Hello Walden families,

It's hard to believe that it's already time for the 2026 summer swim season. It seems like the 2025 season ended not too long ago. This email is to let you know that registration for this season is open and can be completed on the team website: http://waldengreenwave.swimtopia.com.

As always, in order to join the Walden Swim Team, your family must be a member of the Walden Pool. If you haven't completed your application to join the pool for this summer, make sure you do it today. Any family that does not sign up for the pool could be removed from the swim team at the request of the Walden Country Club.

We will have two home meets this year, June 20 and July 11. If you look at our meet schedule on the Meets & Events tab, you'll notice that GASL has decided to run meets the week of July 4. This is different from previous seasons and with July 4 falling on a Saturday, our meet that week will be on Wednesday, July 1 in the late afternoon. More info about this meet will be coming but I wanted to get it on your radar.

The afternoon practice schedule can be found on the main page and the Practice Schedule tab. Afternoon practices will run from Monday, June 1 through Wednesday, June 17. June 1 will also be the date Cy's Swim will be at Walden Pool to sell this year's team suit. This year's suit is the Arena Black/Green Fireflow. Remember, the team suit is not required but is encouraged. If you'd like to see this year's suit, visit Cy's Walden team page: https://cysswim.com/collections/walden-green-wave

There will be no practice Thursday, June 18 since that is the last work day for Coach Chas for the school year but we will have morning practice on Friday, June 19 since that is the day before our first home meet. The actual morning practice schedule will be released at a later date. Related to morning practices, Coach Chas and I have discussed the possibility of having the swim team run morning swim lessons and we'd like to see what interest there is. These lessons would be for swimmers preparing to join the swim team in future seasons or for newer swimmers that would like additional pool time. Please complete the short survey form linked here if you are interested. Other summer teams offer similar programs so we would be adapting their model for this. https://forms.gle/yPF7Rzt51zq6VuSz7

The final part of this email will focus on volunteers. If you are available to help me with any of the posted roles below, please respond to this email.

1. The team is in need of a new treasurer. I can talk to you more in depth about the responsibilities but it mainly has to do with managing the team account, maintaining a spreadsheet for team manager use and making sure we have access to cash at our home meets. 
2. This will be the final year for our tech rep so I'd like to have someone shadow him so you can get trained for next season. The tech rep is responsible for making sure our swimmers are entered into meets and making sure times are entered correctly during meets. Swimtopia makes this process pretty simple so please don't feel like you need to be super-techy to fulfill this role.
3. As always, I am looking for stroke and turn judges - we had a great group last year and we're always looking for more parents to help with this vital role. This role does require league training so please let me know if you're interested so I can share training info as it becomes available.
4. And if anyone is interested in learning the team manager role - I'm always on the lookout to train someone to take over.

I believe that is all for now but please remain on the lookout for updates as I will share them as soon as they become available. As always, please reach out with any questions and I'm looking forward to seeing you on the pool deck.

And to those not returning this summer - I will only email members from this point on but please have a great summer. We will miss seeing you!

Jim Higgins

Walden Swim Team Manager