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Natatorium & Programming Update
Last week an email went out to all of our families on behalf of the Ensworth School explaining that June 15 is the earliest we could return to campus for activities this summer. That target date is dependent on moving into Phase 3 of the Mayor’s reopening plan.
Other area pools will, in the meantime, begin to resume operations. Many of those will be outdoor, summer club pools where many of our swimmers participate in summer league swimming. Ensworth Aquatics will not look to rent space or organize any group practices at these other pools.
Right now we are working hard to utilize a variety of resources to create a return to activity plan that is focused on safety by promoting physical distancing and minimizing contact with common touch surfaces. This plan will be facility-specific.
We are fortunate to train at a facility that will allow a single point of entry and separate exit locations. We are able to block access to our large locker rooms without preventing access to the bathrooms. Our large pool deck will permit us to space out athletes along the deck so they can maintain physical distance from each other but still have plenty of space to put backpacks and deck bags. We can configure the pool in myriad ways to promote social distancing, maximize available space, and provide quality coaching via consistent communication and feedback on deck.
Meanwhile, we have direct control over our water quality. Our facility has the benefit of not only having a highly sophisticated filtration system unlike any other in our area, but we also have a U/V system that adds an additional layer of disinfection against bacteria and viruses (more information about that system will be detailed in our return to pool plan). The filtration and U/V system both work in concert with an air evacuation system installed around the perimeter of the gutters (beneath the pool deck), which pulls air off of the pool surface. All of these systems help maintain our air quality during crowded meets (very few irritated eyes and very little coughing).
Lastly, our facility is cleaned on a daily basis by a professional janitorial services company. Even before schools started to close this company had adopted a cleaning solution specifically designed to neutralize the coronavirus that causes Covid-19.
Other facilities are certainly making operational plans to protect their patrons, however, they are not our plans and we, as a team, do not need to jump back into the pool in a facility that we do not have control over.
Athletes who individually have access to summer pools (or other facilities) are welcome to begin swimming at those facilities, and our coaches will certainly work with them to provide workouts if they need them. But as a team, we will wait to practice until our facility is ready, and we are all informed and prepared to utilize it in a way that promotes best practices during this time.
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Zoom Free Week
Next week we will re-test our pentathlon challenge and find out if, and how much, athletes have improved in their out of the water athleticism and fitness.
Over the last two months, everyone has gotten plenty of Zoom whether at work, in school, during social engagements, and certainly during swim practice. Zoom, Google Hangout, etc. have been invaluable tools during this time period, but they are also tools that require us to consistently plug into a virtual world. This is a chance for everyone to just unplug, enjoy a week of hopefully beautiful weather, and then gear up to prepare to return to the pool (hopefully on June 15!).
Coaches will still provide both dry-land and swimming workouts that athletes can utilize during that week. Junior Group athletes will continue to do their goal meetings with Coach Goeken and Coach Marli during that week as well. But we encourage everyone to utilize our beautiful parks, go for family bike rides, and get outside together as families to workout.
We will resume our Zoom workouts on Monday, June 1. Hopefully, that will mark our final two weeks of virtual meetings!
Please feel free to contact Coach Bahr if you have any questions and do not hesitate to share any thoughts you have about things that could be added.
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Food Drive Update
Swimmer Spotlight: Ashton & Madeleine Nguyen
We are happy to share with our entire Ensworth Aquatics community that the food drive held by Ashton and Madeleine Nguyen was an absolute success! If you remember, the siblings had invited our entire team to participate in a food drive with the goal of collecting more than 100 pounds of food to donate to Second Harvest Food Bank.
Well, they collected a lot more than that: 1,122 food items equalling 1,299 pounds of food plus $1,000!!!
Thank you to everyone who pitched in, and thank you especially to both Ashton and Madeleine for your thoughtful outreach to those in need.
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Pentathlon Challenge Results
Swimmers haven’t always been known as being “athletic.” Back when I (Coach Bahr) was a kid, swimmers were often the ones who couldn’t do much well on land! The Caeleb Dressels of the world, with metrics such as a 41” vertical jump, are proving that great athletes now swim, and our own Pentathlon challenge demonstrates that we have plenty of great athletes on our team!
Running a sporting event of sorts is a bit of a challenge when we are being physically distant during a pandemic. But we gave it a shot and had more than 70 participants take the time to record their numbers on our Pentathlon entry sheet.
Here’s a look at the standings right now. Remember, we will re-test all of the skills (push-up contest, squat contest, 6-inch hold, broad jump, 1-mile run) next week. But for now, these are the people who came out on top in their respective groups:
Stingrays: Mark Hoots
Dolphins: Tennyson Webb
Sharks: Emilia Trailov
Junior: Emily Melton
Marlins: Margaret Rauth
Senior/Senior 1: Jake Mason
Coaches: Victoria Bahr (We may need to have some verification of this one!)
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Happy Mothers (or Parent Rep) Day
Swim Moms hold a special place in the pantheon of any sports’ team mom moniker. First of all, swimming demands more of parents than just about any other sport. We can’t run competitions without your help, and it takes dozens of parents together to make even the smallest meet function. At the center of that is often a hard-charging team mom who is unafraid to corral would-be volunteers via email, text, social media, or even (can you believe we still do this?) a phone call!
Meanwhile, there are far more jobs that moms fill on our team that reach well beyond swim meets. Many of our groups have Parent Reps. These reps are often moms doing what moms do best: Making life better for everyone around them (often at the expense of their own well-deserved rest!). What better time to recognize and celebrate our incredible Parent Reps than the week following Mother’s Day? So here they are - the ladies who make it all happen both at their home and at ours:
Stingrays: Jessica Horne & Maureen (Moe) Kolton
Dolphins: Lindsay Sanford
Sharks: Fran Spurrier
Junior: Margaret Mason & Susan Emrhein
Ribbon Mom: Laura Davis
These incredible ladies not only take care of parties, celebrations, goodie bags, cheerleading, color coordinating for meets, etc. for the respective groups they represent, they are also mothers to a total of 14 kids on our team. Figuring out how in the world they make time to do so much for all of our athletes, parents, and coaches is impossible (at least for a dad/swim coach like me!).
Now everyone should know the name of the parent rep for their child’s group. Obviously there are a few groups with a parent rep not represented...which means there is room for more go-getting parents to get involved and help bring fun, advocacy, parties, and answers to fellow kids and parents in their children's’ groups.
Lastly, to all of the moms out there, especially our Parent Reps (who all happen to be moms), happy Mother’s Day. And THANK YOU!!!!!!!
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Top Row L to R: Margaret Mason, Lindsay Sanford, Fran Spurrier
Bottom Row L to R: Jessica Horne, Susan Emrhein, Maureen (Moe) Kolton, Laura Davis
Photos are in Google Album
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Official Training
This a great time to get involved and start the online training if you’re interested in becoming an official.
Becoming an Official
The reality is we don’t know how swim meets are going to be held in the near future. We don’t know how many athletes, timers, marshalls, and officials will be allowed on pool decks. There is a lot we don’t know, but one thing we absolutely do: We need officials!
There is a real possibility that we will have to host more meets, or more sessions for meets, both with limited numbers of athletes to keep in line with expectations related to physical distancing in a Covid-19 world. We simply don’t know.
But when we can compete we are going to need officials on the pool deck making it happen for our athletes if we want athletes’ times to count. Naturally, we can always run mock meets with coaches serving as officials, but then times won’t go into the USA Swimming database.
If you have ever considered becoming an official, now is the perfect time to take the first steps. The future is certainly uncertain, but your kids will race again. It may truly be up to you whether we have the ability to provide the sanctioned racing opportunities your kids will be training for.
Please check out what it takes to become an official by clicking on this link.
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Swim Meets this Summer
The 2020 Southeastern Long Course Championship meet has been officially canceled. It is hardly a surprise considering the Olympics were moved to next year! We have taken all meets off of our summer schedule except for the one that we had planned to host in July as the last chance meet prior to the now-canceled SES Championships.
If USA Swimming permits sanctioned meets in July and if we truly are back to some level of training where larger groups are permitted to be at the facility together, then we may still run that meet in some modified, intrasquad format. There are a lot of IF’s to contend with, so please do not make any hard, fast plans.
Meet bids for the fall are being completed today, but as the Administrator for the Southeastern Swimming LSC told me, the odds are pretty good that the short course meet schedule gets completely reworked as guidance pertaining to larger events is sent out. We will bid a meet for late in August, which is unusual for us, but again that would be on the off chance that we are able to compete in some manner. Should we begin swimming on June 15 as we hope, then it will make sense to give our team a chance to race a few times this summer, even if the meets are limited to one or two events per athlete.
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Ensworth Aquatics Team Sponsor
Beginning in September, Ensworth Aquatics will be switching from being a Speedo sponsored team to an Arena sponsored team.
The team’s sponsorship agreement with Speedo expires at the end of August. After exploring what is best for the team as a whole, Ensworth Aquatics has decided that a relationship with Arena is in the team’s long term best interests.
Part of our sponsorship agreement includes ensuring that our team is outfitted in Arena suits for both training and competition. We will move forward with selecting an official TEAM Suit that all athletes must wear for all training sessions and in-season competitions. We will also select new “Team Warm-Ups” for athletes and parents wishing to purchase those.
Because many families are already outfitted in Speedo gear, the only thing everyone must purchase is the Team Training suit. We do ask that if/when you decide you need a new backpack to please be sure to purchase an Arena backpack. Part of our sponsorship agreement includes having the team outfitted in Arena bags, but the company is understanding that many families already have backpacks
The Speedo sponsorship primarily benefited only our Junior National level and higher athletes, providing them with free warm-ups, late model tech suits (or current model at discount), and backpacks. There were also discounts for tech suits for the team as a whole, but the benefit of the arrangement was largely for only the highest level athletes and was limited to the equipment that Speedo decided to provide that year.
Arena’s arrangement offers much more choice for the club, versus limiting our choices to the sponsor’s pre-selected gear. With Arena, the team receives a credit in “Arena Bucks” of $0.20 on the dollar for every dollar spent on Arena gear, ranging from suits to backpacks to warm-ups to parkas, etc. In the first year, Arena will automatically credit the team $8,000 in “Arena Bucks” prior to any purchases by team members.
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Birthday Shout Outs
Here are upcoming birthdays for athletes through May 2020. To all these amazing athletes, Ensworth Aquatics wishes each of you a happy birthday!
May 2 - Reed Klements
May 3 - Kelsey Jenks
May 5 - Mina Sanford
May 6 - Caroline Kakac
May 8 - Thomas Ward
May 9 - Gracie Corn
May 9 - Jane Riley
May 10 - Mac Spurrier
May 11 - Paxton Baba Rahimi
May 15 - Hudson McKinney
May 17 - Quincy Topping
May 19 - Marina Cintado-Scokin
May 20 - Mira Scotella
May 22 - Keely Yeager
May 28 - Fielding Staelin
May 30 - Allison Henschel
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GroupMe App
If you have not already joined your swimmers' GroupMe, please consider doing so. Parents, coaches, and staff use GroupMe to communicate last-minute updates, traffic issues, practice changes, lost and found, carpooling and much more. Each practice group has its own group text, and we believe if you ask any returning team members, they will confirm that GroupMe is an invaluable communication tool as it enables them to ask specific questions and plan activities particular to their practice group. Use this link to download the GroupMe app.
Click on the links below to connect with your swimmer's practice group and parent reps:
Parent Reps
Stingrays - Jessica Horne & Maureen Kolton
Dolphins - Lindsey Sanford
Sharks - Fran Spurrier
Juniors - Margaret Mason & Susan Emrhein
Marlins - help needed
Senior1/Senior - Margaret Mason
Team Website & OnDeck
We are confident that everyone on our team has visited our team website by now, but beyond registration, it serves as the primary information tool for our team. Through our website, parents and athletes will commit to competitions, enter events, sign up to volunteer, access newsletters, review practice schedules, much more. Be sure to "Sign In" to the website to view all content. Go ahead and visit www.ensworthaquatics.com and bookmark it!
OnDeck is TeamUnify's supporting app that allows our staff to communicate through our website directly to team members' mobile devices. OnDeck also presents our website content to users with improved mobile device usability. What this means is you can enter into swim meets and signup to volunteer more easily on your mobile devices. Use this link to download OnDeck.
Social Media
Ensworth Aquatics is on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Click on the icons below to connect with us through social media.
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