All,

Just a reminder that the deadline to opt out of sharing a lane with up to one other family and a max of three swimmers is today (prior email with more information is below).  If you would like to opt out, please email Donna @ [email protected] and Coach Tjasa @ [email protected] by 5:00 PM today. 

I also wanted to remind everyone that while this revised structure will get more swimmers in the pool, it still may not be possible to find space for everyone.  Once the deadline closes, the coaches will work to finalize lane allocations.  We will announce the groups when they are done and will refund anyone who does not have a spot.  If you miss out on spring, we will not have the opt out for summer and we will have more practice times, so your odds are higher of getting a spot for the practices starting in June.

A final reminder that you do need to be a member of GMCA to be a part of the swim team.  If you have not yet joined the pool, you can do so here. 

PRIOR EMAIL:

All, 

Thank you all for your interest in our spring practice session. We had an amazing turn out for registrations, with nearly 40% more families signing up than we are able to accommodate with the one family per lane model. We want to get all your swimmers in the pool, with safety being our main concern. 

Based on the current youth sports guidelines and conversations with other local and JSSL teams, we've decided to allow more than one family per lane, as allowed by the County. We've done some benchmarking, and many other swim teams have switched to 2 non-family, 3, or 4 kids per lane. 

For Spring, we will still keep siblings together and we will set a max of three swimmers between two families in one lane. If you have three swimmers, they will still have their own lane. If you have two children, they would be matched with a family with one swimmer. If you have one child, they will be paired with either a family with two kids or another single swimmer. The kids from different families would start at opposite ends of the pool, so won’t be on the wall together in the same lane. We will also arrange the starting ends so that they alternate two/one/two/one/two/one to give the max spacing on the walls. 

Since we didn’t announce this prior to sign ups, and since we understand some of you may be uncomfortable sharing a lane with one other family, you may opt out for spring only. If you would like to opt out, please email Donna @ [email protected] and Coach Tjasa @ [email protected] by Thurs. March 25th at 5:00 PM. We will not penalize those who opt out, so your practice preferences will still be considered in first come first served order. If you opt out it will just be your family in your lane. If you do not opt out, we will be putting mixed families in lanes. The coaches will do their best to put your swimmers with the friends you list during sign ups, but there are no guarantees on the pairings. This is a logistical undertaking that will require flexibility to get as many kids in the pool as we can, so please minimize any special requests. We hope this approach for Spring will allow for all our interested swimmers to have a practice slot. However, we won’t know for sure until we see how many families opt out and how the pairings work based on ages and practice group preferences. It is still likely that some families will still miss out on a spot this Spring. However, summer is right around the corner and we believe we will have even more flexibility this summer. 

Assuming our county continues to process to less restrictive tiers, we are planning ahead for summer in which we hope to allow more kids per lane and siblings to be able to be in groups that are the best fit for their individual ages/abilities instead of family lanes. There also will not be an opt out option for the summer since we want to maximize the use of every lane. This is all tentative and things may not work out as we hope, but wanted to give you a preview of summer. 

Thank you all for your patience and flexibility as we try to be responsive to the sports guidelines and best interests of all our swimmers. 

Thanks, 

Donna