In 2011, our CEO Mason Hale realized there simply wasn’t a reliable team management software available for summer swim teams. At that time, he saw parent volunteers consistently wrangling dated programs (which often required a coding background). These parents sometimes found themselves stuck “volunteering” long after their swimmers’ career, simply because only they understood the dated software. … [Read more...]
Giving the Perfect (Swim) Gift
The holidays are quickly approaching and this means something different depending on your swimmer’s current involvement. Whether your athlete is currently training in a winter recreational league or a year-round “club” team or whether they are in “off season” and awaiting the spring, they are still working towards goals. Goals can range in variety; maybe your swimmer wants to achieve certain time … [Read more...]
The High School Swim Team Experience
Swimming is certainly one of the best youth sports on the market. With its low-impact cardio and a muscular component (a full body workout!), swimming helps youngsters tackle goal-setting, introduces the idea of “teamwork” both in practice and competition settings, and provides a social outlet. Further, once our young athletes reach the middle/high school age, opportunities for swim team … [Read more...]
Merchandising Tips to Boost Team Spirit and Revenue
Offering special limited-edition items like hoodies can boost your team's sales & spirit. Read on for other merchandising tips to help you increase both your sales and your revenue. Relative to other sports, swim teams are huge. The average swim team has more than 100 athletes on the roster. And with that size comes some high overhead costs for coaching staff, pool rentals, insurance, not to … [Read more...]
SwimTopia Makes Fundraising Easier Than Ever
Fundraising has long been central to the success of swim team culture. Whether involved in high school, club, or summer rec swimming, swim parents are very familiar with the concept of fundraising. In fact, ensuring an influx of cash is critical to the operations of swim teams across the country. With this in mind, SwimTopia offers a couple of features to make fundraising as easy and navigable as … [Read more...]
SwimTopia Presents: SWIMS 3.0 Integration
September marks the release of USA Swimming’s SWIMS 3.0. This is a newly updated swimmer database/swimmer registration portal for members of USA Swimming clubs. The release allows athletes, parents of athletes, and non-athletes (e.g. volunteers) to register for USA Swimming online at the USA Swimming website while syncing their member details to their team management software (like … [Read more...]
Announcing New Competition Category Terminology
This summer, to address the continually evolving awareness of gender identity in sport, SwimTopia is updating the terminology used in our products from “Gender” to “Competition Category.” This change more clearly reflects the intended use of “Male” and “Female” labels in our products: for the purposes of competitive classification and not as an indication of an individual’s gender … [Read more...]
Summer Swim to Year-round Club: Picking your Perfect Competitive Team
Though still brutally hot (depending on where you are in the country), peak summer swim season is finally passing. This might also mean assessing what’s next for your young swimmer. In our previous blog, SwimTopia spoke about the immense benefits of year-round competitive (a.k.a. club) swim teams. Not only will your athlete continue developing strong friendships in club swim, they will also … [Read more...]
How to Choose Your “Most Improved” Swimmers and other End-of-Season Awards
Most teams have some kind of “Most Improved” award at the end of the season; we’ve talked to teams all over the country and it seems there are many different ways teams decide how to award Most Improved Swimmers! For some teams it might be for the biggest time drop throughout the season, or the biggest time drop from the last season to this one, it might be subjective and chosen by the coaches for … [Read more...]
From Summer Swimmer to Year-round Athlete
We are quickly reaching, if not the end of the season for many leagues, at least the mid-way point (where does the time go??). It’s been a whirlwind of cheers and chants, snacks and backpacks, chlorine and cozy towels. And maybe, just maybe, your young athlete has caught the ‘swimming bug.’ Perhaps, they’re not quite ready to hang up their swimsuit for the year. “What’s next??” they might be … [Read more...]
