Good morning parents!

 Well, here we are at the start of the 2014 MBW Marlins swim season!  This is going to be a great season for the Marlins.  We have many new families joining us as well as two new coaches.  I have some season-long positions open if anyone is interested.  They are as follows:

Equipment team:                               4-6 positions

Officials:                                              4-6 positions

Tent Parent        6/under boys:          2 positions

                             7/8 girls:                 2 positions

                             9/10 boys:              1 position

                             11/12 girls:             1 position

A brief explanation for each:

The equipment team moves the gear from the storage unit to the pool.  For home meets, they meet around 0545-0600 to set up the tents, bleachers, starting blocks, ready benches, and chairs.  They then have the duration of the meet to relax and watch their child swim.  At the end of the meet, they break everything down and store it at the pool.  For away meets, they meet around 0545 at the pool to load only the tents then head over to the opposition’s pool to set up the tents for our swimmers.  After the meet they return them to our pool.  We only have two meets away from our pool this season.  At the end of the season the team gets together one last time to put the tents and starting blocks into storage.  The more volunteers for this team, the quicker everything goes.

The officials are the moms and dads in the white shirts at the meets.  They are the ones who run the meet.  They start each heat, check for correct strokes and turns, and generally keep the meet safe and fair according to NWAL rules.  There is special training required but it is a rewarding job.  Once a parent becomes an official they very rarely do anything else.

Tent parent is quite a frankly fun, easy job.  You write the heats on the arms on the children in your tent.  When their heat number is called you round up your swimmers and bring them to the ready bench where they are handed off to Socorro and Drew.  That’s it.  Two major points to make here, you are NOT the guardian of the children in that tent.  That still falls on their parents.  Also you are not required to bring your swimmers back to the tent after their race.  Also the parent’s job.  All but one of the tents have a two-person team working, the exception being the 11/12 tents.  They each have one parent.  The 13 and ups do not have (or want) a tent parent.

Please consider one of these positions.  None are difficult jobs and all are absolutely needed for a meet to happen.  If you are interested or have any questions email me back.  The positions will be awarded on a first come, first serve basis.  Thanks for your consideration.

Ray