Good afternoon,

Saturday August 5th is our swim team end-of-season picnic from 5:00-8:00 PM at the pool. You may begin arriving around 4:30, but please be sure to have all dishes at the pool by 5:30 PM. This is for all members of the team, including mini team members.

As a note before the picnic, I (Coach Jess) will be at the pool but is very unlikely to be able to attend the picnic this year. The pool is extremely short on lifeguards and our date was picked back in June well before all the guards notified their vacations, therefore I will be lifeguarding as we are already short staffed after 4 PM. With our other coaches going on long vacations and several families stating they held off vacation because of the picnic date, I decided that rather than moving it, others attendance was more important. I hope everyone has a fantastic time!

*YOU WILL NEED TO BRING YOUR OWN CHAIRS TO SIT ON AS ALL PICNIC TABLES WILL BE USED FOR FOOD**

We are asking that you please try to RSVP for the picnic by Thursday August 3rd (although earlier is appreciated so we can make sure to have enough of the main dish ordered!) food sign-ups can be made a bit longer after that deadline. If you are attending, please see the list to sign-up to bring something.

We may be in need of a few tables to help with food space, if you have one you could lend us for the evening, please let me know.

Please log in to your swimtopia accounts and RSVP. Please make sure that you follow the instructions on the RSVP (and below) and sign-up to bring something (we do this potluck style). You will need to use the website rather than the app to RSVP as this is not in the system as a swim meet and therefore does not work with the app currently.

If you are attending please be sure to sign up for food to bring to our potluck, it is listed as "jobs". If there is something you'd like to bring not listed, please reach out and it can be manually added for you as long as you RSVP'd.

Please write in the comments on Swimtopia for the following if you are attending (just in case you have issues with sign-ups or issues with parent accounts not being linked):

• Total # Attending from your family (include parents, swimmers, and non-swimmers) if you cannot figure out how to add non-swimtopia guests such as non-swimmer siblings.
• Any allergy/food restriction information we need to be aware of
• Any food you bring should be free of nuts/tree nuts as we have several allergies on the team; if you have dishes that are gluten free a label would also be appreciated!

For those of you new to the team please know the following items:
1. This is potluck style, everyone is asked to bring something. The team provides the main dish (Fried Chicken that we get from Giant) drinks, and a cake/cupcakes. *I have sign-ups for 3-5 servers this year to reduce the amount of touching on items for the chicken*
2. There really isn't table space, so please make sure that you bring chairs to sit in. (If you end up borrowing a chair from the pool if there are any please do us a favor and put it back where it came from).
3. Dinner will be served around 5:45 to 6:00 PM, please make sure that your dish is there well before then.
4. Dishes should be put on the picnic tables closest to the pool shed.
5. The pool does close at 8:00 PM, in the past as long as we can get things cleaned up I will guard from 8:00-9:00 PM if the pool will allow it.
6. All regular pool rules are in effect.

FUNDRAISING: Some folks do owe fundraising amounts. I did reach out as a pre-notice and we were split on doing sticky buns and a sub sale. Therefore I’m going to do both, however I’m working on dates for pick-up, they will be after our picnic.

For those that have met their amount, we are going to need to fundraise for new lane lines (ours are approaching 20 years old and are starting to crack). Please know this is extremely long use for lane lines and they have held up a very long time! We would appreciate any support in fundraising even if you did the fundraising buyout to help start working towards that. I’m also happy to entertain any options for fundraising during our off season.

I hope this is as easy as possible and all in one place this year. If you have questions please let me know.

***If you cannot attend simply RSVP as well, there will be pick-up later of team gift and ribbons. By stating you won't be attending it will help with who needs to have items picked up/sorted.

Pictures from picture day just came in this week, so they will be available at the picnic as well.

Thanks everyone we hope to “see” you at the picnic!

Jess