Rudgear Rats Newsletter: Week of June 4th

Upcoming Dates
June 5 – No Practice
June 5 – Picture Day | 8:00am-10:30am
June 5 – Buddy Reveal | 11:00am-12:30pm
June 5 – Chipotle Dine-Out Fundraiser | 5pm-9pm
June 6 – Rugrats Begins
June 7 – REST vs. WHO (home) | Warm-Ups: 4:30pm
June 7 – City Meet Declaration Deadline
June 8 – 9/10 Social | 2:30pm
June 10 – REST @ IVST (away) | Warm-Ups: 8:30am
June 10 – Adult Social and Poker Night
June 11 – 15/18 Rafting Trip
June 12 – 6U & 7/8 Social | 1pm-3pm
June 14 – REST vs. Woodlands declare by 6/7
June 16 – RATS Beach Day! // No Practice
Link to full season calendar

Coach’s Message
Fellow Rat Families, 

Strong first week of summer practices! Great teamwork against WCSC and YWST. Make sure to remind your kids to shake hands after all of their races. This is very important to me as the head coach of the program. We want opposing teams to remember us for our sportsmanship! Couple of big weeks ahead of us, starting with the WHO on Wednesday. Time for a rival match up on our home turf. Good vibes only! Looking forward to the team picture day tomorrow. Buddy’s will all be revealed! Also, be on the lookout for time pop bracelets after Friday practices. We will be encouraging swimmers to set goal times in order to focus on popping our times at meets.

Reminder: relays are organized chaos for us coaches. Don’t be afraid to make sure your kiddos are in the right place. Of course, we only want coaches doing the “coaching” however we appreciate the extra help when it comes to organization of relay teams behind blocks. It takes a village, as I often reiterate!

Finally, don’t forget to sign up with our legendary coaches for private lessons via sign up genius. We are excited to be offering additional help to those who are interested. 

Bless Up Bleed Green Go Rats!
-Coach Nick

TL;DR:
-picture day opt-in: Text “2023RATS” to 90738
-eat dinner at Chipotle on Monday
-GREEN OUT on Wednesday
-lessons available
-declare for City by 6/7

Picture Day
Monday, June 5 – arrive between 8am and 10:30am. Please come at whatever time is best for you – but not everyone can come on the later side, so if you can come earlier please do so. (Even if you don’t want to order pictures, please bring your swimmer by to take their photo so it can be compiled into the team photo.) All the details:
-There is no prepay; instead, opt-In via text message prior to picture day: Text “2023RATS” to 90738
-Once pictures are ready for ordering, you will receive the link and access code to order
-All orders are mailed directly to your home
-Opt-in via text to receive the ordering link and special promotions
-Show up with your team suit on, smile, and look fierce!

Buddies and Bagels
Monday, June 5^th | 11:00am-12:30pm
Our Buddy Reveal will happen right after picture day! If your swimmer signed up to be a buddy, they will find out who their buddy is! We will play team building games, snack on bagels, and have lots of fun! (If you swimmers wants to attend and didn’t turn a form in, that’s okay! We will be making some on-the-spot matches.)

Chipotle Dine Out Fundraiser – June 5^th
Super good news – you don’t have to cook dinner tomorrow night. Grab dinner from Walnut Creek Chipotle between 5pm-9pm and be sure to show them the attached flyer to let them know you’re with the RATS. You can even order online – be sure to type in the code 8XY963Y.

Please also share the flyer with local friends and family!

REST vs. WHO – GREEN OUT!
To get pumped up for our first Wednesday night home meet, it’s gonna be a GREEN OUT! Wear any and all green that you have and let’s GREEN OUT the pool deck for our meet against WHO.

Stroke Requests
If your swimmers wants to swim a specific stroke at a dual meet, please be sure to use the note feature when you declare them in for the meet. Requests aren’t always guaranteed, but our coaches always do their best to grant requests when they can! Using the note feature is the best way to make your request as lots of emails, texts, requests on the pool deck, etc. easily become unwieldy.

City Meet – Declare by June 7^th
The first of our two-day, “big” meets is coming up toward the end of June (6/23-6/24). The Walnut Creek All-City Meet is a two-day invitational where swimmers get to compete against all the teams in Walnut Creek. Swimmers are divided into two ‘flights’ based on their seed times, where swimmers in the B division can score points for their team, as well as the top tier swimmers. It’s a fun weekend and we encourage you to attend!

Please commit your swimmer(s) AND choose the events that they would like to swim. Each swimmer can participate in up to three individual events (15/18s may also add 50 free in addition to three other events). Our coaches will take the swimmers’ selections into heavy consideration when choosing the events.

In addition, some swimmers will be placed in relays. If your swimmer can only be at City Meet for one day, or has to leave early one or both days, please be sure to make a note of their availability in the note area.

The deadline to declare is Wednesday, June 7th
This is a hard deadline based on our timeline to get entries to WCSC desk.

City Meet Advertising and Shout Outs
If you want to advertise in the City Meet program, click here.
If you want to purchase a shout out in the City Meet program, click here.

Adult Social and Poker Night
The Adult Social and Poker Night is this coming Saturday – June 10^th starting at 5:30pm. Come to play or come to just hang out with other Rudgear parents. It’s going to be a blast, so please join us!

To let us know that you’re coming, please submit $75 per poker playing attendee and $60 for non-poker players. Please attach your full name(s) to your payment.
-Venmo: @Rudgear-Rats – write attendee’s name(s) in payment note.
-Cash/Check: Give payment to Nick Loera or place in the Loera family folder – attach attendee’s name(s) to payment.

Questions - Matt Abbott | [email protected]

PS – There will also be a Silent Auction at this event – weekends in Tahoe, local gift cards, and more! If you have a skill, a service, a product, or a place that you would like to donate, please let us know. Email Matt Abbott at [email protected]

Lessons
Lessons are available! We post all the coach’s sign-up links on our website (click here); however, it is the coaches’ responsibility to update their sign-ups (usually on Sundays or Mondays), set prices, receive payment, etc. We have a lot of swimmers on our team, so please be considerate when booking lessons. We don't want one swimmer having three lessons per week and another left with none.

Please note: Swimmers may only sign up for one lesson per week with Coach Nick. If you sign up for multiple lessons for one swimmer, the earlier lesson will stay on his schedule and the remainder for the week will be deleted.

Coach Lunch
We have a great tradition of keeping our coaches at Rudgear fed! Please sign up here to bring our coaches lunch one day this summer. (We have EIGHT coaches this season, so we encourage you to team up with another family.)

Let’s Connect
Instagram: @rudgear_rats
Facebook: Click here to join our Facebook group

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO RATS!!