Hello Blue Fins Families and welcome to our 2022-23 swim season.

My name is Kevin Rizzardi and I am your parent liaison and volunteer coordinator. It is my job to help navigate you through the season by being a resource for questions that might come up. The best way to reach me is by email at [email protected]. A good rule of thumb is that if it is something that involves a swimmer or swimmers, you should contact one of the coaches...anything else, I can probably assist you with.

Mailboxes - Last night I updated all of these using our current roster. In these bins will be a folder for every family and in these folders is where we will place various items such as beads, ribbons, and any other things that need to get handed out to you and your swimmer. Every season we have families join after I finish the bins. If you or someone you know finds that your swimmer doesn't have a folder in the bin just email me and I will get it taken care of as soon as possible.

Dog Tag Design Contest - This has become an annual tradition for us and we will be continuing it this season. Each swimmer will receive a dog tag and then they will have the opportunity to earn beads throughout the season by achieving certain milestones. For now though I am just asking you to print off the attachment included in this email and offer your swimmer the opportunity to enter their design. This is optional, but we hope to get lots of entries. All entries will be due by Monday, October 24 as noted on the form.

Each year I look for a few volunteers to hold chair seats to assist me with organizing specific events or groups. These positions have all been filled with either volunteers from last season or someone who reached out to me at the beginning of this season.

• Social Coordinator - Lisa Spitale - Organize and plan for team socials (Pre-champs pasta dinner, Christmas party, End of season party, etc.)
• Lead Marshaller - Jill Olexa & Greg Nungester? - Responsible for organizing the marshalls at every meet to ensure that our younger swimmers are getting where they need to be during the event.
• Hospitality Coordinator - Lorraine Johnson - Coordinates the food and drink items that we sell during our home dual meets.
• Bead Coordinator - Melissa Greenwood - Coordinates the awarding of the beads and getting them distributed to the swimmers who earn them.

Some other roles that we will need support with outside of typical meet support. I will send out emails as these needs come up.

• Apparel Committee - Although I will handle most of the logistics such as getting apparel to the Y I will ask for support in distributing these items during times when I cannot be on site.
• Social Committee - The social coordinator will need support in organizing any social events that we have.

There are also a number of job that we will need volunteers for during the actual meets. Rather than list them here I encourage you to read the Swim Parents Survival Guide that is on our team site https://neys.swimtopia.com/swim-meet-101. This guide will not only answer some of the questions you might have, it will also provide brief descriptions of each volunteer role that is needed during a meet.

Coach sends out emails that answer a lot of the questions you might have. He usually adds them as a news post to our team site so in the event you want to refer back to something you might find it easier to just reference the home page under the "News" section.

If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to reach out to me directly. Here’s to another great Blue Fins swim season!

Thank you,

Kevin