Happy weekend swim families!

We wanted to make you aware of our practice time changes that will be in effect on Monday morning. Starting Monday, we are moving all practices back 15 minutes to try and allow our younger swimmers to get more focused attention from our coaches. Practice times will be as follows:

Sparks practice will remain the same from 8:00-8:30. 6 & under practice will move to 8:30-9:00. 7-8 practice will move to 9:00-9:45. 9-10 practice will move to 9:45-10:30, and 11 and up swimmers will be 10:30-11:15. 

We also wanted to send a quick debrief from our first meet at Longlake:

1. Thank you to all of our wonderful parent volunteers who worked so hard Thursday night. We finished the meet well before our expected finish time. Longlake had nice things to say about that! We are so thankful for all of you! We had so many offer help, so thank you so much!! As a board, we have a few organizational things we will work out for next week, but we were so pleased with how smooth the meet seemed to run. We look forward to our next meet being even better!

2. If you haven't already, please declare your swimmer for Thursday night. Matthew, your swim coaches, and the board worked hard on the swim lineup in preparation for Thursday's meet, only to realize we had some swimmers who couldn't make the meet. Building a swim lineup takes lots of time and is a lot like a puzzle. If one swimmer is out, it affects the whole team. If you think there may be a chance you won't make the meet, please let our coaches know, or declare your swimmer as "Not attending." It's a whole lot easier to add a swimmer to a lineup later that having to fill a slot when a swimmer is out. Also, we completely understand emergencies and sickness arise. We are just asking you to let us know as soon as possible if you will miss a meet. 

3. Our next meet is Thursday, June 9 at home against Three Chimneys. Our coaches wanted to have another themed night, and it's going to be Hawaiian night! We are excited about this one. The swim board is purchasing some things for swimmers, but help us celebrate another fun swim night by wearing your Hawaiian gear!

4. If you are a parent of an older swimmer, please talk with your children about the language they use in front of the younger swimmers. We had some reports of some inappropriate language in front of younger swimmers at the meet on Thursday. All swimmers are representatives of our neighborhood, and we want to represent Lake Forest well!

5. Lastly, at practices our coaches are having trouble with children crossing into the lanes during other age group practices. We are going to have a pole to try and block kids from entering the lanes, but please keep an eye on your children so they don't interrupt a swimmer in the lanes. 

Lastly, we are so proud of all of our swimmers. Our official score from the meet was Lake Forest 391 to Longlake 393. However, we are going to call it a win for us! 

Let us know if you have any questions or any feedback from the meet that you saw in your volunteer spot! We welcome feedback so we can improve!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend! 

Sincerely,

Heather Otwell

Lake Forest Swim Board