Stingray Families,

The 2023 Stingray swim season is underway. Practice starts tomorrow! Hopefully our newest Stingrays will start to get a feel for how we do things. Will the water be cold? Yes, and over time it will get warmer so just let your kids know that it will be a few weeks of cold then it will get warm.  Next up is our fun meet this Saturday. This is also known as a time trial meet, and it is just our Stingray kids swimming to get initial times. That way, when they swim against another team, they will be seeded in heats with kids from other teams who are about as fast as they are. It should be over within 2-3 hours (probably sooner), but we will be testing out our Dolphin timing system and that may require that we take a little more time to get everything just right. This is an electronic timing system that we have used in the past and we just need to be sure it's working correctly again.

The fun meet will allow the new Stingrays get a view of what is needed to pull off a successful meet. Home meets require significantly more volunteers on our part than when we are at away meets. If you have been a Stingray for at least one year, please welcome our newest families and help them get acclimated.

Now is the time to go sign up your kids for the fun meet! To get this done, please head over to the Stingray website and navigate to the right hand side of the page and select the Meet Entry open tab under the May 6th Fun Meet. Your child's name should show up on the page. Click Edit - you can sign up for 4 individual events and also let us know if your kids are available for relays by checking the box by the events your children intend to swim. Click the SAVE (this is important or you won't actually sign up) when you are finished. If you have a little Stingray(s), you might want to stick to only freestyle until they get an opportunity to work more on some of the other strokes. We want to build Stingray confidence! Please sign your children no later than this Wednesday at 6 PM (or declare that you will not be swimming this meet by checking the appropriate box). We will post heat sheets Friday evening and we will be ready for the meet to start promptly at 8:30 AM Saturday morning.

We also need you to sign up for your volunteer position! Don't forget that part while you're in there. Keep in mind that unless one person from each family volunteers, we can't run the meet. Therefore, we need you to sign up for wherever you have expressed an interest in working. Not sure what to volunteer for? Try a job out and see how it fits.

We know that swimming is only part of your life so we know that you might not be able to come to every practice and every meet, but swimming is like everything else in life. The harder you work at it, the more proficient you get. 

Finally, if you have a new Stingray who might still be struggling, don't give up. They will improve rapidly over the course of the next few weeks. This is the most important time to encourage them if they are feeling down. 

I will leave you with a quote from Jordan Wilimovsky (Olympian swimmer):

"Confidence comes from what you do in practice every single day"

If you have questions, please feel free to email me or catch me at the pool.

Steve G, Hinojosa - Stingray President