|
Parents Information |
-
Officiating
Swimming Newfoundland and Labrador offers officials free clinics throughout the year. No matter how much or how little swimming knowledge you have you can be an official. Swim meets at the Mount Pearl Pool require over 30 officals throughout the meet to be run properly. We encourage all the Marlins parents to take the beginers course as a time keeper so that you can do your part!
Check out swimming.ca for more information on officiating.
SNL POLICY STATES: Officials
Clubs participating in sanctioned meets shall be required to provide Officials for each session. As a minimum, Clubs registering:
5 swimmers or less – 1 Official per session
6 to 20 swimmers – 2 Officials per session
Over 21 swimmers – 3 Officials per sessionThe Meet Manager or designate, shall be responsible to ensure that there are sufficient Officials from the Host club to fill vacant positions not covered by Officials from the participating clubs.
Clubs are required to submit the list of officials with team entries
Exception to this requirement will be granted to St. Pierre and Labrador .
Swimmers/ Parents new to competitive
Welcome to competitive swimming as you’ll soon realize swimming competitively is very different from pre-competitive. Here is some information that will help you get use to the program.
As a parent
To provide your child with the confidence they’ll need to succeed in the sport, you should be encouraging and never criticize your child or the coach. Both of them know when mistakes have been made. Remember “yelling at” is not the same as “cheering for”. New experiences can be stressful situations. It is totally appropriate for your child to be scared. Don't yell or be little, just assure your child that the coach would not have suggested the event or meet if your child was not ready. Remember your job is to love and support your child through all of the swimming experience. Most successful swimmers have learned to focus on the process and not the outcome. Giving an honest effort regardless of what the outcome is, is much more important than winning. One Olympian said, "My goal was to set a world record. Well, I did that, but someone else did it too, just a little faster than I did. I achieved my goal and I lost. Does this make me a failure? No, in fact I am very proud of that swim." What a tremendous outlook to carry on through life. Don’t judge your child's progress based on the performance of other athletes and don't push him based on what you think he should be doing. The nice thing about swimming is every person can strive to do his personal best and benefit from the process of competitive swimming.
Swim Meet Basics
Once you become a competitive swimmer you are eligible for all provincial competitions with the exception of Short Course and Long Course Provincial Championships. (For those you must meet a qualifying time.)
We expect all competitive swimmers to compete in all competitions however It is not mandatory that swimmers attend all competitions they qualify for but it is in their best competitive interest. The number of events they compete in is different at each meet and are chosen between me and the group coach with input from the swimmer. Parents must notify the head coach by the opt out deadline if thier child is not participating in a swim meet. Otherwise they will be responsible for the meet entry fee. Meet deadlines are included on the website and in the weekly emails.
The meet schedule can be found on our website. You should check back often as dates can change and details are posted. Prior to the competition an announcement of the competition will be made by email. The deadline for for fees to be sent in- either by email or to the lock box, will be included. It is very important that forms are returned on time. Swim meets have strict deadlines that prevent us from entering swimmers after the due date. Coaches enter all swimmers who have not opted out, by picking events that they feel are appropriate for that athlete. Many competitions have restrictions on what events or combination of events you are allowed to swim. Coaches have a long term plan of having all swimmers swim all events at some point throughout the year, but they also keep an eye on what time standards your child is close to. The main goal of every swimmer is to swim best times. Of course we also encourage our swimmers to move up in the rankings. At championship meets events are generally selected in a manner to assist the team with maximum point scores.
Swim meets usually begin on Friday evening and are then followed by two sessions on Saturday and one on Sunday morning. The specific times for your child to arrive at the pool are emailed out just prior to the competition. It is generally the parent’s responsibility to get their child to the meet sessions, but many of our families will car pool. If swimmers are not on time for warm-up the coaches may be forced to “scratch” them from that session. Swimmers are encouraged to rest between meet sessions and have some down time to keep them up while at the pool. There are also two provincial championships which the new competitive swimmers will be aiming to qualify for. Short Course in March and Long Course in June. Short Course is held in Gander and Long Course in St. John's. The next level is East Coast Championships (11 years old and up) which there are two as well- Feb in PEI and July in St. John's this year.
Fee Structure
There are some changes to the Marlins fee structure for this coming season. The fundraising commitment will now be called a fee subsidy which better describes what it is. The monthly fees for competitive are $70. There is an annual fee to Swim NL that is $144.00 as well as the fee subsidy of $350 per year. The total for one year is $1194.00. You can take part in fundraisers to reduce your fees however much you choose. There are team fundraisers that we use to keep our fees as low as possible and we ask that all families participate in those. They include the Auction, Our meet, Parents Dance and Recycling.