Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
NNEEWWSS SSPPLLAASSHH AA NNEEWWSSLLEETTTTEERR FFOORR KKNNIIKK AAQQUUAATTIICCSS AAUUGGUUSSTT 22000088
IMPORTANT DATES: AUGUST 18 Knik Board Meeting SEPTEMBER 1st Labor Day No Practice 12 No practice HS Meet HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO: AUGUST 1 Jourdin Bedwell 2 Sammantha Adams 4 Kyah Ellefson 6 Marcus Card 12 Greg Hall 12 Skye Johnson 14 Becca Oswald 17 Emmie Jennings 21 Ryan Kinney 25 Maggie Hepler 29 Abby Jaeger 31 Courtney Fox-Singh SEPTEMTER 4 Anna Jennings 26 Brittany Renner
Message from the President Happy Back-to-School! This is my first ‘message’ as the president of Knik. Jim Heaslet is a very tough act to follow. He and Desi were such assets to the club. Their leadership and humor will be greatly missed – as well as Aaron’s feats in the pool! Good Luck to all of them! We have had a busy summer here at Knik. In addition to a fabulous showing at the Long Course meets – in particular the Alaska Long Course Championships – we have launched a new website and started a new level – Preteam - to bridge the gap between kids finishing up all levels available through the Learn To Swim Program and getting starting with competitive swimming. We’ve been able to purchase some new training equipment that will make the kids’ time in the pool even more productive. Fins, paddles and new kickboards will be available to all levels. We are heading into a very, very busy season for everyone. School is going to be back in session. Learn To Swim lessons will continue through the fall and winter. High School Swim/Dive season takes off. And Age Group meets begin again in October. Our new website will help keep us all on track and communicating better than ever! We will be sending out username/password information for all members within the next few weeks. The plan is to use the website now for paying monthly dues. We all will now be able to use our credit cards, direct debit from our checking accounts and our more traditional methods of mail-in and leave-it-in-the-black-box options for payment. The website will also be very useful in coordinating jobs that we need to get done. We will begin using the website for parents to begin signing for various volunteer opportunities in both High School meets and Age Group meets. Stay tuned for more details. Our kids are awesome! Our coaches are awesome! Our Parents are awesome! Keep checking the website for news, information and volunteer opportunities. As always, corporate sponsorships are needed. If you know of a supportive corporate partner that would be willing to share in our success, please let me know ([email protected]). Corporate support translates into community involvement and less burden on the membership to keep the kids in the water, improving their skills for a lifetime of success! Gretchen Jennings, President
Practice Changes
VOLUNTEER KNIK Board Members
PRESIDENTS Gretchen Jennings
696-0963 [email protected]
VICE PRESIDENTS Judi Johnson
SECRETARY Amy Johns
TREASURER
Genna Fox
MEMBERS-AT-LARGE Susan Armstrong Laura Bookout
Dolores Johnson Karlyn Sieg
SWIMMING HEAD COACH
David Maker 344-0765
ASSISTANT SWIMMING COACHES
Colny Tucker Chris Mullikin
DIVING HEAD COACH
Lanee Patterson
ASSISTANT DIVING COACH
Jessica Kopinchke
LEARN TO SWIM PROGRAM
Michelle Caldwell [email protected]
KNIK Web Site http://www.knikaquatics.com
Alaska Swimming Web Site http://www.AKswimming.org
Coach’s Corner Coach Maker
Well, summer (?) is rapidly coming to an end. It’s been a great summer for KNIK. While we lost too many families to relocation and high school graduation, we still had record levels of participation and practice attendance. As a team, KNIK placed 3rd at the Long Course Championships. We had 68% best times and the best spirit and team enthusiasm at the meet. This was KNIK’s first team scoring trophy in over a decade. The lesson program is double last summer’s participation levels and our goal of 20 new members for the fall looks conservative. We are still strong and getting stronger. KNIK should be starting this fall with near record membership numbers and once High School season concludes entering uncharted waters.
We have a new team management software package and website. This will allow us to more effectively communicate news, events and billing information to everyone. Hopefully you’ve received and read one or more of the messages sent to the team in the past month via this portal. Once we get the billing portion of the platform activated we will be distributing login information. From there you will be able to keep your family records and points of contact updated and more importantly set up billing payment options. This will make team accounting much easier and roster maintenance. You will also be able to browse other member information for communication purposes and to possible set up a carpool. This tool will only be powerful if everyone visits the webpage frequently and monitors their account. I would recommend once a week. Our first active billing via this system will be for September’s invoices. Checks and cash mailed to the PO Box or hand delivered to the “black box” at the pool will still be fine, but you will also have the opportunity to use a one-time or recurring credit card payment and/or set up a one-time or recurring bank draft. Let us know what you think.
On the swimming front, KNIK will be on a two-week hiatus starting August 11th. We will be running a new member clinic (see enclosed flier) during that time, so if you have a neighbor or friend thinking about becoming involved with KNIK this is a great opportunity for them to try us out.
Many of our older swimmers will be on break and swimming for their respective High School teams. We have members on the Chugiak, Eagle River, Bartlett and East HS teams. An important part of our annual fundraising is hosting and managing HS duel meets for Chugiak and Bartlett, the Bartlett Invitational and the HS Region meet. Our ability to keep our dues much lower than neighboring teams is because of this volunteer work. It’s important for everyone to pitch in even if you don’t yet have high school swimmers in your house. You will some day, and it’s good for the younger kids to attend these events prior to HS so that they stay excited about the sport and want to emulate their older team mates. Getting involved is a win-win for everyone.
When we resume practice on August 25th we will have a slightly different group structure. We will be adding a Pre-Team group in order to make it easier for kids moving from the lesson program to the team. A large majority of the returning kids will be moved to the Silver and Gold groups. Your swimmers should be coming home and telling you about those changes over the next several weeks. In the future our goal is to use the Pre-Team for the youngest new members and the Bronze group for the older new members. We will also be utilizing several of the older team members to help provide more attentive coaching the new members along with our current coaching staff. It’s our goal to have two sets of eyes working with the Pre-Team and Bronze groups. As we continue to grow and add new members effectively integrating and teaching skill needs to be managed better. Those first 2-3 months in my opinion are when you develop life long swimmers. These are exciting times. Please keep spreading the word to friends and neighbors about KNIK and what a fun experience it is. Another important topic to start considering is Age-Group championships this fall. The meet is the first weekend in December and will be in Ketchikan this year. This requires forward planning and expense considerations. A large portion of the team that traveled to Fairbanks has aged out of their eligibility. This year’s qualified members will represent an equally as large group but much less experienced with team travel and what it
entails. Our goal is to conduct our first swim-a-thon this fall, and proceeds from that are targeted to help with travel expenses to these out-of-town state championship meets. As we progress through the October swim meets pay special attention to Age Group Champs qualifying times. This is your indication about whether you should be planning to attend. If we group together, and share chaperoning and travel expenit is a great opportunity for the kids. Well, I’m getting excited about the fall and the impending school year. I hope everyone enjoys the last few weeks of summer ’08 and is looking forward to another swim season and school year. Stay tuned for lots of e-mails over the next 3-4 weeks as we try to get everyone oriented and off to a good start. Sincerely, Coach Maker
New Year + New Swimmers + New Parents = A New Opportunity A note from Coach Chris Mullikan
Happy New Year! No, Coach Chris has not totally lost it due to the cold weather that we have had this summer. The fact is that we swimmers have a different New Year then the general population. Our new season starts with the beginning of short course season which starts around the time that school also starts. With any New Year, there are new opportunities for us on a personal level and for the team as a whole. I once had a swimmer’s parent approach me after a swim meet in South Carolina and she was upset. This parent was new to the team and she had a 10 year-old daughter. Apparently, at this first swim meet that this family had ever been to, no one talked to this family. The 10 year-old girl was the only new swimmer in her training group and no one in the training group befriended her. The parent went on to explain that no one told her where to get the Speedo goggles, where to drop off the team dues, how much the meet costs where, etc. The parent just felt that they were not welcomed to the team. I apologized to her and I sadly listened to her as she continued to list all of my and the team’s failures in welcoming this new family to our team. Thus I realized that I was not only a swim coach but I was an ambassador for my team AND that so were all of the members of the team. We will soon be having our break from swimming. During these two weeks off, the coaches will be holding a stroke clinic. There will be a whole bunch of new kids and parents to the team during this stroke clinic and during the first few weeks of practice in late August and early September. Swimmers and parents, can you remember when you were new to the KNIK team? Can you remember when you were new to the sport of swimming? How about your first swim meet? Did you know everything? Did you know all the tricks? Did you know where to buy the right goggles and swim suit? Did anyone help you out? If no one did, wouldn’t it have helped out? Parents, in the next few weeks, all families and swimmers should keep a watchful eye out for the “rookies”. This may be a parent looking for the payment drop box in hospitality, he/she may be the young swimmer who is late to practice and doesn’t know where their training group is because they are already in the water or it may be a veteran parent looking for Coach Maker but they don’t recognize him because of how much weight he has lost! Let’s pull together and be as welcoming as possible. Let’s help new members learn the “tricks of the sport” and feel connected. Swimmers, please make the first opportunity to welcome all new people into your group. You may know them, you may not, but welcome them just the same as you’d want to be welcomed. Be encouraging and explain the ropes. Share the spoken and unspoken rules and expectations of their coach(s). Some “veteran” swimmers will be moving also. On some teams this is known as “Moving Day”. It can be stressful adjusting to a new situation. Be generous and help them adjust. As members of the KNIK family, we should embrace the opportunity to welcome all of the “rookies” and other new team members. Acknowledging the swim parent “rookies” may make the difference between converting them from the shy not-so-sure-this-is-the-right-sport for their shy, not-so-sure young swimmer who is shivering in the Bartlett pool water into the shy, not-so-sure young swimmer still shivering in the Bartlett pool water during practice with a happy parent sitting next to you. Take some time to get to know them. If you help open up new opportunities for the “rookies” you are helping open up new opportunities for the entire KNIK team. Good luck in the New Year KNIK!
TEAM KNIK SWIM PRACTICE SCHEDULE Platinum/High School:
Monday-Friday, 2:30-4:30 @ Bartlett Saturday 10:30-12:30 @ East HS (Starting August 23rd) Tuesday and Thursdays 5:30-6:30 AM (Starting August 26th)
Gold: Monday-Friday, 4:30-6:30 PM Bartlett HS Silver: Monday-Friday 4:30-6:00 PM Bartlett HS Bronze: Monday-Friday 6:00-7:00 PM Bartlett HS
Please try to pay your monthly bill by the first of each month. Save a postage stamp, and put your payment in the black box, affixed to the storage cabinet, as you enter the Hospitality Room. Thank You!
2008 Long Course Champs 3rd Place Combined Team Way to GO!
At Bartlett Pool Alaska’s 50 meter pool
Summer/Fall 2008 August & September Times
August: 6 Classes ($9 x 6= $54) July 30th – August 14th Mon/Wed & Tues/Thurs Mornings 10:15 and 11 LIMITED Mon/Wed evening ( several of our instructors are aiding in the clinic below) 5:30 or 6:15 SWIM CLINIC: For swimmers who can swim one length of the pool non stop Taught by Coaches and Instructors of KNIK swim & dive club Two Weeks/ 8 days for $25 Weeks of August 11th & 18th: 4:30 or 5:30 Monday- Thursday Email Coach Maker for more information: [email protected] Next Session of Lessons: Sept. 2nd or Sept 3rd Mon/Wed or Tues/Thurs evenings only 5:30 or 6:15 Please email Michelle @: [email protected]
