Pebble Creek Swim Team Members,
Have you signed up for the 2017 season? If not, you have a few more days to do so. The last day to sign up at $105 per swimmer (max of $315 per family) is May 31. You can register at https://pebblecreekswimteam.com/registration. If you have any questions about the team, feel free to send a message to pcstboard@gmail.com. If you have younger swimmers, where you are not quite sure if the swim team is right for them, the is a mini-mite tryout on Tuesday, May 30 at 7:15 pm. At this tryout, Coach Morgan will evaluate the swimmer to see if they can be a swim team members that competes in meets, can be a swim team member that develops there swim techniques (possibly swim in a meet later in the season depending on progress), or if they are not quite ready to be a swim team member. For more information about the mini-mite program, you can check out https://pebblecreekswimteam.com/registration.
While this season’s registration is winding down, this season’s practices are ramping up. Practice was scheduled to start on May 24, but was delayed until May 26 due to weather. It was great to see this year’s swimmers in the water, kicking off this season. The practice schedule until school lets out for the summer is below.
Monday through Friday
13 & over: 4:30-5:15 pm
11-12: 5:15-6:00 pm
9-10: 6:00-6:45 pm
7-8: 6:45-7:30 pm
6 and under: 6:45-7:15 pm
After school lets out (starting the week of June 19), there will be morning and evening practice sessions. During morning practices, the swim team will have access to the entire pool, which provides the swimmers more room (and time) to work on their strokes. The evening practices are limited to 3 lanes as the pool will be open to the community, so there is limited space for practice. The morning sessions are:
Monday through Friday (Coach Morgan will let swimmers know if there is no practice the morning after a swim meet)
Mini Mites + 8&u 7:30 to 8:15 am
9 to 12 – 8 to 9 am
13 & u – 8:45 to 9:45 am
The evening practice sessions are:
Monday, Tuesday
8 & u – 6:15 to 7 pm
9 & u – 7 to 8 pm
Thursday
All ages – 6 to 7 pm
There is only 1 practice session on Thursday as Thursday at 7 pm will be the ribbons ceremony, where swimmers are presented their ribbons from that week’s meet.
When you register your swimmer, you should share where you would like to help out with swim meets. In order to have a successful swim meet, several volunteers are needed. Christy Evanko, our Team Manager, does an outstanding job trying to accommodate people’s requests, while ensuring a fair division of the volunteer time. For one volunteer spot, the meet take down, the board talked about not assigning specific people, but having all families help with the take down, having a third of families help at each meet. The idea is having multiple families help, the take down should not take long. Take down involves taking down and storing equipment (speakers, wiring, etc), resetting tables / chairs, etc. What is your thoughts about this idea? Would you help out when it is your family’s turn to assist?
Regarding team events, it was great to see the turnout at the Open House. Hopefully, everyone who attended enjoyed the event. If you have any ideas on how we could improve the event, please send those to pcstboard@gmail.com.
Jason Spencer did a great job organizing and running the annual corn hole tournament. In addition, a big thank you to Brian Cooper, who did concessions for the event and to Christy Evanko who helped out with the raffle and handling the cash. There were 8 teams that participated and the event raised over a $100 for the swim team.
On June 2, a team pre-season party will be held. Shad Gilley and Ryan Hunt are doing the planning for the event as I write. The party will occur after practices that Friday evening.
On June 6, Riverbound will host another spirit day for the swim team. A portion of their sales that day will go to the swim team. If you want to take a break from preparing a meal on June 6 or want to go out for a meal that day, we ask that you consider going to Riverbound.
On June 11, we will be holding a pre-season swim meet. Last year, this meet was an intrasquad meet. This year, swimmers from Honey Meadows will be participating. This pre-season meet provides an opportunity for the swimmers to experience how a meet is run. It is not a complete meet, but swimmers will have an opportunity to see how to go through the clerk, swim against other swimmers like in a meet. The practice meet will start at 6 pm.
For a complete list of the events planned for this season, please see the list below. Other events are still being considered, so there may be changes to the calendar. If so, we will let you know about those changes.
2017 Calendar
Apr 3 to May 31 – Swimmer Online Registration Period
Jun 2 – Meet The Board / Coaches Meeting & PreSeason Party
Jun 6 – Spirit Day @ Riverbound
Jun 11 – Blue / Orange Meet
Jun 16 – Meet 1 (Home vs Old Church)
Jun 21 – Meet 2 (@ Rockville)
Jun 24 – Flying Squirrels Swim Team Night (discount tickets available, call 804-502-4804)
Jun 28 – Meet 3 (Home vs. Raintree)
Jul 5 – Meet 4 (@ Tuckahoe Village Dolphin Club)
Jul 7 – Midnight Madness
Jul 12 – Meet 5 (Home vs Atlee)
Jul 18 – Meet 6 (@ Fox Hall)
Jul 21 – End Season Party / Recognitions
Jul 28 – Champs Breakfast
Jul 29 to Jul 30 – Champs @ SwimRVA
Regarding our first meet, let’s wish for good weather. As the meet occurs on a Friday, we have limited options for any make up that may be required if weather disrupts the meet. GRAL does not allow make-ups on Monday as it impacts preparations for the Wednesday meets, and we can only get the pool before 9:30 am on Saturday and before 10:30 am on Sunday. I wanted to give you a heads up that if any portion of the Friday meet needs to be rescheduled, that we will most likely have to be creative in scheduling given the limited times available. In addition to our available pool times, we have been in contact with Old Church to see what options they have.
A few events being considered that are not currently scheduled are:
- Swim clinics are being planned, currently considering the mornings of June 24, July 1 and July 8.
- Morning parent swims are also being considered.
- Swim team building event is being considered
This year our Concession Manager, Brian Cooper, has planned themed concession nights for our home meets. The themes are below:
June 16 – Southern BBQ – shredded pork, vinegar slaw, BBQ chicken sandwich, burger and hotdogs
June 28 – All American – watermelon fresh and grilled, pasta salad, creamy slaw, hotdog, burgers, baked beans
July 12 – Caribbean night – grilled pineapple, jerk chicken breast, tropical rice, pineapple chicken skewers, burgers and hotdogs
We are hoping to draw people outside the swim meet attendees to these chef prepared, themed nights. Feel free to invite others in the community to come grab dinner and have some fun at these themed nights. In addition, our neighbors can come get a Kona Ice, who will be at each of our home meets again this season.
For our senior swimmers, GRAL sponsors a scholarship each year. The scholarship application can be found at www.gralva.com/general-information/scholarship. Applications are due June 30.
Well, that is all for this update. I appreciate you taking time read these updates and always open to feedback on how to make it better for you, so please do not hesitate to send me your suggestions at pcstboard@gmail.com. I am looking forward to the upcoming season which will be fun, friendly, athletic and competitive, where we get a chance to socialize as a community.
Hopefully, everyone had a wonderful Memorial Day!
David Trace
PCST Board President