Good afternoon,

Our 1st dual meet is one week earlier this year than it has been the last few years; it's on Nov. 5th, home meet, at the Slate Belt YMCA. 

Since we have the Boyertown Boo this upcoming weekend I won't have much time to make the line-up, so please declare your swimmer's attendance ASAP, and I can start making the line-up this week. :)

New Swimmers: See bottom of this email *

HS & Fall Sports Athletes: Even if you haven't really been in the pool that much yet, I still recommend you attend this meet. The league rebalanced the divisions, so our Madison Division has the same number of teams as most others (5 teams). As a result though, we only have 4 dual meets instead of our usual 5 or 6. Although that relieves some pressure on our schedule in January, it also means one less opportunity to get in the 2 dual meet eligibility requirement for Madison Champs, and the 3 closed YMCA meets eligibility requirement for Districts. As a result, if you can make this home meet on Nov. 5th, I highly recommend you do so. 

It's the start of the season, so no need to worry about being out of shape or not getting your best times, you just need to participate for it to count towards eligibility. 

* Meet Attendance Declaration Required for Dual Meets from ALL Swimmers

1. Go to our team website, neys.swimtopia.com.
2. Go to the "Schedule" drop down menu.
3. Click on "Meets/Events".
4. Go to each "Mandatory" meet = mandatory attendance declaration and attend if at all possible; it's a team scored meet that counts towards our league record.
5. Click on "Meet Entry".
6. Click "Edit" at the bottom under the swimmer's name (login into your Swimtopia account if you haven't already to see swimmer's name).
7. To the right of swimmer, it says "Undeclared", but CHANGE IT, to either "Not Attending" or "Attending this meet".
8. Leave a note if arriving late or leaving early. ALL swimmers are expected to stay for the whole dual meet, but if a PARENT schedule requires leaving early or late because of work or another family obligation, just tell me the time of your arrival or leaving in the notes section. To clarify, this is a parental decision you must inform me of ahead of time; it is NOT a swimmer decision. Swimmers have a team obligation to stay even if they think they are done swimming. Kids just leaving is very poor sportsmanship, they need to support and cheer for their teammates, and if we need to send someone in to replace another swimmer, if they just leave it means having to scratch a whole relay or lose the points.  

See you on deck,

Coach Drake