Parents and Southall Swim Team Supporters,

Congratulations on a successful win last night. I am very proud of the swimmer’s hard work to accomplish our team goals and everyone’s hard work leading to a positive overall team outcome.

The swim meet was successful, but it came with a challenging cost to the coaching staff. Ten parents sent an email on Sunday inquiring about entering their swimmer in the meet after the deadline. Fifteen parents sent an email on Tuesday or text between 3pm-5pm that their swimmer was unable to attend the meet. The meet started at 6pm and warmups for Southall started at 5pm.

As a reminder, here is the schedule behind the scenes of what must happen to have a successful meet.

Each time a swimmer is absent, the coaches exhaust an extensive amount of time to plan changes. The changes include lineup changes and then communicating with the other team to remerge the lineup and reprint heat sheets. Please observe how many hours of coaches and volunteers were needed to accommodation 10 parents on Sunday and 15 parents on Tuesday prior to the meet. These hours were outside of normal planning time to make appropriate changes. Coach Tiffany spent 4+ hours on Tuesday making lineup changes which was outside of designated contract working hours for Southall.

Going forward, Friday at 8pm is a hard deadline. The coaches and volunteers were spread too thin with accommodating multiple parents and families.

If the score would have been closer, these late call outs would have negatively affected our overall team’s win.

Events that happened at Home meet on June 17 due to late parent responses:

• Coach Tiffany was unable to complete meet start protocols due to rewriting relays prior to warmups
• Coaching staff rewrote relays during warmups instead of coaching swimmers
• Multiple relays were disqualified due to ineligible swimmers

All these aspects could have been avoided with parents who are committed to supporting the coaches, volunteers and officials times and effort to plan a swim meet.

I understand emergencies and sickness occur so please consider the impact of last-minute changes and the strain of all those who plan behind the scenes.

Communication Update:

Parents MUST use [email protected] for communication.

Coach Tiffany’s personal cell phone number or personal email address should not be used for swim team communication.

Parents should not contact assistant coaches about swim team issues on their personal email or cell phone numbers.

Contacting coaches with swim team issues on their personal emails or cell phone numbers is contrary to Safe Sport Guidelines. Coaches and Families are expected to follow Safe Sport Guidelines and Southall Swim Team Expectations.

The swim team at Southall email account is managed by multiple members who can timely answer questions. This account was created to support the coaches to allow us additional time to plan lineups, swim team events and practices while volunteers support responding to emails.

I am very thankful for the parents who communicated in time about their swimmers’ availability. I am also thankful to work at a pool with supportive staff, board members and volunteers. Their countless hours allow the coaches more time to focus on your swimmer and helping them improve. I appreciate all the parents who volunteer at swim meets as volunteers are imperative to running a meet.

I understand as our team positively grows, many members are unfamiliar with these protocols. We thank you for taking the time to understand the processes and protocols necessary to run a successful team. 

There are countless positive aspects about the Southall Swim team, community, families and all members involved. I am asking for support with communication regarding emails sent to [email protected] (not Coach Tiffany’s personal email or cell phone number) and declaring your swimmer’s availability to cultivate the positive culture for coaching staff and all volunteers.

Swimcerely,

Coach Tiffany Bartholomew