Livorna Dolphins Swim Team

Parent participation is crucial to the success of any swim team. Your cooperation is encouraged in the following ways:

1. Cheer for our team and your swimmer in a positive manner. Remember that encouragement and praise are essential for every swimmer's self esteem.
2. Be a positive role model and set a good example. Encourage good sportsmanship.
3. Show respect to all coaches, referees, spectators, players, and tournament officials.
4. Let the coaches coach. They are responsible for stroke development, critiquing and evaluating the swimmers at meets and practices. You are their cheerleader. When parents try to coach more often than not, it confuses the child, adds pressure and goes against the coaches’ instruction, which undermines the swimmer-coach relationship, the swimmer-parent relationship, and the parent-coach relationship.
5. Do not approach or talk to the stroke and turn judges, or other officials during the meet. If you have a question about a swim or ruling please ask our head coach after the meet.
6. Parents Need to observe a “Cooling Off” Period: Wait to talk to the coach about something you are upset about for at least 24 hours. Emotions can get so hot, that it’s often better and more productive to wait a day before contacting the coach. This also gives you time to consider exactly what to say to the coach, and how to say it.
7. Direct all concerns to either our head coach or swim team director. Please do not approach our junior coaches or volunteer parents with complaints.
8. We love our parent support and so do the swimmers, but please make sure it is done so in a very positive manner. Remember, this is a community-centered, family-friendly, rec swim program, and it should be fun and used to help develop our swimmers through life experiences. There will be highs, there will be lows, and everything in between. Our players will learn how to handle them all through their experience with Livorna.

• Time
  
  • It truly takes a village to run a swim season! There are parents who volunteer above and beyond the required jobs and we couldn’t operate without them. If you are able and willing please offer to take on more, we can always use more people with can-do attitudes!
  • Please consider volunteering for a board position. In your first year on the board you will be taught by our outgoing board members, so no need to worry about expertise!
• Finances
  
  • To support our finances you can 1. Purchase apparel directly from the team, not outside vendors (we fundraise via apparel!) 2. Eat at the snack shack (a portion goes to our team) 3. Participate in dine-outs and other team fundraisers 4. Consider donating!
  • A little background: Our team is NOT making profits – our margins are actually very tight with some recent years in the red! Without going too far into the weeds, our registration fees do not cover the cost of the whole swim team season. We set the registration fees at the current price to be competitive with other local teams as well as other youth sports, knowing that we aren't going to break even. Therefore we need to recoup money in other areas. The big 3 for us are 1. sponsorships and other fundraisers such as the auction items, dine outs, etc, 2. apparel and 3. snack shack. Each of these volunteer teams (sponsorship/fundraising, apparel and snack shack) work really hard to help us raise money for the team so we can continue to offer fun experiences for our swimmers, (ie. the fun relays at the last meet, the otter pops on fridays, and the end of season party, etc... ). Please support our volunteers (and our swimmers) by supporting Livorna’s finances!