Hello Seadog families!!

Great first meet under our swim caps already and the kids looked like they had a great time!

I wanted to offer some insight into the volunteer positions especially for any new families. We have also made some updates!

Master seeders: (All meets) We have removed the Event board job and added Master seeder in its place. 2 volunteers will work together to seat the kids on the black benches that we bring to all meets. You will have a list of the events and children's names. There are 4 spots on the benches. Line the kids up in the order of their lineup. Then send them to the deck 2-3 events ahead of time. Coaches usually help with the 8 and unders.

Head Timer: (Home meets only) We have added head timer under the timer section of the jobs. Each meet requires 3 lane timers only. Home meets also require one additional timer called the Head Timer. This volunteer will start a stopwatch for each event. You are the BACK UP if any lane timer has trouble with their watch or forgot to start it. They will raise their hand, and you will switch watches with them.

Place judges: (all meets) We have 3 place judges from our team for every meet. The other team also has 3. The judges are for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place. You are assigned a "place". Once you watch the race, if you see lane 3 come in 1st place, and that's your judge role, you hold up 3 fingers to confirm with the place judge on the opposite end of the pool. Once confirmed, you note it down on your place judge sheet. Best seat in the house!

Splits: (all meets) We have 3 volunteers for this job for each meet. You will sit pool side. You will have a meet lineup and a clipboard, along with a split timer stopwatch. You will be assigned a lane to time. You will time each swimmer in the relay in your lane and record their times on the lineup. This is to help the coaches gather updated times on each swimmer each meet. 

Seeders: (all meets) We have many volunteers for this particular job. For example, if you sign up for 9-10 year old seeder, you will be given the yellow meet cards for all the 9-10 year olds. The swimmers are sitting in their age group in the grass. You will locate the swimmers on the cards, and hand them out 3-4 events before their race. You must pay close attention to what event is in the water, and work with the Master Seeders at the benches. The kids will go to the benches with the yellow cards before heading to the deck. Sometimes swimmers are in back-to-back events, in case you cannot find someone. You will have a lineup to check this.

Crescendo Seeder: Listed with the seeders, you will see this job. I think this is the best seeding job! Crescendos are in each stroke and have one swimmer from each age group. This seeder will hand the card to the last swimmer on the card who is the oldest and have them help find the entire relay team. This job is only for the middle of the meet, then you are free to go watch the meet! 

Seeder at far end of pool: This seeder is on the deck at the opposite end of the blocks. Half of the young relays will come to that end of the pool. Using a meet lineup in hand, make sure the swimmers are in the right lanes once they walk down there. You can also confirm who is going second and last. 

Deck hand: (home meets only) This volunteer helps keep parents and children off the deck that are not supposed to be there. We also ask that you enforce the safe sport rule of no photos taken from behind the blocks or the far end of the pool. Side view pics only. 

I hope this helps ease some of you into the volunteer world of swim! There are more jobs, but I tried to touch on the ones that seem a little tricky. It truly takes a village to run a swim meet! Our coaches main focus is the children. They cheer for them, give them feedback, make lineup changes etc. Us parents are their support system so that they can give their full attention to the swimmers!

Thank you all for your help! Any questions please dont hesitate to ask!

Let's go Seadogs,

Jamie