Hello Walden families,

Before I dive into my crazy-long email about the Medal Meets, I wanted to take one more opportunity to thank everyone for all of your help this year. This year has been great - and it isn't possible without the help of everyone. I like to annoy the swimmers as they leave meets by asking them if they're having fun, and every single one of the them this year told me they did. That's the best I can ask for.

Now, onto the information overload. Please review this email in its entirety. It will contain everything we currently know regarding the end of season Medal Meets, with the promise of more information to come as we receive volunteer assignments and such.

As a reminder, each swimmer, as long as they've competed in two meets this season, is invited to swim in one of the league's end-of-season Medal Meets. The meets are as follows:

• Bronze Meet - Wednesday, July 15 at Southdown (where we swam last week) at 5:30 p.m.
• Silver Meet - Saturday, July 18 at Bay Ridge at 8:30 a.m.
• Gold Meet - Sunday, July 19 at Hillsmere at 8:30 a.m.

Sign up for these meets is currently open on the team website (waldengreenwave.swimtopia.com) and on the Swimtopia app. The deadline to declare for a Medal Meet is 11 p.m. Saturday, July 11 (Hence the email the week before the final meet)! We will not be able to add swimmers after the deadline.

In addition to declaring for this meet, please pick the events your child wants to swim. They are eligible to swim in up to 3 individual events. Time standards for these meets are enforced and you will not be able to select events where a swimmer's time does not meet the criteria for the meet.

I know some swimmers are still hoping to qualify for certain medal meets in certain strokes at Saturday's meet, just please be ready to declare for the meet on Saturday so your swimmer doesn't miss the registration deadline.

Please find attached three PDF documents (one for each meet) that list the events your swimmer can swim at the labeled meet. This is to help you decide which meet to swim. For example, if your swimmer qualifies for the Silver Meet in the 25 freestyle and the Bronze Meet in the 25 backstroke, you will need to chose between swimming the freestyle at the Silver Meet or the Backstroke at the Bronze Meet.

There is a fourth pdf that includes the time standards so you can see how close your swimmer is to achieving the standard if they are hoping to qualify at Saturday's meet.

If your swimmer chooses to swim a Medal Meet, we are collecting $10 per swimmer to cover the fees charged by the league. These fees can be paid via Venmo (@waldengreenwave), Zelle (QR code attached) or cash (handed to Whitney Brown or Jim Higgins). If paying your fee online, please indicate your swimmer and the meet so we can keep track of who's paid.

I will send this email again, with updated pdfs, after results are final on Saturday. 

I've been doing this long enough that I'm convinced I left something out so if you have a question that I haven't answered, please email me. And again, my apologies in advance for the number of emails I'm going to send over the next couple of weeks - it's the end of the season rush!

Jim Higgins