All,

Thank you to everyone who has joined the team recently, what a wonderful wave of familiar and new names over the last few days! Thank you as well for your patience with the practice groupings. It took some time to verify memberships, sort by timing preference, and attempt to group families by general age/ability.

PRACTICE BLOCKS

Under the current restrictions, we can have family members in lanes and we are assigning one practice block per family. We understand there are wide age/ability/personality differences in many families and that this is less than ideal. We will do our best to modify the practices for different skill levels. If siblings really can’t share one lane, you are welcome to send just one swimmer on different days at your family’s scheduled time.

We have broken families into 8 practice groups (below) and currently we can offer 3 practices per week for each family on M/W/F or T/Th/S schedules with either 45 min or 60 min practices (depending generally, but not perfectly on age/ability). The full schedule is attached so you can see your family’s time.

LANES

We have designated the lanes to maximize the separation of the kids, so we put larger families on the end lanes and tried to add single swimmers in between families with 2+ kids. This may mean your swimmer is not in a lane next to their friends, but they will not be allowed to trade lanes during practice in order to swim next to their friends.

The odd numbered lanes will enter/exit from the shallow end and the even number lanes will enter/exit from the deep end. We will give equal dive practice times to both groups.

REQUEST TO CHANGE TIMES/DAYS

We hope these times work for families, but it’s inevitable that some will be disappointed or availability has changed. Please understand that we cannot make changes for the next 1-2 weeks. Things are still in flux with memberships and we anticipate more families joining this week. This means we likely will need to change frequency, timing, or duration of practices to make room for more Marlins. We were able to accommodate all morning v. afternoon requests in this round, but if your current practice block is not feasible, please let me know (Donna: [email protected]) and we will try to shuffle things in the next iteration.

As the restrictions loosen and change, we will be as nimble as possible and hopefully then we can offer more flexible options. Until then, we hope you will understand that we are doing our best under the circumstances.

TIMELINESS & ABSENCES

We will be taking attendance for contact tracing purposes and also to keep track of who is using their practice times. It is very important for your swimmers to be on time so that we can be efficient with the attendance. If your whole family will be absent, please email Donna ([email protected]), Caleb ([email protected]), and Hilary ([email protected]).

POLICIES AND PROCEDURES

We will be strictly adhering to GMCA's covid procedures. Please familiarize yourself and your children with these rules (you can find them here and the Coaches Presentation with additional swim team rules is attached). The coaches will spend much of the first few practices reviewing these policies with your children, so the actual practice time will be shorter to go over the rules.

We will have a no tolerance policy. If your swimmer breaks the rules, they will not be allowed back into practices for the rest of the week, then we will reassess. We understand they will be tempted to wait for their friends and walk out together, but that will not be allowed. They must practice social distancing the whole time they are on pool grounds and they must wear masks the entire time they are not in the pool.

Your swimmers must grab their gear and exit the pool area as soon as practice is done. There will be no socializing on the pool deck after practice since we need to clean for the next group.

8U PARENTS

Especially for the first couple of weeks, we prefer if one parent (and only one parent) stays at the pool during practice. This is to help monitor social distancing and also help with things like goggles and gear since the coaches can no longer help with goggle issues. You may bring a towel to sit in the grass behind your child’s lane. However, please do not talk to the coaches during practice, they need to focus on your children. You may email them or speak with them outside practice times.

Please let us know if you have any questions.

Go Marlins!

Donna