Parent Reps, Meet Managers and Coaches,

Here is the important info on Prelims.  Please be sure to carefully read through everything.  I am waiting on a few important details from Swimtopia about the finals meet, so I will send the finals info as soon as I have clarification from them. I will also be sending out the information packets from each of the prelims and finals host teams after I receive them from those teams.  Let me know if you have any questions.

Elisa

1. For the first time this year, we were able to require the 2 meet minimum at the league level, which is different from past years where it was up to the parent reps to make sure the rule was enforced (we didn’t have an easy way to check it at the league level before we started using Meet Maestro). Therefore we are aware that there will be some swimmers that will not meet that requirement until they swim in the last regular season meet on Saturday, July 8th. Due to that issue, the final due date and time for any prelims entries and changes will be on Saturday, July 8th at 6pm (NO EXCEPTIONS!). After that point, only scratches will be allowed. This gives plenty of time for all of that day’s meets to be finished and to be exported to Swimtopia. Coaches, please be sure those last swimmers that only become eligible that day get entered as soon as possible once your meet is finished and exported from Meet Maestro to Swimtopia. This also means that any changes to your relays that include those swimmers will also need to be completed quickly on July 8th before 6pm.
2. At 6pm on Saturday, July 8th, I will go in and lock out any changes from any teams that have not already done that, but please try to remember to do that yourself for each of the 4 prelims once you are completely finished with all entries for your team. Since there will not be any combos in prelims, I will merge the meet and then post the heat sheets on the league Swimtopia site at https://rmsl.swimtopia.com/schedule-prelims-finals and send out an email letting everyone know that they are ready. Each team needs to print out enough copies of each prelim heat sheet for their team (for your team's coaches, parents reps, tent, etc.). This will be the same for the finals heat sheet. Also be sure to print out the Athlete check-in for your team for each of the prelims (and finals) from Meet Maestro so that everyone knows what they are swimming.
3. Once I have the heat sheets ready, I will calculate the number of prelims individual entries and relay entries for each team and send that to you in an email to the parent reps. Remember that the prelims entry fees are $1.25 per individual entry and $2.50 per relay entry. You can find the Prelims Entry Fees form at https://rmsl.swimtopia.com/team-fees and you will need to make the check out to Rocky Mountain Swim League and bring it on Monday, July 10th to the 13 & Up prelims at Homestead Farm II. This will need to be given to Steven Maxey, and you will find him in the Preserve’s team tent.
4. We will be running the prelims and finals meets in Meet Maestro. This will allow the parents to be able to continue using the Swimtopia Mobile app that many of them have paid for, and it will make it where the host team’s Meet Managers will be able to continue using the system that they have been using all season. This will make it easier on everyone running the meets, but this does not come without some limitations. At the moment, we are NOT able to circle (barrel) seed using Meet Maestro. I understand that normally that is how we seed prelims, but there is not enough time to manually reseed 270 heats (for those that don’t know, circle seeding involves only the top 3 fastest heats in an event and allows the fastest of those swimmers to all have middle lanes). The only seeding currently available is either slowest to fastest (how we will seed it) or fastest to slowest. I have already requested that Swimtopia add circle seeding as an option for the future, but we have to work with what we have available. Please make sure the parents and swimmers on your team are aware of this limitation to avoid any unnecessary angry comments or emails to the board.
5. As for DQ protests, those will have to be done by a Parent rep ONLY! Coaches and parents are NOT allowed to make a protest or to approach any of the meet officials (Parent reps, please strongly reiterate this to your parents!). This means that the coaches need to have a way to quickly get a hold of their parent rep that is attending the meet, so that the parent rep can go in person to the referee to make the protest. So coaches, please stay on top of the results as they are coming in for your swimmers so that you are quickly aware of any DQs. Any DQ protest must be done within about 5 heats at prelims (allowing for a few minutes for the DQs to be entered after the heat). For finals, any DQ protests need to be done within 4 events due to all of the other processes that need to be done after the event ends in order for all of the division rankings to be finished within 20-30 minutes after the end of Event 90. If you need further clarification, let me know.
6. We will be using 1 Dolphin timer and 1 manual stopwatch per lane at both prelims and finals. This means that we will have the 1 time coming in from the Dolphin timer on Meet Maestro, but will have the timers writing down both times on the lane timer sheet. This is to ensure that we have a manual backup just in case anything goes wrong with the Dolphin timers.  This is a slight change from what we were originally thinking, but it gives us a failsafe in case of any technology failures.
7. Parent reps, please remember to bring your fully charged starter and your Dolphin timers with you each day to all of the prelims and finals meets. You can leave them in your car, but this way we have them as a backup just in case they are needed. Also bring any manual stopwatches that your team has with you too each day (make sure that they are labeled so that they get returned to you).