Weekly Announcements for Week of 9/27-10/3

Dear SBSC families, 
Practice Schedule Here is the practice schedule for this week. Arlington *Group 1 No practice until we return indoors *Group 2 Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday 6:00-7:15 *Group 3 Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday 4:30-6:00 New Prairie (only for NPUSC students) Group 1 Tuesday and Thursday 6:00-7:00 CST Group 2 Monday 4:30-6:00 CST, Tuesday 6:00-7:15 CST, Wednesday 4:30-6:00 CST, and Thursday 6:00-7:15 CST Group 3 Monday and Wednesday 4:30-6:00 CST Practice Notes: The anticipated cold weather this week may force us to cancel practices. If we are not able to maintain water temperatures where we feel the water is safe we won't have much choice. Hopefully we will return to Riley soon. See below for explanation Click here to see the list of Group 3 swimmers allowed to attend Arlington practices each day. If you know your swimmer will not be there on any given day please alert me as soon as you can. The earlier you let me know the sooner I can contact other swimmers who wanted to attend those practices. Group 1 practices at New Prairie, as in years past, will vary each week due to coach availability. But the schedule will follow similar format. Swimmers attending New Prairie practices will enter the building through door N17. Everyone entering the building will be required to wear a mask. Parents will not be allowed on deck. but will. Each athlete will need to fill out the attached form and hand deliver to the coach when entering the high school. All swimmers should come dressed ready to practice. There may be limited use of the locker rooms after practice. If you have any questions regarding procedures for NPHS practices please email Coach Ashley at awojtysiak@npusc.k12.in.us Due to limits imposed by NPUSC for safety reasons no more then 24 swimmers will be allowed in the pool at any one time. This means we have to put limits on our roster groups. Group 1 is at capacity and all spots are filled, 3 more spots are available in Group 2, and 1 more spot in Group 3. This will be on a first come first serve basis. *Practice Returning To Riley We may be returning as early as the 29th. I emailed the district athletic director, Mr. Edwards, last Tuesday pleading our case to be allowed back into Riley. I didn't receive a response by Thursday so I asked the Riley athletic director, Mr. Gavin to follow up for us. He received a text response that essentially stated the board vote on Monday (assuming the vote on returning to school) would determine our access to Riley. If any of you are so inclined to contact the school board to encourage a positive vote here is their contact information. John Anella, President, janella@sb.school Rudy Monterrosa, Secretary, rmonterrosa@sb.school Dr. Ruth Warren, District 1, rwarren@sb.school Oletha Jones, District 2, ojonves@sb.school Leslie Wesley, District 3, lweslye@sb.school Stephanie Ball, District 4, sball@sb.school Dr. Stuart Greene, District 5, sgreene@sb.school If we do get the o.k. to return we will go back to Riley immediately. Things could happen rapidly so be prepared for schedule changes and following whatever protocols SBSCS will require. If we are not cleared to return to Riley soon we may have to suspend club activities in South Bend. Any decisions to not practice in South Bend will not, at least initially, have an impact on our club operations at New Prairie. As a reminder our arrangement with NPUSC is only those swimmers attending NPUSC may attend practices held at NPHS. Potential Meets We have scheduled our dual meet with Concord for Saturday October 17. The NCISC meet, the one we would normally host, will possibly be hosted by Plymouth Aquatic Club on Saturday October 31. Once we have a better understanding of where our club will be over the next week I will post this information to our website. Lifeguard Class Congratulations to all of our newly certified lifeguards. The fees charged by the American Red Cross, instructor and lifeguard wages, the overall cost to club was about $750. We will be requiring 10 hours of volunteer lifeguarding for each of our new guards to be completed before 9-1-21. If individuals are unable to complete those hours in the time frame or discontinue their membership with the club before that date the families account will be charged the full amount for a lifeguard class. We also hope to be able to host this class once a year if there is enough interest from our members. Changes For This Season These will be some changes will be implementing for the upcoming season. Masks: All swimmers, coaches, and lifeguards will be required to wear a mask when not in the water. This will include when we are outside and certainly continue when we return to the buildings. Family Technology Fee: This fee was originally used to eliminate the need for credit card financing charges. Over time this has cost club a considerable amount of money. If you would like to avoid those finance charges you can always prepay with cash or check. Lifeguarding: We will be using a system we used a few years ago with the Riley High School team. Group 3 practices will be using our swimmers to guard practice. Each certified athlete will take a 20-25 minute turn in the chair and hopefully only once or twice a week. Volunteering Requirements: Each of our Group 3 athletes will be required to volunteer 4 hours each season. This is included in the Terms and Conditions document you digitally sign during registration. Those with lifeguarding will be expected to lifeguard. Those without will be expected to help the coaches during practice. Once a swimmer has fulfilled their volunteer requirement they can earn credit to the families swim club account to help pay for training and/or meet entry fees. We will have an area to sign-up for lifeguarding on the website and it will be active sometime later today. Team Caps: At any given practice this summer we only had a few of our swimmers wearing any of our club gear. This includes caps, T-shirts, and backpacks. If we had a visitor come to practice there would have been zero chance of the visitor identifying our team correctly. We saw gear from multiple high school teams, college teams, and former club teams. I feel for us to become more of a team we need to look more like a team. Staring this fall the only caps that will be allowed during our practices will be SBSC caps. These can be our regular meet caps, Divisional caps or State Team caps. We will be getting some silicone caps for those who prefer that type. We do have some silicone caps with our old logo but a very limited supply. USA Swimming Guidelines-MAAPPUSA USA Swimming issued a directive with regards to electronic communication and social media contact between coaches and athletes. Most of what is being implemented is common sense and falls in line with our club's policies. One new requirement we will need to adhere to is how your minor child communicates with me. For several years I have asked swimmers in Group 2 and Group 3 to text/email me if they would be missing practice. Moving forward, swimmers will be instructed to include a parent on all communication with me.
 If you are the parent of a Group 2 or Group 3 swimmer, and have never sent me a text before, please text me so I have your contact info in my phone. This way if I need to contact your swimmer about missing practice I can be sure to include you. My cell phone number is 574-276-6057.
 I encourage all parents and swimmers to read the full policy. We are required to keep this policy on our website, here is the link. As always, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me. -- John VanDriessche Head Coach South Bend Swim Club South Bend Riley High School (574)276-6057 www.southbendswimclub.com #SBSCForLife