Spring Ridge Stingrays

• Parents – please get your kids to the coaches at the start of their practice time and then let the coaches take over. Swim team works best when you let the coaches run the show and the kids can give their undivided attention to the coaches. Parents can sometimes be an unnecessary distraction. Thanks for your understanding and support.
• Please address any concerns about your child’s ability to swim to the coaches directly, BUT NOT DURING PRACTICE - please wait until after practice. 
• During practice, please keep all children not practicing out of the pool and diving pool. If your children are in the baby pool, please watch them yourselves. Spring Ridge does not have a life guard on duty until after we are done with swim team. 
• Morning practice of meet days - Parents/coaches will help write in permanent marker your child’s event number, lane number and heat number on their arms. Also, for younger kids, write their names across their back. This helps parents working the bull pens to efficiently round up the kids and get them lined up at the starting blocks for their events.
• After Memorial Day, Fridays are “Ribbons & Doughnuts.”  The team is invited to come to the pool on the Fridays after a meet, see the calendar for times!  We will alternate between donuts in the morning and popsicles in the afternoons.

MEET INFORMATION

• You must RSVP whether or not your child will attend the meets via the website. Go to springridge.swimtopia.com and click on the swim meet for that week. 
• After you RSVP, then you can sign up for a volunteer shift. If your child is swimming, then you must volunteer.

• Show up for all meets, RAIN or SHINE. Meets will not be called off until we are there and the weather conditions DO NOT allow us to swim.
• For home meets be at our pool by 4:15pm and away meets by 4:30pm. At home meets our team warms up first and at away meets our team warms up after the home team. The meets officially start at 5:30pm. Meets usually last about 3 1/2 hours. There are 86 events for dual meets.
• Any last minute changes to individual events need to be entered into the computer 30 minutes prior to the meet start time, 5:00pm deadline. For any last minute changes (e.g., sickness, injury, etc.) please text Jackie Henley at 678-642-9204 or Sam Centers at 678-697-3912.
• 6 & under age groups swim: Freestyle, Backstroke and Freestyle Relay.
• All other age groups swim: Freestyle, Backstroke, Butterfly, Breast stroke, IM, Medley Relay, and Freestyle Relay.
• Scoring for Dual Meets - Individual Events: 1st - 5 points, 2nd - 3 Points, 3rd - 1 point. Relays (Freestyle and Medley): 1st - 7 points, 2nd - 5 points. No one team can completely sweep the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place points for any individual events or any relay.
• Only the first heat of each event is used for scoring purposes. There are 86 events total per dual meet. Scoring is not emphasized (especially to the younger kids) as they are all rewarded with ribbons regardless if they swim in a scoring heat or an exhibition heat.
• For all the official ASA league rules, please refer to the site: www.atlantaswimming.com
• All kids will receive ribbons the day after a meet for all individual and relay events. 
• We sell concessions at the dual meets. Our team uses the profits of the concessions to help cover expenses incurred throughout the season. Please support the concessions at our home meets and at away meets!

PARENT RESPONSIBILITIES

• For all dual meets, one or both parents from each family are expected to volunteer in some capacity (timer, recorder, place judge, deck manager, bull pen, etc.)  If both parents are interested in helping, that would be great!  None of the jobs are hard and most do not require any training or expertise. Again, please let us know if you are not going to be at a meet and we will not expect you to work a position. In situations where both spouses come to the meets, it might be a good idea to have one work a volunteer position and leave the other in charge of managing the kids and make sure they are getting to the starting blocks for their event.
• If you have a younger child who is not swimming, please make sure you have another adult or sitter there to watch your child during your volunteering shift. This is a great job for a young teen, "mother's helper." There are lots of girls and boys in our neighborhood who babysit and would love to have a small job on Thursday nights. 
• For the dual meets, the 6 & under kids only swim two strokes and will finish early, after event 43, which typically ends around 7:15 PM. We will assign those parents with only younger kids the 1st shift for volunteering. The 2nd shift will be covering Events 44 – 86. The 2nd shift usually starts around 7:15 PM and ends around 9:00 PM.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask!