How to Organize a Neighborhood Swim Meet

Consult the neighborhood powers that be. Generally, this involves a talk with your Homeowners Association board if you live in a managed community. You will have to obtain permission to form a swim team, arrange to reserve the whole pool or part of it for practices and determine payment for necessities. It will probably be necessary to open an account specifically for the swim team which is monitored by an overseer, most likely a member of the board.

Find a league or create one. Hopefully, nearby neighborhoods have already formed a swim league you can petition to become a part of. Call the heads of the local Homeowners Association boards for information regarding local leagues. If there is no league close by or none that is accepting new neighborhoods the task is more difficult. You may need to consult with other neighborhoods in the same position and set about forming a league of your own.

Recruit swimmers for your new team. Advertise in your neighborhood newsletter, e-group, and place banners and signs near the pool. Talk with parents of kids who generally use the pool in your neighborhood. Decide what you will charge parents for their children to swim on the team and have them fill out emergency forms and release of liability contracts. Encourage parents to purchase goggles, a swim cap and a swimsuit in the team's designated color.

Invest in diving blocks, lane ropes, pennant flags, stopwatches, clipboards, laptop and printer paper and sound system for the events you host at your pool. The first year's initial investment is a heavy one but most items do not have to be replaced for several years.

Obtain coaches for your different age groups of swimmers. These are generally volunteer parents with some background in competitive swimming who agree to sacrifice a few hours a week readying the neighborhood children for their competitions.

Meet with league organizers to determine the schedule for the summer's meets. Print the schedule and make copies for swim team members. Make neighborhood announcements regarding home meets.

Obtain swim meet software and upload it into the team's laptop. Every team in the league will need to purchase and use the same software. Once successfully installed, enter the names, genders and birthdays of all your swimmers. If possible you will also want to enter a "seed" time for each of your athletes which will enable the fastest swimmers to swim against the fastest on the other teams.

Merge your team and the opponent team data in your laptop prior to the day of the event you are hosting. Print out events which tell the event number, swimmers, heats and assigned lanes. The software will allow you to print out a small sheet of paper for each swimmer for each of his events. Give full "heat sheets" to your team's coaches and to those of the other team.

Install lane ropes and pennant flags the day of the meet. You will also need to set up the sound system and ready a computer area as well as a clerk of course where swimmers will report prior to their events to receive their lane assignments.

Coordinate and give instructions to all volunteers. You should have your volunteers assigned to the following duties: timers, clerk of course workers who line up the swimmers for events, runners (who take the slips of papers with swimmers' times to the computer workers), finish judges and computer workers. You will need to have the computer workers review the software and requirements of their positions prior to the evening of the event.

Host your home meets. Enjoy the evening and stay alert to any problems that arise during the event. Print out data regarding swimmers times so ribbons can be handled out accordingly.