Good evening everyone,

I hope you're all tucked in bed by now and reading this on Wednesday, May 31. ;) 

I want to share my heartfelt gratitude for the numerous parents who volunteered tonight in so many ways... many of you stepped in to help set up races, supervise kids, time, run times for the computer workers, enter the times in Swimtopia, and much more.  I know this can be exhausting work and so I say thank you, thank you, thank you! This was the Piranhas first summer meet in an indoor pool, and for may reasons I was flustered by the space. I'm so grateful for all of you who helped figure out how to make it work- particularly whoever decided we would use the hall downstairs instead of the bleachers for the kids. That made everything work so much better, and we did it!! 

Now...  for the stars of tonight's show: the Piranhas! The swimmers-- your kids! They were so great. This is the heart of summer swim: the kids working through hard events, whether that's a 25 freestyle at age 5, or their first 25 fly, or a 50 free, or a 100 IM for the very first time (or the 100th), or any race a child finds challenging. I had many, many moments with swimmers and parents about these challenges and successes and it filled me with joy- our swimmers showed a lot of courage and strength and commitment. And encouragement of one another and community. I hope they are as proud of themselves as we are of them.

Coming next: Sign up for meet 2, June 6, at the Decatur Gators! The meet is open for you to declare your swimmer and sign up for a job-- I always recommend doing a repeat job that you can get really good at (but not so good you're the only one who does it!).

We've swum with the Gators many times in the past, so some of the glitches we experienced tonight at a new pool with a brand-new team we will not experience again. It's an outdoor pool so it'll be your more typically summertime swim meet experience. 

Tomorrow we will give out ribbons and popsicles to celebrate our victory! Coach Nate will arrive with labels for the ribbons at 4:15. Volunteers will label each ribbon and then they will be placed in a folder for your child to receive after popsicles at the end of practice. See Coach Nate to volunteer for this task. (Can someone please bring one of their boxes of extraneous paper clips to clip each swimmer's ribbons together?)

As always let me know what questions you have, and see you at the pool!

~Martha

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