Team Events

Upcoming Events

Nov 19 Update: Important dates/deadlines and Y State

Joseph Shelly

Hi team,

Hope your Novembers are going well so far! Just a quick update and some info on Y State I think is important to share.

Let's start with an overview of upcoming deadlines:

  • Our Poinsettia fundraiser with Van Wingerden has a due date of November 21 at 7:00pm, so that I can send our orders that night. The delivery date of the plants will be on December 1st (time TBD based on other fundraisers, but probably in the early afternoon).
  • No practice on Thanksgiving Break (Nov 27-28)
  • We are hosting a meet at the Snohomish Aquatic Center on Dec 13th!
    • Registration deadline is December 1st
  • Our Winter Potluck and Sock Exchange returns on December 17th!
    • Event from about 5:00pm-7:30pm, starting with food, ending with a sock exchange. More info coming soon!
    • This is at the Mount Vernon City Library, free and easy parking in their parking garage
  • Winter break will be from Dec 22-26, no practice scheduled and facility closure on Dec 24-26
    • We will have combined practice from Dec 29-Dec 30, facility closes at noon on Dec 31, and is closed all day on Jan 1st
  • Our annual Polar Plunge is on January 1st at 11:30am for a 12:00 cold dive into Lake Padden!
    • We will be on the west side, I will post the address and directions as we get closer
    • Family and friends welcome! I'll bring hot coco to share :)

The Whatcom and Friday Harbor meets are still in the works!

If you are interested in the Friday Harbor meet, please respond to this form: https://forms.gle/CTgN3N7Hrqc4bMTG8

 

Whatcom meet and Y State eligibility discussion

The Whatcom meet will most likely happen at our pool. Our goal is to help as many kids get the 2 YMCA meet requirement as possible to be able to attend Y State, and so this will be for swimmers who have not yet logged 2 YMCA meets since Regionals. Long story short, I had a long meeting yesterday evening discussing the 2 meet eligibility criteria and I am still unsure what exactly the board/planning committee intends to do about the waiver process.

More info:
The meet will have a cap of 50 swimmers, and no 200s outside of the 200 Free, so it will be done with fast. In my meeting with the PSSA board and Y State planning committee, I raised concerns about the waiver process and information not being made available within the 90 day mark of the championship meet. There was some pushback in that there were some that wanted to suddenly get rid of the waiver process, which I believe is completely unfair for the HS swimmers who operated under the assumption that they could compete with their HS teams and have a YMCA meet waived to be eligible to compete at Y State. Conversations are still ongoing, and I am still going to push for the waivers until they get tired of hearing from me, but I would encourage our swimmers who have been a part of the high school swim team programs to attend as many YMCA meets as they can if they are wanting to compete at Y State on January 24th.

For our high school swimmers who did not attend 2 meets since (not including) Regionals, please consider the following dates:

  • December 13th - this is our hosted meet at the Snohomish Aquatic Center. I recommend to all Tritons either way!
  • January 11th - This is the date I am trying to set up with Whatcom YMCA to have a meet. Meant for swimmers who have not yet hit the 2 meet threshold for Y State.

I will go through the roster and identify swimmers that have note met the eligibility requirements for Y State and send out emails. If your swimmer has met the eligibility requirements, I will send out a confirmation as well.

 

Side note: Swim officials needed!!

We are still in need of officials! If you are interested, please let me know and I will let our coordinator know to help him gauge interest in a virtual option through Zoom. I had a conversation with him this morning and he also recommended going through the USA Swimming pathway to build the future of our team. After holding a USA Swimming officials cert for a year, it allows you to get a YMCA officials certification without having to take the YMCA class. A USA Swimming referee would also be able to skip right into a YMCA level 2. Officials are critical to be able to host meets and have times approved. We have 2/3 people with YMCA level 1s now, so we can hit that minimum to host YMCA meets (albeit, depending on officials availability). The next step is to expand in giving our swimmers the USA Swimming time transfer opportunity, as Y meets without USA Swimming approval do not count towards USA Swimming meets that require time standards.