Forrester Woods Swim Team

• Swimmers are responsible for reporting to their meet events on time.
• Swimmers must stay with the team in the designated team area during all meets. **Clerk of Course and Tent Parents will NOT go searching for kids**
• Parents are responsible for getting their children to away meets.
• Parents are responsible for marking Swimtopia the Saturday prior to the swim meet if the swimmer will or will not be participating. If a swimmer is sick, let them know the day before or day of as soon as possible so they can try to scratch and find a replacement.
• Bring two towels, dry clothes, swim caps, and goggles to the meet. It is a good idea to have extra caps, goggles, and straps in the event one breaks.
• Swimmers should not leave any meets early without first checking with the coach. There is always a chance that the swimmer may be needed for a final relay event in place of someone else.
• Eat a high carb dinner the night before meets (spaghetti, lasagna, cheese, noodles).
• Hydrate, Hydrate, Hydrate - the day before and of.
• It is not a good idea to snack right before stepping up to the block. Eat a small snack after each event to keep your energy level up.
• Do NOT bring carbonated drinks, candy, dry jello, or glass containers to the meets.
• Check the events board before the meet to ensure your events have not changed.

Swim meets are fun events for swimmers and parents!

Events run by age group (girls first, then boys):

• 8 & under
• 9-10
• 11-12
• 13-14
• 15-18

and by stroke:

• Medley Relay (Backstroke, Breaststroke, Butterfly, Freestyle), [events 1 – 10]
• Short Freestyle, [events 11 – 20]
• IM (Individual Medley: Butterfly, Backstroke, Breaststroke, Freestyle), [events 21 – 30]
• Breaststroke, [events 31 – 40]
• Long Freestyle, [events 41 – 50]
• Backstroke, [events 51 – 60]
• Butterfly, and [events 61 – 70]
• Freestyle Relay (each swims free) [events 71 – 80].

This means there are 80 events in a single swim meet! There can also be multiple heats in each event.

Your child may swim up to three individual events and two relays. When you declare your swimmer's availability to swim for each meet, you will pick up to 3 events that your child would like to swim at that meet. Coaches have the final say on all events, so make sure to check which events your child is swimming once they're made available. You can do this in the (free) SwimTopia app. Just click on that week's meet and it will show you all available information. (See Signup Instructions for more information about signing up for meets.)

Once entries close, it will show the events your child is swimming in. When the heat sheet is made available it will also show which heat and lane your child is swimming in. Once the heat sheet has been updated to reflect any combined events, it will be emailed out. It is very important to check this updated heat sheet PDF, because the app does not have the capability to show combined events. If your swimmer's heat is combined with an earlier heat and you are only using the app, you will miss your swimmer!

During the swim meet, your swimmer will be sitting with their age group under a tent near the pool. There will be tent parents that will be call out swimmers' names in the order of events, heats and lanes. Your swimmer needs to know their events, stay at their tent listening for their name and be ready to swim (cap and goggles). See the page Preparing for a Swim Meet for more info on how to prepare your swimmer.

Once called, swimmers will move to the Clerk of Course area (benches). At Clerk of Course, someone will line up your swimmer according to their event, heat and lane. Please know that there are sometimes CHANGES made in Clerk of Course. This means that your child might move into a different heat or lane. No need to worry. These changes are recorded with the Referee, computer operator and records.

Reminder: Parents (or coaches) are NOT allowed in the Clerk of Course area or behind the blocks unless they are working the meet. Please hug and encourage your swimmer BEFORE they move into these areas. Be patient and help your swimmer know what they need to be doing. Ask if you don’t understand!