and learn how to implement the skills and techniques into sport, performances, and daily lives.

She believes that every athlete, coach, or performer can achieve a level of personal excellence, overcome obstacles with resilience, and be successful athletically, personally, and academically.

Ava grew up in Northern Virginia with a deep love for competition, excelling in both volleyball and swimming. Her dedication to sports led her to become a two-sport NCAA athlete in the Mountain East Conference (MEC), where she thrived in both disciplines. This experience ignited a passion for understanding and improving sports performance, inspiring Ava to pursue a Master’s degree in Sport Psychology. Ava has dedicated her career to helping athletes enhance their mental performance, drawing on personal experiences as a collegiate athlete and an in-depth understanding of the psychology behind elite performance. Ava has brought her Mental Performance Training to many individuals and teams in the Michiana area.

Ava is engaging, fun, and employs a real-life approach to working on the mental side of sport and performance with her clients. She also has her own goals and commitment to fitness. When Ava isn’t working, she enjoys spending time with her husband and three children, playing volleyball, tennis, and swimming.

Education:

Master’s, Sport Psychology, John F. Kennedy University
Bachelor of Science (B.S.), Psychology, Fairmont State University

Ava Kaylor, M.A.

Mental Performance Coach

(703) 963-6019

www.AvaKaylorPerformance.com

Swim–A-Thon/Penn High School/Oct. 12

We have several questions specifically regarding setting-up your swimmers page and the potential prizes. We’ve created a link with a quick reference guide.

We have had a very good week. This week alone we have raised over $5000. We now have 33 of our athletes participating. Just imagine where we will be when all of our members are participating.

Due to space limitations we are going to divide the Swim-A-Thon into two sessions.

All athletes 12 years old and up will have their Swim-A-Thon from 8:00-10:00.

All athletes 11 and younger will have their Swim-A-Thon from 10:00-12:00.

We will need parents to help count laps. We will use the main pool and the diving well if necessary. We could need up to 14 lap counters to cover the entire facility. This is an event for our entire team.

Each athlete will be required to raise a minimum of $100. Athletes raising $200 or more will win a logo’d team suit. There will also be other prizes for the overall top fundraiser and for the top fundraiser at each location.

Here is a preliminary breakdown of funds disbursement.

5% to the USA Swimming Foundation
10% goes to Michiana Marlins Foundation for scholarships for our athletes
TBD % for needs for each location based on what each site raises.
TBD % towards coaching wages/salaries
TBD % coach education/clinics/professional memberships/required certifications
TBD % future projects/travel/trips/clinics/guest speakers/emergency funds

I understand this is vague. I want to be as transparent as possible and will communicate exactly where the funds will go once it has been decided.

Fitter and Faster Tour Northridge High School

NASA is hosting a clinic for 9 and over swimmers focusing on the essentials of faster racing. The clinic will be on Saturday 9/28 and Sunday 9/29. You can register by clicking here. The clinic organizers agreed to give our club a small amount of the registration fees for every Marlins swimmer that attends. A great way to learn some skills and help out the club!

TeamUnify

We have switched almost all of our club operations over to the new website. I have fielded a couple of questions with some problems our members are having. My experience is these problems typically come down to two issues. The most common is the web browser you use on your laptop. TeamUnify works best with Firefox. The second issue is when members use the web browser on their phones. If you prefer to use your phone it is best to use one of two apps. The two apps that connect directly to our website are OnDeck and Sports Engine Motion. The login information is the same you would use for the website.

Contact Info

We have added a tab to our new website. If you need a coaches’ email you can click here.

USA Memberships

We will need all of our athletes that have not done so already, to renew their USA Swimming memberships. Here is the link. From my experience with my own athletes just purchasing the membership will initiate the transfer process.

If you qualify for the Outreach Program email me and I will send you the link you will need to use for registrations.

If you have any questions about any registration issues you can reach out to me or our team/business manager Kelly Laneman ([email protected])

Spirit Wear

Hopefully you saw our social media posts with the link to our team store. If you missed it, no worries, here is the link.

Social Media Sites

Make sure to like, follow, or subscribe to our social media platforms. You can click here to our Facebook page, X, and Instagram. We will use these sites to enhance our communication. These sites will be filled with pictures from meets and practices. We will also be posting any last minute announcements here as well. These will include practice cancellations, weather or otherwise, time changes to meet warmups, and anything else that needs to get out quickly.

Fall and Winter Meet Schedule/Dates of Meet/Location/Deadline to commit

This is our tentative meet schedule for the fall and winter. We may add meets if we find ones that fit our club’s needs. There will be two different dates listed with each meet The first date listed is the day(s) of the meet and the second date is the deadline to commit.

Swimmers wanting to compete will need to commit to those meets. The deadlines will be based on deadlines that were set in previous years. They may change once the meet hosts posts the meet information. When committing to multiple day meets, if the option to select the days you want is not available, leave a message in the notes section stating the specific days you would like to attend.

Some meets will be marked with an * and those will require swimmers to meet minimum time standards. You can view all pool locations on our website under the "Pools" tab.

DUNE Sweater Weather Swim Spectacular/Hobart High School/Oct. 5&6/Click here to see our entry

CON Skypoint Transit Invite/Elkhart Aquatic Center/Nov. 1-3/Sept. 29

GSI Goshen Rays Veterans Day Meet/Goshen Aquatic Center/Nov. 9/Oct. 13

ELK Rudolph Romp/Elkhart Aquatic Center/Dec. 6-8/Nov.10

IA Tim Welsh Invite/Elkhart Aquatic Center/Jan. 3-5/Nov. 3

CON IMXtreme Invite/Concord High School/Jan. 24-26/Dec.15

IA Jr. Superstar Invitational/Rolfs Aquatic Center/Feb. 15&16/Jan.12

CON Leisure Pools Last Chance Showdown/Concord HS/Feb. 28-Mar. 2/Jan.19

*IN Swimming Divisional Championships/TBD/Mar. 7-9/Feb.23

*IN Swimming Senior State/TBD/Mar. 13-16/Feb.23

*IN Swimming Age Group State/TBD/Mar. 21-23/Feb. 23

*USA Swimming Speedo Sectionals/IU Natatorium Indy/Mar. 27-30/Feb.23