Good evening,

Thanks to all who were able to attend the meeting tonight! If you were not able to attend, my cliff notes are below. Also, volunteer shifts for home meets are now open and available for sign up! 

Last reminder that the deadline to sign up for this Saturday's meet in Wisconsin Dells is TONIGHT at 11:59pm. 

The process is simple. Login into your account and go to "Information" and scroll down to "Meet sign up instructions" to sign up for the meet. This is an away meet, so we do not need volunteers for this meet.

PARENT MEETING INFORMATION - 

• Website is your main resource for EVERYTHING and emails. Team emails are always posted under “Recent News” on website.
• Practice schedule - Posted on website calendar - At indoor until school is out. June 8th starts our regular summer practice schedule 6/8-7/29 - 6:45-7:45am indoor pool - 8-10am HP INDOOR pool - 5:30-6:30pm outdoor pool. We encourage your swimmers to be at practice as much as possible to improve. Come to what works best for your schedule. You do not need to tell us if you are going to miss, but if you will be gone for a long period of time, or right before a meet, it is good to let a coach know.
• Behavior at practice/meets - We expect our swimmers to be respectful, polite and to display good sportsmanship at all times. Please have conversations with your swimmers about what that means. Our coaches will do their best to encourage these expectations, but hearing it from parents first is always helpful in keeping everyone on the same page.
• Inclement Weather - Too cold and/or storms could be moved to the indoor pool - check email
• Volunteer requirements - IT TAKES 250 WORK HOURS TO RUN A MEET. Every summer, Pool Sharks hosts 3 or 4 home meets and we rely on parents to volunteer at each one. A separate $100 conditional fee has been approved, not charged to your account. At least one family member must volunteer for a job at each home meet their child swims. At the end of the season, if volunteer requirements are fulfilled, you will not be charged. If they are not fulfilled your account will be charged the $100 fee. Funds will be deposited into the Pool Sharks General Fund for purchase of new equipment for the Pool Sharks program.Volunteer sign-up takes place ONLINE. I will open them as soon as I get home from this meeting! Training for any of the jobs will be provided. Most are pretty easy and most times you get the BEST viewing of your swimmer's events!
• Meet and Volunteer sign up - Meets are optional. Meet sign ups are NOW OPEN on our website. Login into your account and go to "Information" and scroll down to "Meet sign up instructions" to sign up for both meets and volunteer shifts. Swimmers need to be signed up for meets by the Monday before the meet for our coaches to have time to put line ups together. This means swimmers need to be signed up by TONIGHT for our first meet this Saturday on June 10th. You can sign up for meets all at once, or meet by meet. The meet deadline is a hard deadline. If it is missed, unfortunately your swimmer will not be able to swim in that meet. There will be weekly email reminders to help families remember the deadline. Our coaches choose what events your swimmer will swim for the meet. Please trust the process. Our coaches will challenge your swimmers to swim new events and/or events they may not be used to. We try to get our swimmers to swim every event at least once. If you will be arriving late, or need to leave early from a meet, please indicate so when you declare. There is a place to leave the coach a note to let them know if you have any special needs or requests for the meet. If something comes up and you are not able to attend a meet you signed up for, please email our Head coaches ASAP. Their email is poolsharkscoach@gmail.com. It is also listed under “Coaches” or “Contacts” on our website.
• Meet Warm-ups/check in - Home team warms up from 7:10-7:30am, visiting team 7:30-7:50am. Please be sure to have your swimmer check in/say Hi to their coaches when they arrive! If you are unable to attend a meet you are signed up for, please email our Head Coaches Riley Talmage and Ashley Pape or Julie Goodman ASAP.
• Meet Awards/ribbons/heat winners - 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place ribbons/points will be awarded to the appropriate places of the competition heat of that individual event. ONLY 1st place get ribbons and scores for relays. At OUR pool, we award ribbons for 4th, 5th and 6th place for 10 and unders on our team ONLY. Exhibition heats may receive ribbons depending on the pool. Heat winners may receive a prize/award depending on the pool. Results are posted throughout the meet. Ribbons will be available for pick up at Monday’s practice after the meet in your family folder in the Pool Shark mailboxes.
• DQ’s - All kids/swimmers get DQ’d at some point in their swimming career. Many of them multiple times. This is how we learn to correct our strokes/turns and starts. If your swimmer got DQ’d and you are not sure why, please contact their coach and encourage them to keep trying their best.
• Tri-County Conference Swim Meet 7/29-7/30 - This is the culminating event for our season. All 8 teams compete against each other in a championship meet over the course of 2 days. We are allowed 3 entries per event (time based). Not everyone is guaranteed to swim at conference. Please declare either way as soon as you know so coaches can start to put lineups together. Day 1 (Saturday) Individual events/prelims. Day 2 (Sunday) Relays and finals (Top 16) Swimmers who want to swim for conference final places MUST swim in at least 3 dual meets this summer. There will be more information on this meet as it gets closer.
• WE ARE HOSTING CONFERENCE!!! - This year we are hosting the Tri-county Conference meet. This only happens once every 8 years and is a HUGE fundraiser for our team. We will need ALL HANDS ON DECK! We will need 80-90 volunteer EACH DAY. Please plan to volunteer for 2 shifts per day and 9-10 and up and at least 1 shift for 8 and unders per day whether you have a swimmer swimming in the meet or not. Volunteer sign ups will be released in a few weeks on Swimtopia.

If you have made it to the end of this email, Congratulations and THANK YOU!!! A lot of hard work has been put into preparing for this season, and we are excited to get it started! Please reach out if you have any questions.

The Sauk Prairie Pool Shark Board