With 13 more 12&U swimmers signed up for this spring than last spring, it’s a relief to see us building back our youth post-COVID.  Two spring sessions ago, we had sixty one 12&U swimmers.  This year, 101.  With a growing age group program backed by one of the highest retention averages in Wisconsin, we’re excited about building back bigger!

Saturday, April 6^th (all at SP West)
Performance & Senior 7:30-9:00A
Typhoon 7:30-8:45A
Cyclone & Tsunami 8:50-10:00A
Tropical Storm 9:00-10:00A
Hurricane/Thunderstorm: OFF
Parent Practice 10:00-11:00A

Tuesday, April 9th
Morning & dryland per usual
Team Pictures starting around 4:30—details arriving tomorrow!

Wednesday, April 10^th – Limited East PM Availability
Morning per usual
Hurricane & Thunderstorm 5:10-6:00P at SP West
Cyclone & Tsunami 6:00-7:00P at SP West
Tropical Storm 6:30-7:30P at SP East
Typhoon 6:30-7:50P at SP East
Senior & Performance 7:00-8:30P at SP West

If you haven’t already done so, check out your swimmer’s training group on the website.  It’s got all the details you already know, plus a calendar you can subscribe to in order to see just your group’s practice schedule.  It’s very convenient!  For those of you brilliant folks with Android phones, a calendar widget with the color-coded groups is *chef’s kiss*.

Finally, we’ve made a separate calendar for meets & events, it can be found here on the schedule/results page.

We’re trying our first “parent practice” on Saturday, April 6^th at SP West.  Groups will swim per usual that morning, but the 10:00-11:00 group will be Storm Aquatics parents.  Bring a suit and goggles and some humility.  Swimmers will get the chance to coach their parents through some strokes and drills, followed by a few family relays. 

Our end of season banquet will be Sunday, April 7th at 5pm at the Central Heights Performing Arts Theater.  This event will have a small token for every swimmer that competed in a meet this season, awards for training groups, swimmer of the year, volunteer of the year, and more.  We’ll also hand out ribbons from the last few meets and have cake!  The event is not formal, but you know—have your kid shower and wear decent clothes.

If your swimmer is due their under :30 brownies, send me a reminder here.  I’ll have them ready for pickup at the banquet.

On April 9^th, we’ll have team/group/individual pictures at SP West.  This is for all our fall/winter/spring swimmers.  Even if your swimmer swam the winter and is sitting the spring out, we still want them for the pictures!

I have a call in to get final details Thursday morning—you’ll get your update tomorrow, I promise.

On Saturday April 27^th we’ll be doing two big events.  First, an intro to Open Water Swimming at the Kalahari Water Park Lazy River.  This year, we’re expanding our field a bit to allow for some newer swimmers to get the experience.  Any swimmer, Tropical Storm or above, that’s under 8:30 in their 500 freestyle pay participate in the open water training.  We’ll swim with the current of the river and against it—learning turns, pacing, sighting, and pack swimming.  It’s a perfect place to work on endurance without the worries of fish or seaweed.  There’s no charge to the event.  Swimmers need to 1) sign up on our event page and 2) be ready to walk into the water park area of Kalahari around 7:50A. The event will run until 9:30, at which point we’ll pop back out of the water park and collect ourselves for Part 2….

Swimmers, siblings, family, friends, foes, and competitors are all invited to play at the Kalahari at the conclusion of the OW Training.  This event runs from 10:00 on the 27^th until swimmers conk out or the park closes.  Tickets are sold in advance here, and include the group rate, a slice of pizza, and a drink.  We’ll have a cabana for families to store things as well.  Tickets can be purchased here (it’s $60).

We’re excited to see spots filling for our 2^nd annual Spring Scramble golf event, held May 5^th at The Oaks.  This event is quickly becoming a great fundraiser for the team and requires just a bit of work from each family.  There are three ways in which to help, any of which are extremely valuable:

1. Come golf!  Find some friends or join someone else’s foursome and golf 18 holes with us.
2. If you don’t want to golf, find us just one sponsor.  Sponsors range from $50 hole sponsors all the way up to some big ones with lots of perks.  If you find a sponsor for us and get referred, you’ll get 10% of any golf sponsor credited to your account.
3. If none of those work, consider donating an item that might work in a raffle basket.  Gift certificates, sports tickets, any new cars you have lying around, whatever.  Reach out to Erin if you have something for a basket.

During our State of the Team, we touched a bit on expanding our Rising Stars offerings to give more of the cheap, fast, fun meets that our newer and emerging swimmers have come to enjoy.  We’ve got some fantastic meet options being offered this summer:

• 3 Rising Stars Meets on the books
  • A multi-team one session meet in June in Columbus (outdoors!)
  • Two July dual meets, one outdoors in New Glarus and one indoors in Jefferson
• High Level Long Course Meets
• Short Course Yards meets throughout the summer
• Multiple Open Water opportunities, including the potential to return to Devil’s Lake for the Big Swell Swim
• A Team Travel meet for all 11&O swimmers to Noblesville, Indiana June 28-30

We’re really excited about being able to provide opportunities for all our swimmers.  If there’s something we’re missing that you’d like to see, let us know!