Good morning everyone,

"With the weather outside frightful, but the pool sooo delightful...."

Sorry, I couldn't help but say that Dean Martin homage dad joke. :) However, since it's the start of the new season and it's been a couple of years since we've had a full season and we have many new people, now is a good time to go over weather policies and expectations for the team.

We look for reasons to swim, not for reasons to cancel.

The DEFAULT is that we will swim even if the weather is currently poor.

ALWAYS show up for meets, we rarely cancel, and most often we just wait for the storm to pass.

No matter the weather, plan to attend unless you receive an email/alert from the team stating otherwise.

We ALWAYS make the call later rather than sooner for practice, and we ONLY make the call while on deck at the swim meet. So, please, do not call/email/text the coaches asking about the weather and cancelation. We are aware and are on top of it. If there is NO NOTIFICATION via email, Swimtopia alert, or posted on the website, it means coaches have already calculated and planned for practice and/or the swim meet with the weather in mind.

Rationale:

Practices: Rainy & chilly temperatures, we still have practice. The coaches' judgement will preside, but don't worry, we're not crazy. If water is too cold we will do dry land (limited swimming). If it is chilly and raining, we may have swimming videos and goal setting sessions prepared under the pool pavilion or indoors. If it's warm and raining, we're still in the pool swimming. If it's thunder storming, they often blow through quickly and we still get a portion of the practice in. 

Swim Meets: Rainy or chilly weather, we always push to have the meet the day it is scheduled. Thunder storms often blow through quickly and we can still get it done. Rescheduling a swim meet is the WORST option: Our schedule, the other team's schedule, pool/facility availability schedule, every family's schedule from both teams changes which necessitates a whole new line-up (takes about 7 hours to do each one), getting people to redeclare their attendance in time, risk of another storm on the rescheduled day..... all of these make rescheduling swim meets a royal pain to do. Plus, we cannot just cancel and not redo it; league rules require rescheduling, and it's also not fair to swimmers to lose opportunities, especially for families who created a summer/vacation schedule around our swim meet dates. Some swimmers can only attend a couple of meets, if we reschedule they miss even more.

Other teams may look for reasons to cancel, so they are always stressed trying to figure where and when they can make-up missed meets. However, that often is not us. Sometimes you'll see other league meets get canceled, but we get ours done. At least half of a swim team's success is organizational acumen, the ability to get more swimmers to attend more often, one the right day, with the right swimmer, in the right lane, at the right time, in the right event, means success. Which is what we strive to do. As a result, we look for reasons to swim, not for reasons to cancel.

See you on deck,

Coach Drake