Submitted by James on Fri Jul 24 11:43am
Posted in
Karen Bartlett suggested that maybe Pre-team signups should be split into a-K on the first day, L-Z on the second day, and then having the rest of the week for makeups.
Having tried to take Jack through the process it was stressful and intimdating. Jack wasn't ready, but I saw other kids & parents who were overwhelmed.
I had another idea too.
Next year we should set up a table with a big sign that says "Sign up here" We can have a teenager man that table and then walk the signup sheets over to a person in the shallow end so that names can be called.
This way:
- Signup and evaluation are spread out (not crammed into one spot)
- It's clear to parents where to go.
- Once they are signed up they can sit on the bech and slide down when their name is called.
- Everyone will know what order they are in.
- We can start the sign-ups 30 minutes before the stat of evaluations
- We won't have 50 people standing around the shallow end while swimmers are evaluated.
- The signup sheets can be used place the swimmers into Gators, Barracudas and Catfish.
What do you think?
Pre-team registration
I think those are good ideas. I had also thought that kids could be divided according to age and skill level (swimmer/lessons/previous pre-teamer) on the first couple days. Put previous pre-teamers together, or maybe 2 groups by age or last year's grouping, so they can get in the pool right away (in shallow end only). These kids could wait to be evaluated last, after any new kids are evaluated. The teen coaches could shift them around a bit if there are blatant mis-matches in skill level, but at least they are in there getting started instead of standing around getting bored/whiny, and we know they can swim if they did pre-team last year.
Then for the first timers, I like the suggestion James made about setting them up away from the shallow end so that they don't have a huge audience when they are being evaluated (plus, it would be fun for them to be lined up on the benches that are used during meets). We didn't try it this year, but I remember Justin being very intimidated by all the people watching him, and it turned him off to swim team initially.