Hello Maplewood Marlins!!

Welcome to the 2021 swim season! This has been a long time coming! The board is very excited to be able to provide this swim season for all of our wonderful swimmers and their families. We have a lot of new families joining us this year. We are doing our best to make this season as “normal” as possible. We want to give a big thank you to the Maplewood S/N HOA and recreation committee for working hard with us to ensure that we can safely run a safe and fun swim season.

This is going to be one of my usual long emails. Please make sure you read on to the end. There will be a number of details in this email that you may want to refer back to as the season moves forward. It will be posted on the website so you can access it again.

COMMUNICATION

The first place you should go if you have a question is the Maplewood Marlins website. It is the site you went to for registration. We will do our best to make sure that the information is up to date on the website. The important tab on the website is the CALENDAR AND MEETS tab. Here you can find the practice schedule for the season, the calendar of events, sign in and out of meets, sign up for jobs, access heat sheets for current meets, and see the results of finalized meets. I recommend that you become familiar with the website. We will also have important announcements posted on the first page of the website.

It is also important that you install the swimtopia app on your phones. Please note, this is an information only app. You can not “do” anything on the app. However, you can access the heat sheets and you can also receive push notifications from the board regarding swim team information. We will use the app to send out updates or cancelations due to weather and other reminders that we need to get out to the team in a timely manner. Please make sure that you have installed this app on your phone and enabled push notifications. For returning swim families, we will be using the swimtopia app in place of the “rained out” app that we used in prior years.

We will also be communicating with you via email. I will send out updates weekly, there will be a number of emails coming to you in the coming days. Please do your best to keep up with the emails.

If you can’t find your answer in any of the above places, please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have.

PRACTICE SCHEDULE

Practice will begin on Wednesday, May 19, for 10 and under swimmers only.

Practice for all swimmers will begin on Monday, May 24. The afternoon practice schedule will be in place through June 11. Following that, we will begin with morning practices on June 14 through the end of the season. The practice schedules are as follows:

AFTERNOON PRACTICE SCHEDULE from May 19 through June 11

MONDAY-FRIDAY

6 & Under 4:00-4:30

7/8 4:30-5:15

9/10 5:15-6:00

11/12 6:00-6:45

13 & up 6:45-7:30

MORNING PRACTICE SCHEDULE from June 14 through end of season

MONDAY

AGE GROUP TIME

6 & Under 8:30-9:00 AM

7/8 9:00-9:30 AM

9/10 9:30-10:00 AM

11/12 10:00-10:30 AM

13& UP 10:30-11:00 AM

WEDNESDAY - FRIDAY

6 & Under 7:30-8:00

13 & Up 8:00-8:45

7/8 8:45-9:30

9/10 9:30-10:15

11/12 10:15-11:00

There will be no age group practices on Tuesdays once we begin morning practice times. Instead, we will use these days to schedule one on one stroke clinics for the swimmers with the coaches/junior coaches.

EVENING PRACTICES

Tuesday - Thursday only

13 & up 8:00-9:00

younger swimmers only with coaches’ approval

SWIM MEETS

There will be 4 regular season swim meets this season. We will swim all the meets at home. We will not swim against another team. The meets this season will be divided into two groups. 10 and under swimmers will swim in the first meet. 11 and up swimmers will swim in the second meet. They will both be held on Monday evening during the 4 Mondays in June (June 7, 14, 21, & 28) The schedule for the swim meets will come out in a separate email, as we get closer to meet dates. But this season, the meets will be run as a more typical meet. We will have line up, awards, as much as possible the same as a pre-covid swim meet.

Following the regular season meets, we will participate in the post season events. We will have the Meet of Champions (date TBD) followed by the All Stars Meet (July 9). We don’t currently know if these swim meets will be swum in person or virtually. We hope we are able to compete in person for these meets. WE will let you know as the decision is made at the league level.

COVID-19 PRECAUTIONS

The COVID 19 precautions this season will be relaxed compared to last year. To those of you who were on the team last year, you were real troopers! What an incredible year that was! The HOA and the swim board are working hard to ensure that everyone is safe. We are staying up to date on Federal, State, and Local mandates, rules, and suggestions. Currently, we will be requiring all people at the pool to be wearing a face mask when entering and exiting the pool area and when walking around on the deck. When standing or seated at the pool, you may remove your mask. We are also limiting the total number of people who can be at the pool to 250. That is the reason we have split the meet into two groups. That will allow both parents to attend the meet and still remain under the headcount limit.

As mentioned, we are staying up to date on recommendations and may be changing the restrictions as we move forward. We will keep you posted. We want to keep everyone safe while ensuring that the kids have a fun swim team experience. Also, the board really doesn’t enjoy enforcing a bunch of unnecessary rules!

STROKE JUDGES

Stroke Judges are a very important part of the swim team. Stroke Judges watch the races from the side of the pool (best seat at the meet) and note if the swimmers make an illegal stroke. Stroke judges are required to attend a stroke clinic sponsored by the league to be trained in how to judge the strokes. The stroke clinic at Maplewood will be held the morning of May 22. We do realize that this is a big ask. To help encourage people to volunteer as a stroke judge, we are offering a reserved parking space for our stroke judges and also a free meal at the meet. You can choose from either of the concessions meals we offer (chick fil a or pizza). If you can help us out as a stroke judge, please contact Kristine Niznik at [email protected]

Please note, this job is required. We cannot hold a meet without the required number of stroke judges. Even if you already signed up for another volunteer slot, we can switch things around to set you up to be a stroke judge. If you were stroke judge in the past two years, you will only need to attend the short training on the 22^nd. If you have not been a stroke judge before, or longer ago than the past two years, you will need to attend the long clinic.

The short clinic starts at 7:30 am and the long clinic begins at 8:00 am. Both on May 22. If you cannot attend the clinic on the 22^nd, there will be other clinics around the league.

May 15 Greatwood

May 29 Sweetwater

June 5 New Territory

All the clinics have short clinic at 7:30 and long clinic at 8. You must register with the team to let them know you are planning to attend. If you aren’t sure which clinic you need to attend, check in with Kristine at the above email address and she can let you know. Again, we really need people to volunteer as stroke judges. Even if you don’t sign up as a stroke judge, we would still love for you to attend a stroke clinic. You will learn how the swimmers are judged and you will be available to fill in for a stroke judge if someone is sick. Please let us know if you can help us with this.

KICK OFF PARTY!!

We will be hosting a kick off party on the evening of Friday, May 28. We are working on the details, but it will be during the normal practice times. We will probably have a party for 10 and under and then a party for 11 and up. The details are still being worked out, but please put the date on your calendar.

OTHER EVENTS

The Coaches’ breakfast is Friday, June 25. This is a time when the older swimmers get to swim, eat breakfast, and hang out with the coaches. It is a longstanding right of passage on the Maplewood swim team and something the swimmers look forward to.

The end of year party will be Wednesday, July 7. The pool will close to members that evening and the swim team will have open swim, awards, dinner and some fun. As mentioned before, we do have limits currently. We may need to make some revisions to our normal format. WE will let you know as the time gets closer. But again, please mark your calendars with the date.

As mentioned before, the board has been working to ensure that we can have a safe and as near normal swim season as we can. There are a lot of things that are changing as we move further into the summer. For that reason, we will hold off on making decisions until we have to so that we can have the easiest restrictions possible. Please bear with us. We are looking forward to seeing all of you at the pool!

Go Marlins!

Monique