Pre-Meet Update on TImeline and Volunteer Slots

Hello Swim families, 

I promise there will not be this many emails each week throughout the season. Our first meet being a home meet leads to more need to communicate than others. This is also a LONG one as we are trying to be as clear as possible. 

The timeline of a swim meet is always dictated by the number of swimmers entered. Our home meet has had an overwhelming response to the meet invitation. We have about 400 swimmers entered, which is fantastic for our program and will ultimately be a great fundraiser for our team. It does cause some last minute headaches though as the host. 

Our swim board, which is made up of swim parent volunteers  and coaches, want to clarify a few things based on some feedback that we’ve heard over the last few days. 

1. Volunteer sign ups were opened at the same time for everyone and accessible under the events tab starting on September 24th with reminders going out on Oct 9th, 16th, and 21st. Additional contacts were made by email and text to families to remind individuals of the volunteer requirement. 

2. There is no benefit or early access given to board members or their friends at the time of sign ups. In fact, you may notice that board members (and often their families) are present well beyond the 2 volunteer slots requirement working the entire meet during all sessions and take on either the very specialized jobs or volunteer spots that haven’t been filled. 

3. There were some mistakes in the estimated timing of the volunteer slots. We should have anticipated a larger response to our meet given that it was an Olympic year and interest in swimming tends to be higher after Olympic years. Our registration numbers are up and we should have predicted that other clubs are also experiencing similar growth. We should have built our volunteer time slots to be 4 or even 5 hours long rather than 3.5. We apologize for this. 

4. We are volunteers running this meet. Many of us are new to the positions on the board and learning the roles. At each board meeting we review and reflect upon the ebbvents we have held and document how to improve them in the future. We are human. We make mistakes and learn from them. 

5. We create the volunteer sign up well before entries are due so that families can begin to plan on meet weekends. Entries were officially due on October 16th for this meet. Coach Aryn spends significant time processing the entries, working with the other teams and WI Swimming to finalize the meet information, and putting together the timeline of the meet as soon as she can. 

6. Timelines shift during swim meets whether it’s our own or ones that we travel to attend. We have tried to communicate this in many ways. We apologize if this hasn’t been made clear to new families. The second (or in some meets third!) session of the day’s start time is always dependent upon the completion of the first session. The timing of the first session is dependent upon the number of entries in those races. If the meet gets delayed for some reason (pool equipment issues, swimmer injury, or puke in the pool are all reasons that meets have been delayed), the following sessions may be delayed even further. 

7. We will always try to run our meets as quickly and efficiently as possible. We will work with the officials to ensure that the events are starting as quickly as possible. We will utilize “fly over starts” whenever possible. The breaks that are put into the meet are done for specific purposes or because they’re required in order to give swimmers warm up time. 

8. Our timeline looks like this: 

   1. Saturday Session 1 Warmups 7:30-8:20am, Timers Meeting 8:15am, Meet Start 8:30am, Meet End (estimated) 12:30pm

   2. Saturday Session 2 Warmups 12:40-1:30pm, Timers Meeting 1:20pm, Meet Start 1:40, Meet End 4:48pm (ALL Session 2 times are estimated)

   3. Sunday Session Warmups 7:30-8:20am, Timers Meeting 8:15am, Meet Start 8:30am, Meet End (estimated) 12:19 pm

9. If your volunteer job and time slot was based on the specific session (timers, announcer, runner, awards, meet marshalls, or other on deck jobs), it needs to be adjusted now based on this timeline.  We need these jobs present during the meet while races are happening. Please arrive in time for the timers meeting during each session and stay until the session concludes. 

10. If your volunteer job and time slot was not based on the sessions (most jobs that are NOT on the pool deck such as concessions, admissions, fundraiser sales, etc.) we are adjust times as follows:

    1. 7-10:30am slots are now 7-11:30

    2. 7-11am slots are now 7-noon

    3. 9am-1pm slots are now 9am-2pm

    4. 10:30am-2pm slots are now 11:30-4pm

    5. 10:30am-2:30 slots are now noon-5pm

11. We apologize for the inconvenience the updates to all of these times has caused. If there is an extenuating circumstance that makes it so that you cannot do all of your shift, please, please, please  stay for as much of the shift as you possibly can. Please talk to the board member that is working in your area to let them know about the time conflicts that you have immediately when you arrive. The board members are begging and pleading with our families, friends, and even some of our club swimmers to get more people present later in the day to jump into spots that might need filling. We do not have enough to cover every spot. We need those that are able to stay, to do so. 

12. We will consider asking swimmers of the long distance events to provide their own timers.

Again, please remember that the timeline of a swim meet is out of our control. We are doing our best to adjust in a way that supports our swimmers and attempts to make things equitable for our volunteers and families. We learn from each meet we run and will use this experience to make improvements moving forward.