Parental Involvement
Parental Involvement is vital to the success of any swim team. Parents help get children to both practice and meets, they provide encouragement during practice and moral support during competition. Parental involvement also extends to volunteering during swim meets. A home swim meet requires over 40 Gulfwood volunteers and away meets require over 30. Most of the work required to put on a swim meet does not require any special training. The only jobs that do require any training are the stroke & turn judge, meet referee, and the starter. A list will be posted at practice a couple of days before each meet for volunteers to sign up for the job they would like to do during the meet.

For the Smoky Mountain and City Meets we will have assigned areas to work. We try to make this as easy as possible and block schedule workers so you can work during events that your child is not entered.

Fundraisers

Many families are challenged today in finding time to accomplish everything that goes along with their children's activities. Due to time restraints, it is very difficult for swim team parents to help fundraise in addition to their swim team volunteer responsibilities.

Many teams use assessments as a fair and equitable way to fundraise. It seems to be less taxing on a family's precious time. Assessments allow the family to focus on the swimmer and not on raising money.

Gulfwood swim team uses an assessment fee of $30.00 per family. By using this method, fundraising is fair to everyone.

Practice Schedule

Begins Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Morning Practices (Mon. - Fri.):    ages 11-18     8:00am-9:30 am (green group)
                              ages 10 and under 8:30 am-10:00 am (gold group)

Evening Practices (Mon. - Thurs.) :   all ages - 7:00 pm until coach dismisses you (Wear tennis shoes to every practice!)
                             

Saturday Practices:   time to be determined

Swimmer's Equipment Needs

Each swimmer will need to provide their own practice suits, goggles, swim flippers (optional), swim caps and towels. Each swimmer will also be responsible for the purchase of his/her own team suit. The new team suit , Speedo Sonic Splice (see the News page for photos), will be used for the 2011 and 2012 swim seasons. These suits may be purchased at JAWS, which is located on Kingston Pike in the Cedar Springs Shopping Center.


Team Rules

1. Be on time for all practices and meets.
2. Always do your best at every practice.
3. Always treat others the way you would like to be treated.
4. Always listen to your coach and ask questions if you do not understand.
5. Never get out of the pool without permission.

Meets

Warm ups for home meets will be 1 hour before the meet starts, and warm ups for away meets will be 30 minutes before the start of the meet.

If you are unable to attend a meet, let the coaches know at least 2 days ahead of time if you can. This allows them to know who will be at the meet and how to put relay teams together. Also, all the meet entries are entered into the computer for scoring the meet and for printing out race ribbons.

Smoky Mountain and City Meets require each team to pay a fee for each event a child gets entered in. If you are not planning on attending these meets, again, let the coaches know so the team will not incur any extra expenses. If you do get registered for these meets and just don't show up, you will be charged the entry fees for the events your child was entered in and missed.

File Cabinet System

Each family will have a file folder in the team's storage shed at Gulfwood Pool. This file will contain ribbons from meets and important team information. Please check your folder often for information. We will post all announcements on this website so check back frequently for information.