Good Evening People of the Pool,

After a great, if not a little different, first week things get started in earnest at the end of the week with our annual Blue-Gold Time Trial Meet. Thank you to everyone who came out to Fairfax for evaluations and practice on Saturday. I wished I had been able to be on deck with everyone, but I should be back for Tuesday's practice. On that note, let's get to the week at hand.

Practice Schedule This Week

We are still on the same schedule this week for practices. Tuesday and Thursday: 13&Over swimmers from 4-5PM, 9-12 swimmers from 5-6PM, and 8&U Swim Team members from 6-7PM. All Swim Team practices are at The St. James (TSJ). If you have signed up for Junior Team or were slotted into Junior Team at Saturday's evaluation, your practices will start next week. 

Requests From The St. James

There were a few requests made of us as renters at TSJ. 

• Please make sure to remind your swimmer to dry off as much as possible prior to leaving the locker rooms. They are trying to keep their non-aquatics areas as dry as possible for their other members.
• If you plan to remain for your swimmer's practice, you may stay up in the bleacher area above the pool. You are of course allowed to walk your swimmer down onto deck, but you may not remain on deck during the practice time. 
• Please make sure your swimmers are using the non-member locker rooms and bathrooms. 

These are requests that are made of all renters of TSJ. We did not have major issues with this, but I just wanted to make sure that I mentioned it. Thank you for your attention to these matters. 

Blue-Gold Time Trial Meet

On Saturday, June 11th we will have our annual Blue-Gold Time Trial Meet. All Swim Team (not Junior Team) members are encouraged to participate and sign up. This meet acts as the basis for our meet lineups throughout the season as it is the best chance to get times on all of our swimmers. Each swimmer is able to swim up to 5 events (each stroke and the IM) that they are capable of swimming. You are in charge of signing your swimmer up for the meet. You can do so by logging in on the ANCC.Swimtopia.com site --> click on the Meets & Events tab --> click the green Meet Sign Up button. From there you will be able to mark your swimmer as available or unavailable for the meet and choose the events they would like to swim. Please make sure you have signed up by Thursday evening, June 9th. 

The meet itself will start with warm ups at 10:00AM at TSJ. Please have your swimmers to the pool in time to be ready to get in the water at 10:00AM. We will start the events at 10:30AM and the meet should take less than 3 hours. I will be able to provide a better timeline after all entries are in Thursday night. I will send an update at that time. 

Swim & Dive Team Parent Social

After the Blue-Gold Meet there will be a Parent Social on the Clubhouse Patio from 4:00-6:00PM (there is a backup option of moving to the Williamsburg Room in the event of inclement weather, so please come rain or shine). This is a great opportunity for new parents to meet everyone and for the OG parents to get back together to start the season. There will be heavy hors d'oeuvres and a bar available to all who attend. Rainbow City will be open in the Arlington poolhouse during the social for your convenience. If you plan on attending the Parent Social please take a couple seconds to register. There is no charge or cap for the event, however it will help us in prepping to make this the best event possible for you. Register For Swim & Dive Parent Social.

I look forward to seeing all of you there.

Practice Schedule Next Week and Beyond

Beginning on Monday, June 13th the practice schedule will be as follows. We will follow this schedule through the rest of the season.

Swim Team - all practices at TSJ

Monday-Thursday

9:00-10:30AM  -- practice for all 10&U Swim Team members

10:30AM-12:00PM -- practice for all 11&O Swim Team members

Friday

9:00-11:00AM -- Fun Friday practice for Swim Team members of all ages. 

Friday's fun practices will be followed by a Fun Friday team activity. These activities will be different each week. The event may take place at TSJ, Army Navy, or Annandale Swim & Tennis. We will include the activity in each weekly email so that you will know well in advance. 

Junior Team

Monday-Friday

8:30-9:15AM -- practice for all Junior Team members.

Junior Team will have their own Fun Friday activities. All will be held at Army Navy-Fairfax.

From the Deck,

Coach Ian