Welcome Swordfish to the 2009 Season

Hello Swordfish families,

We are excited to announce the beginning of the 2009 Swordfish swim season, which will start on Friday, May 1st. We have had a strong registration this year and the coaches are looking forward to a great season. Following is the schedule for the evening:

• Meet the Swordfish Executive
• Club expectations
• Growing the club - increased registration has required us to acquire extra pool time at Foothills.
• Questions and Pizza to follow

May 4 - May 8, swimmers will be assessed to determine what group they will initially be training with. For this week all returning swimmers will swim from 5:00 pm to 6:00 pm and all NEW swimmers will train from 6:00 to 7:00pm. Please be patient with this process, as the coaches have a lot of new swimmers to evaluate this year. In the following weeks, the swimmers will be divided into smaller practice groups, based on age and ability. We will announce the practice times the weekend of May 9th.

Parking: The swim club pays for parking, but you must park at lot P1 which is south of the Jubilee Auditorium parkade (see www.sait.ab.ca for a map). You must bring your validation ticket to poolside, where you will be directed to the validation machine. You use the validated ticket to leave the parking lot.

Officials Clinics: Early in May, we will be announcing some dates and a location of in house officials' clinics run by Dave Long, one of our Swordfish parents. If you choose, you can attend the Officials Clinic on Saturday, May 9th, held at the Calgary Winter Club (free of charge). Following is website information from www.swimalberta.ca. If you are new to the sport of swimming, a good beginning course to take is LEVEL I SAFETY MARSHAL, MARSHAL, & TIME KEEPER.

All courses will be offered....
Registration is not required unless you are a candidate for referee. If you are a candidate for the referee clinic, please contact Pat Lata directly at patsy.lata@shaw.ca

WHAT TO BRING: Course materials and questionnaires may be downloaded from the Swim Alberta website at www.swimalberta.ca. Click on “Officials Clinic PowerPoint Presentations” or “Level 1 Officials Clinic Presentation”. Please note that the Stroke and Turn clinic is 64 pages long, so you may want to shrink it to 6 slides per page. For the Level 1 clinic, please print both the clinic guide and the exam. There will be no materials available at the clinics. Please print your own to bring with you.

There will also be a SWAD (Swimmers with a Disability) clinic for those interested.

If you require further information please contact Pat Lata at patsy.lata@shaw.ca.

We are looking forward to plenty of "best times" at the pool this year, and are sure your swimmer will have an enjoyable season. See you on Friday!