About 10 of us met at the Nat last night and kicked around a number of issues for quite some time.The following are our recommendations. If you have any disagreements, questions, or comments, please use the comment function at the end of this post or e-mail us at universitycityswimclub.com.Practice schedule:Eliminate Saturday practices for kids. This is the most popular practice for Masters, whereas it is not well attended by the kids. Eliminating it will allow the Masters to spread out over more lanes, while also allowing Jon to focus fully on the Masters swimmers.
Older non-Masters swimmers who are able to keep pace with Masters and do the same workouts as Masters will still be welcome.
Eliminate Friday practices. Friday night, for obvious reasons, is the least well attended of our practices. Currently, attendance is usually only a couple of summers.
We will maintain this time slot availability for possible special events as announced, such as intra-team meets, family swim, pizza parties, etc.
Practice times. - All kids will start practice at 5:30pm.
- The more advanced swimmers will practice for an hour and a half, ending at 7:00.
- SuperSwimmers will end at 6:30.
- The beginning swimmer class will be Tuesdays from 5:30 to 6:15.
Coaching staff supplementation:To avoid having to cancel practice due to coach absences, we will explore the possible availability of several individuals as on-call substitute coaches. We will also talk to them about taking over the Tuesday 5:30-6:15 beginning-swimmers class.
Finalizing the fee structure:
Beginner class. This class on Tuesdays will be 45 min/week at a cost of $30/month. This comes to $7.50/45 min, which is comparable to Clayton Center group lessons, and cheaper than one-on-one private lessons.
At this rate, enrollment of two kids will cover our coaching cost for this class; four or more kids will make a positive contribution to team finances.
The suggested maximum age for this class is 6, subject to coach's discretion.
Other age groups. No change to present fees.
- Super Swimmers pay $50/month and practice twice a week (Tuesday and Thursday).
- Age Group Development (AGD) pay $75/month and practice 3-4/wk.
Timing of promotion to AGD is subject to coach's judgment, normally around age 9, or for older beginners, at least within a year of starting with UCSC.
Other arrangements may be considered in the future.
Meet registration:We continue to have some difficulty competing with large clubs in getting registered for meets, most recently getting shut out again by our Clayton neighbors at CSP.
We will make clear to the CSP-Swim-Your-Own-Age organizers and Ozark Swimming that this is a big deal, and hope for some "political" flexibility.
However, we can improve our registration chances by:
- Notifying UCSC early of participation preferences
- Responding quickly (even no-thanks) to email questions on participating in a particular meet, so we can finalize our applications as early as possible.
Action as a board:The above recommendations were adopted at an informal meeting with no representation of Masters swimmers. That is why at this time they remain recommendations only, and why we seek additional input.
We intend to schedule a board meeting on these and other issues after putting together some budget figures. Please volunteer for the board. Masters swimmers are particularly needed -- your interests should be represented on the board.
