Good evening,

Thanks for a great first night of swim practice! The only thing we would like to remind people of is to send their swimmer to practice with GOGGLES! Goggles help swimmers keep their head in the water and maintain proper body alignment and positioning. We do not have goggles to lend out. If you do not have goggles, I would recommend going to Simply Swimming in Middleton. They will help find goggles that fit your swimmer properly. 

We will be having a parent meeting this Thursday, March 29th @ 6:30pm at the High School Eyrie/Commons area. (enter through the main entrance and keep walking straight past both gyms until you see lunch tables) Below is what will be covered in the meeting in case you cannot attend. If you are a returning family, and do not have any questions, you do not need to attend the meeting. If you are a new family, I highly recommend sending at least 1 parent to the meeting to add some context to the items below. If you are a new family that cannot attend the meeting, please let me know if you have any questions. Our Coaching staff will be introduced at the meeting as well.

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 6th we will practice at the outdoor pool 3:45-4:45 and 5-6pm. June 9th starts our regular summer practice schedule 6/9-7/25 - 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 if it is available - check email on these days. We try to send out an email at least 1 hour before the start of practice to let people know.
• 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. They are open now! 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 Monday June 2nd for our first meet on Saturday on June 7th. 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 coach ASAP. Their email is [email protected]. 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 Coach Riley Talmage 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 7/26-7/27 - 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 to be eligible to swim in the Conference meet. There will be more information on this meet as it gets closer.
• BABY Shark program -This is a bonus program that is geared towards developing swimmers who are interested in competitive swimming. It is not viewed by our program as a substitute for swimming lessons. Must be able to swim ½ length of the pool and be comfortable going underwater. Baby Sharks ONLY practice at the 5:30 practice at the outdoor pool. If that practice gets moved to the indoor pool, Baby Sharks will be canceled that night. Baby Sharks are not eligible for meets. They are re-evaluated every week. Once they are approved by a coach to move out of Baby Sharks, they are now Pool Sharks and can attend the regular practices and are eligible to compete in meets.
• Clothing and apparel - We have your orders here tonight! Please be sure to pick them up if you have not done so already. If you did not order a team suit and would still like one, contact Simply Swimming in Middleton to see if they still have suits available. 

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