Good morning!  We hope you have your RAY Octane ready because we are just days away from starting our season!  We are thrilled to have each of you and know we are going to have a great and fast summer together.  

First of all, if your swimmer has any physical, mental, emotional considerations, or allergies that might affect them during our season, please let me know ASAP.  We want to do our best to serve all our swimmers well, and if there is anything that will allow us to better coach them, we would love to know, and we will handle everything with utmost discretion.

We have opened up the RSVP on swimtopia for Red and Black Meet (Thur June 5th).  Please do this by Monday at noon.  Here are the steps using your app: Click Calendar, then the meet you are rsvp'ing for (Red and Black), click your child's name, then Attending or Not Attending.  You will need to do this for each child if you have more than one swimmer.  If you can't figure it out, please plan to ask a parent during practice on Monday, they are more than ready to help!

You do not need to mark anything else.   Coaches will work with swimmers to place in individual events and make relays.  This is completely at our discretion.  If your child has a question about their events, please encourage them to talk to us!

Workers for Red and Black: Reminder that this meet only has one shift of workers.  Amy and Natalie are working on that, and more info will be coming.

Parent Relay: We are doing this again at the Red and Black.  It will be at the end of the meet, and a 4X50 (200) relay.  If you would like to participate in this, please respond to this email with your name.  Feel free to work on getting your teams set up and if you know that, let me know that too!  If you don't have a team yet, just send me your email and we will add you to one!  This is a lot of fun, and the kids loving watching their parents race.  No need for experience!

Michelle Bell will be sending out a timeline for the evening, because that is also picture night and we arrive earlier than usual.

Our first practice starts next Monday June 2nd! Our practice schedule is on our website. Please know that this first week there will be lots of moving parts, so please be patient as we adjust as needed, working to make the most use of our time together.

Parents and siblings-There is a bathroom inside our gates, but other than needing to use that, if you would like to watch practice, please do so from outside the gates. Lots of families bring camp chairs and sit in the shade by the trees. Please understand this is the best way for Coaches to have the swimmers attention, and keep everyone safe. 

Communication with Coaches: Please remember that there are 5 practice "shifts" every day. I try to be at all the actual practices, every day. So, unless it's an emergency, I will likely not answer my phone during practice, so I can remain focused on our swimmers in the water. If you need to let me know your swimmer won't make it that day, that's fine if you want to send a text. If you have a question about a meet, or anything non-swimmer related, please reach out to other parents watching the practice-they are very helpful and will often get your question answered faster than waiting for me to close up at the end of the day.

For the first practice-please help your swimmer remember to bring a water bottle, goggles, towel, a bag to keep everything in (and ideally it is marked with their name), and we will be passing out caps, but they can also bring one if they have one from a previous season as well. 9-10's will come straight in the gates, with all their stuff, where we'll be setting up the pool, all other ages can go straight to the basketball court with their bags, at their dryland start time, where they'll stretch and get to know each other for drylands and then come into the gates together, with a coach.

Practice times and lanes: We expect all swimmers to practice during their appropriate age groups unless you have talked to me. This is the best way for the swimmers to get to know their peers, you parents to get to know each other, and also the best way to train and practice with their relay teammates. We understand there are various camps, trips, appts, etc. and are happy to work with you to adjust periodically if needed.  We can not accommodate this on a regular basis however because our groups are so full, so please have them at the proper age group.

Within the practices: Coaches will decide lanes. While we want them to have fun with their friends, we do have a lot more to consider than just your/their preferences. Please don't ask us to move their lanes during practice, and give us time to sort them out for the good of the entire group. We have been doing this a LONG time, and I have seen plenty of well run practices and plenty of messy lanes ;) and I know it doesn't happen immediately. We will move and adjust the lanes, as well as the order within the lanes as we go. Please encourage your swimmers to speak up, but we want to equip them to understand why we do this, and work with us on this.

The Stingrays rent this pool and space from the Sugarwood Residents/HOA. PLEASE understand that this is a privilege.  Let's leave it cleaner than we found it, be respectful of ALL areas, keep an eye on your children and pets (Please pick up after your dogs!!), and drive carefully in here! We would love to make a summer where there are no complaints, and the residents view this as a blessing to our community!

OK! That's it for now.  Be on the lookout for info and reminders from Michelle, as well as worker info from Amy/Natalie.  Thank you all, have a great weekend and get those goggles and suits ready!  Can't wait to see you on Monday!

Coach Jodi