Hello Blue Fins Families and welcome to our 2023-24 swim season.

My name is Kevin Rizzardi and I am your parent liaison. It is my job to help navigate you through the season by being a resource for questions that might come up. In addition I take care of coordinating just about everything outside of the pool. 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 assist you with.

Here are a couple of topics that I want to get in front of everyone as we head into our second week of the regular season.

Mailboxes - There are four mail bins that typically sit on the white table in the viewing area just inside the facility. Inside these bins there is a folder for every swimmer on the team. In the case of families that have more than one swimmer you will only find one folder for the entire family. Throughout the season we use these folders to handout various paper communication, ribbons, beads, and anything else that we need to physically get to our swimmers or parents that can't be sent electronically. We ask that you and your swimmer get in the habit of checking their bin routinely. We will typically send out a text communication if there is something new that has been distributed, but it's best if you just get in the habit of checking.

Last week I updated all of these using our current roster, but I do know that there have been a couple of changes in the past week. I will be updating them again this week so if you find that your swimmer doesn't have a folder please give me until the end of the week before emailing me to let me know. Every season we have families join after I finish the bins. After this week if you or someone you know finds that a 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 I am just asking you to print off the attachment included in this email and offer your swimmer the opportunity to enter their design. Although this is optional we hope to get lots of entries. All entries will be due by Monday, October 30 as noted on the form. I have also attached an example of an entry that was submitted and what it looks like after being sent to our designer for the finished product. This is just an example so please don't let this influence the design that your swimmer wants to submit.

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.

• Lead Marshaller - Jill Olexa - Responsible for organizing the marshalls at every meet to ensure that our younger swimmers are getting where they need to be during the event.
• Volunteer Coordinator - Greg Nungester - Keeps track of all volunteers for the season and tracks work bond obligations. Greg will be the point of contact for all volunteers at meets and he will also be your point of contact if you have any questions about volunteering.
• Hospitality Coordinator - Lorraine Johnson - Coordinates the food and drink items that we sell during our home dual meets.

We are still in need of a volunteer or multiple to be responsible for organizing our bead award program. This can be one person of a couple of people who want to work together. After each meet Coach Drake will provide the bead coordinator(s) with the labels for each swimmer who earned best time beads. Those beads then get distributed to the swimmers the week following the event. Anyone who is interested please send me an email and I can connect with you in person to discuss. Volunteers who perform this task will fulfill their volunteer obligations for the season.

Some other roles that we will need support with outside of typical meet support. If you are interested in supporting in either of these committee's please let me know. The time spent supporting in these two areas will meet volunteer obligations for the season.

• 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 - This will be 3 to 5 volunteers who are interested in helping coordinate spirit night, the holiday event, and our end of season banquet.

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. I will also be sending out an email detailing work bond and volunteer opportunities that you can reference throughout the season.

Coach Drake 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