Hi Barracuda families,

Three important pieces of information for this email:

1. Be sure to RSVP you swimmers for this week’s meet asap
2. T-shirt pick-up details
3. Volunteer shift changes and availability

RSVP for This Week’s Meet

Reminder that swimmer entry RSVP's for Saturday's dual meet against Lake Pointe close this Thursday May 12th at noon. We do ask that everyone RSVPs even if not attending, that way we can work with the most accurate roster of entries when collaborating with the other team to finalize the heat sheets.

Go to the www.bcwbarracudas.com -> Schedule -> Swim Meets & Events page to sign your swimmer up or RSVP not attending. On the calendar page you will find all the event details and buttons to submit your meet entries. Detailed instructions on Meet Entry are listed below this full message and it only takes a few minutes.

T-shirts Available for Pick-Up

2022 Barracudas T-shirts are here! Thanks to those organizing the order behind the scenes, t-shirt and pre-ordered merchandise pick-up will happen at practice Wednesday (tomorrow!) and Thursday this week. Please take the extra step at practice to grab your t-shirts to help us clear all these items from storage.

Volunteer Shift Changes and Sign-up

The Board has seen a lot of communication with families who are either still in need of shifts or people who need to make changes to their original volunteer job sign-ups. We wanted to facilitate all those needs and appreciate your patience as we figured out how to best manage those requests.

Luckily, Alecia Jaruzel has volunteered to be our Volunteer Coordinator and help the team track shifts and points, facilitate changes and fill needs, and generally act as the communication point person for volunteering this season.

To best serve the needs of the group, we have opened all the remaining volunteer shifts this season for changes. We will leave this week’s shifts open until this Thursday 5/12 at noon and the remaining meets will have the volunteer job shifts close at the same time as swimmer entry closes that week.

Here is what we are asking each family to do this week using www.bcwbarracudas.com -> Schedule -> Swim Meets & Events and:

1. Double check your family’s commitment and remove yourself from any shifts that now have conflicts. You can see your committed shifts by looking at “My Account” on the top right corner of the homepage- the 2022 Job Sign-ups should be listed in the middle of the page.
2. If your family is looking for shifts, monitor the Schedule page for opportunities that arise and take shifts to meet your obligation as you can.
3. If you are having particular trouble filling your family’s needs, reach out to [email protected] and we will forward the request to Alecia for assistance.
4. Check back each week as we move through the season to see if there are unfilled shifts that you could fill in at the moment. As the season draws to an end and families start traveling, we will need roles filled to make each meet happen.

On a related note, we understand that last minute illnesses and conflicts occur that may cause people to need to miss a volunteer shift after the changes close. We ask that if you must drop a shift close to the meet, please let us know as soon as you can that you will not be able to make it by emailing [email protected], and use your networks to try to find a replacement. Often the BCW Barracudas FB page or a group text to families you know in your swimmer’s age group will find someone faster than we can.

As always, thanks for sharing your swimmers with us, and Go Barracudas!

The Barracudas Swim Team Board

Details RSVP for Meet Entry

Go to the www.bcwbarracudas.com -> Schedule -> Swim Meets & Events page to sign your swimmer up or RSVP not attending. On the calendar page you will find all the event details and buttons to submit your meet entries. Detailed instructions on Meet Entry are listed below this full message and it only takes a few minutes.

Click the entries button for the May 14th Dual Meet and you will find a list of your swimmers. Simply edit each swimmer and let us know if they are attending. If you select attending, you will be presented with a list of the individual events that are available to enter. Simply pick up to 3 events (10&under) or up to 5 events (11&over). The coaches will be reviewing your suggestions and may make some changes based on skills (we do require that kids show the ability to successfully swim an event in practice prior to signing up for a meet).

While you are there, you also declare each swimmer's availability for relays. Relays are selected by computer and adjusted by the coaches. If you are not 100% confident your swimmer will be there, kindly select “not available for relays.” If your swimmer is on a relay and doesn’t make it, the other 3 kids might end up just sitting by the pool w/o a full team. You can still sign up for individual events, it isn’t a big deal to scratch individual events, it’s much more difficult to add later and other kids are impacted by that.

We ask that all swimmers choosing to participate in relays sign-in by 7:45am. If there is a conflict, please leave a comment on your entry so the coaches and relay coordinator know when to expect your swimmer. Swimmers who are not signed in by 7:45am will be replaced or scratched in relays, though they can still swim the individual events if they are late.