We’ve had a great first week for the 2013 summer season. We got to test our first weather notice with the storms that blew in on Tuesday for our kickoff meeting. Will still had great attendance at the kick-off meeting, Flippin Pizza was pleased that we still purchased all the pies they brought and offering to visit us anytime, many picked up their suits from our Sport Fair vendor that evening and Cara Dalrymple and her family did a great job of distributing Team apparel and selling great Gator merchandise. We have had great attendance at the evening practices, volunteer swim team registrations continue to grow. Not bad for a first week.
Updated Communications will be weekly posted online– I encourage you to visit the website often to stay informed of the weekly and upcoming news. As always, if you have questions you can e-mail me at teamrepfhsc@gmail.com but we will strive to capture critical information in the weekly post. Any information I send you via email will also be posted on our website for reference also – the website has a lot of information in to get you going. Look around the website – it is very easy to navigate and most of the information you need is right there. Remember www.foresthollow.com is a key place to visit on an ongoing basis! If there is any information that you think is missing on the site or that you would like for us to add, please email our webmaster Ernie Halal and me at teamrepfhsc@gmail.com foresthollowweb@gmail.com and we will do our best to update the website right away.
REALLY IMPORTANT NEWS
Officials Clinics tomorrow, June 1, Falls Church HIghschool Falls, Church, VA– The next great opportunity to get your officials training in for Hy-Tek (B meet break-out, genius bar),stroke and turn, announcer, chief timer, clerk of course, table worker, food handler is tomorrow Saturday, June 1 at beginning at 8:00 am. There are several other stroke and turn clinics in the evenings in the next two weeks, but the other clinics this is your last chance. Contact Doug Padrutt our Chief Official if you have any questions at doug.padrutt@usi.biz
For additional details click here
Swim Team practice is every evening.Yes, there is practice on Fridays!
This Upcoming Week’s Practice Schedule:
- This upcoming week – Monday June 3 through Friday June 7 – We are still in school mode – so evening practices remain. Lap swimmers only. 5:30-6:30 for 10 & unders; 6:30-7:30 11 & overs.
- Mini Gator Lessons – Begin this week either on the Monday/Wednesday schedule or the Tuesday/Thursday schedule. A rain-out will have a makeup day of Friday the 8th! Openings remain if you are interested – signup today for a cost of $39 for 4 sessions.
More News
Handbooks – Gator handbooks – New Parent, ABC’s of Developmental Meets, Mini Gators, and 2013 Gator Guide are available online for easy reference. If you would like a hard copy and you are unable to print at home, send me an email and I will do my best to get you a printed copy within our team resources. There is lots of great information in the handbooks and guides so check them out!
Top Ten Lists – We have our Top Ten lists for our Parents and Swimmers (by age group). We did not get a chance to review these at our Kickoff Meeting due to the weather conditions however, these will be posted on the website and on board at the pool, will be distributed at the pool during practice sessions and the first Potluck. Please read these with your swimmers and let them know that these are guidelines for the expectations the coaches have for their swimmers. These guidelines will be what the coaches look for when giving awards to our swimmers for our Gator of the Week awards as well as for the end of season awards. Parents, the team Advisory Board and I appreciate your support for our swimmers, coaches and volunteers.
Gator Strength – In 2012 we reached a record high registration for Forest Hollow – soaring to 199 swimmers. At this time, we are now at 183 swimmers – a clear testament to our community and the strength of our swim program. We are clearly building a great team for the future! We are happy to have all of our returning Gators back, and we hope that our new families will catch the full spirit and love of the Gators! we realize much of swim team “talk” can seem very foreign right now – don’t worry – you’ll catch the lingo and the spirit soon. Preseason evening practice (before morning practice begins) is always hectic as we share lanes with the pool patrons. Everyone has been patient and flexible to handle our crowd and we appreciate it! Please note that because of the numbers, we are always evaluating the number of coaches at evening practices and will make adjustments if necessary. Bear with us as we make this transition to ensure the safety of our swimmers.
For new parents and Mini Gator parents – we are currently looking for open dates to schedule a New Parent and Mini Gator Parent briefing to help clear up some of your questions. Stay tuned for dates and sessions.
Missing Swim Suits – We have a report of one of our swimmers that did not have her suit when she arrived home after team meeting this past Tuesday. It is a female suit size 34. If you have it please let me know so I can return it to the owner. Just in case you may have gotten home with an extra suit or the chaos of the team meeting night resulting in you forgetting to pay Sports Fair for the suit your Gator tried on…no worries. See Cara Dalrymple or me and we can get the checks to Sports Fair. (Note, for new parents – the suit price is not included in your team dues, the cost is female $57.75; male $37.28 (includes tax). Our vendor SportFair is located at 5010 Lee Hwy, Arlington, VA and their phone # is 703.524.9500 and their website is www.sportfairusa.com Please stop by to see them to purchase your gator swim suits or other swim merchandise. They will also be back at our pool on Monday, June 17th during our first B Meet to make it convenient for anyone that cannot make it to their location.
Gator Team Apparel – If you are wanting to order additional T-shirts, please be sure to do so prior to June 6, this is the day of our last order with our vendor for t-shirts for the season. If you have not received your t-shirts yet and if it’s because we do not have your size, no worries, we will make sure to get those for you with that order. We anticipate having all our T-shirts no later than June 13 just in time for Time Trials. Be sure to contact Cara Dalrymple at carajohn@gmail.com
Gator Ice Cream 2013: – From our Ice-Cream Sales Volunteer – Betty Jo Lash
Exact change only (bills or coins) — we have a swanky new lock box that sellers can slide the money into when selling.
- Team members can sell ice cream at the break.
- Ask a guard to make the announcement.
- ONE team member sells per shift (this change is to limit traffic in guard office).
- 8 and unders need a grown up with them to unlock, sell and lock up (and reach the ice cream at the bottom of the freezer).
- 9 and older can sell on their own (assuming they can reach the bottom of the freezer).
- After selling, you many take one free ice cream (one free ice cream per day–even if you sell again–really).
- Please be sure to LOCK the freezer when you are finished selling.
WHO has the freezer key???!!!
There are several Gator families who have a freezer key. Can your child(ren) find all of them? This is a great way to meet team families, so have fun asking and finding out who has one this season. The first child who can name ALL the ice cream key holders gets TWO free ice creams –one for them and one for a coach of their choosing! Tell them to see me at a potluck!
Proceeds from ice cream sales support the swim team. Thank you for participating in this Forest Hollow tradition. Many of our coaches remember how fun it was and want to see the younger Gators enjoy building pool memories and helping the team, too.
Team Picture Day – Team picture day is June 15 at 7:30 am for ALL swimmers. We want Mini Gators and all Gators at picture day. More to come on this. This is also the day of our Time Trials. Time trials is just like an A meet but it is just our swimmers. It’s the first official event of the season so we want all our Gators on deck!
Speaking of Pictures….. – Our Websmaster Ernie Halal has done an amazing job with our website and part of that was creating a more streamlined process for sharing pictures during the season. The process for sharing photos is described on the ‘Event Photos’ page on the site (in the left nav). To view the page you need to be logged in. Only accounts approved and confirmed to be swim team members will be able to access it. https://www.foresthollow.com/event-photos/
For our Meets and other Team Events any parent can volunteer to be one of the designated “team photographer” . Jooners is being updated with all those slots and if you have a good eye, a good camera (my iphone works wonders!), enjoy taking pictures and can commit to taking as many pictures as possible of as many swimmers, coaches, parents and volunteers during our events, WE NEED YOU! Just sign up on Jooners. There will be a briefing for all our deck volunteers prior to each meet for a few minutes either with our Head Timer, Chief Official or Team Rep depending on your role. If you have any questions just email me at teamrepfhsc@gmail.com
Volunteering is Required and Needed – Thanks to everyone who has signed up to volunteer on our website via Jooners. There are still plenty of positions open – so go to www.foresthollow.com and look for the Jooners links. We are still updating the Jooners site so if you are looking for a position you do not see yet, just check back again next week. EVERY parent needs to participate at one or more meets for the season to be successful. Come out, be part of your child’s team and participate. Participation may be tracked to ensure every family participates – please help us – we can’t run a meet without you! If you don’t know where to volunteer – just ask me at teamrepfhsc@gmail.com and I will help find a slot for you to fill where we need you the most. Right now we actually need a parent or two that would be willing to be our 2013 Volunteer Coordinator(s). Karen Curtin who is helping out will not have swimmers this year participating in events so she is only helping us in the background setting things up online. We need coordinators willing to manage the coordination of volunteers for all positions (except for our team officials [Table workers, Marshalls, S&T judges, Clerk of Course] who are managed by our Chief Official Doug Padrutt) If you are good at coordinating resources this may be the job for you. Please contact me directly to discuss your interest in this very important role. In the meantime, I will act in the role of on deck coordinator while Karen helps me set things up for our volunteers online.
Some Key Volunteer positions needed:
- Volunteer Coordinator – Help recruit, organize and cheer on our parent volunteers. Make sure we have the volunteers needed for our team events and meets, work closely with Team Rep and other lead volunteers.
- Winter Swim Coordinator – I know it sounds silly, but we’ve already received the information to signup for winter swim lanes. We need someone to take the lead on this, hire coaches in August, and manage the process through the winter/spring.
- Awards Ceremony Coordinator – This is a relatively easy task – find a place now for our awards ceremony and then before the event solicit donations for snacks/drinks to “feed and water” our Gators after a successful season.
• Swim a Thon Coordinator – This is easy too…make sure everyone has packets; collect them; enter the totals into a spreadsheet…and done. The date has been set (July 4) and the packets will be in hand soon.
• Activity Coordinator – This is a fun one. Help organize Splashdown and Bowling events. Come up with other team social activities if you like.
• Potluck Coordinator –let’s get this one filled soon so we kick off the season in the right spirit on June 21!
Doing Good Things for Others –
Our annual swim-a-thon for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS). We’ll have pledge packets on June 20th when our LLS representative with be at morning practice to give our swimmers and parent an orientation about the fundraiser and hand out pledge packets – we ask our swimmers to pick one up and start asking friends and family to pledge for laps swum on July 4. Every donation makes a difference and our swimmers train at the same time! We need a coordinator for this very important event on July 4.
If I forgot to mention something , that you are wondering about..send me an email and I will respond to you and share the relevant information for all on the website.
Merari