Dear Colonies Swim Team,

Since before the first day of swim practice, the coaches and the swim team committee have worked tirelessly to bring a sense of normalcy to summer swim team during one of the most unprecedented years in our lifetimes. As a result of Virginia’s gradual reopening, our customary GRAL season consisting of six regular season meets plus Champs proved infeasible this summer. Instead of throwing in the towel on our season, we worked within Virginia’s and the CSTC Board’s parameters to create our own unique twist on the GRAL season. After two successful “regular season” meets at home and another one this upcoming Tuesday, I want to make our last meet as special as possible for the swimmers to culminate our unprecedented season. Rather than hosting another ordinary “regular season” meet, I would like to hold the first-ever “Colonies Champs” that mimics the structure of GRAL Champs. I realize that not every swimmer has experienced GRAL Champs previously, so I want to make the most of our current circumstance and find a way to share the Champs experience with EVERY Colonies swimmer this year.

Our first-ever Colonies Champs would offer swimmers the opportunity to swim any event for their age group split into a morning session and an evening session on July 28^th – similar to the structure of GRAL Champs.

• The morning session would start at 8:00 AM and end around 10:00 AM.
• The evening session would start at 6:00 PM and end around 9:00 PM.
• Swimmers could swim half their events in the morning and come back in the evening to swim the remainder.
• Swimmers could compete in up to 4 individual events and 2 relays in one day.

While I realize the additional events and two-session structure would conflict with part of the workday and increase the amount of time families would need to stay at the pool, I firmly believe that changing the meet structure for just one meet will make for a very memorable experience for all swimmers. We already have a series of fun activities planned to make Colonies Champs much more special than our first two meets.

The CSTC Board has already approved our plan; however, to make Colonies Champs a reality, we need to make sure we would have enough parent volunteers for both sessions – particularly the morning session. We realize that work may prevent many parents from being able to run a morning swim meet but want to see if enough would be available to help. If you would be able and willing to volunteer for either the morning or evening session of the meet, please go to Swimtopia and sign up for a volunteer position! I know this might be a very low bar, but I promise Colonies Champs will be one of the highlights of 2020 for your children!

Please sign up to volunteer as soon as you can! If we have enough volunteers to proceed as planned, I will reach out with more details about the meet! Thank you in advance for your help!

I also extended the Champs RSVP deadline until Sunday at 11:59 PM! Have a great weekend!

Go Cruisers!

Very Respectfully,

Coach Jack