Hello Blue Fins,

One of our annual traditions is our dog tag design contest and our improvement and coaches award bead program.  Each year our swimmers have the option to submit a design to be voted on for that seasons dog tags.  The designs are all submitted to the coaches anonymously and then they vote on which design will be selected for the final dog tag.  The winner of this years dog tag design is Maggie Rizzardi and the winning design is attached.  Congratulations Maggie and thank you to all the swimmers who submitted designs.

The dog tag comes with a chain and the purpose is for our swimmers to be able to place beads on the chain as they earn them.  Swimmers can earn beads for achieving best times in an event, qualifying for Charlie Hartley, qualifying for Districts, Coaches awards for team spirit, sportsmanship, excellence, setting a new team record, and sometimes for team socials.  A bead key can be found on our team website at this link https://neys.swimtopia.com/bead-key-photos.  This is especially a great way for our younger swimmers to stay engaged throughout the season and we have found that many of them look forward to seeing if they earn beads after each meet.

Our bead chair is parent volunteer Missy Greenwood.  After each meet Coach Drake compiles all the results and then prints labels for Missy.  Missy then takes the time to sort beads into individual bags and places them in the swimmers mail folder.  This process can take some time so please tell your swimmers to be patient and not to expect their beads to be ready on Monday or Tuesday after meet weekend.  Most weeks it could take until the end of the week before the beads will be ready.  If you ever feel that a mistake was made or your swimmer was forgotten please let us know and we will get it corrected.

Once the dog tags arrive from our distributor I will be sending out an email advising on the day that we will be handing them out.

Thank you,

Kevin