The first meet of the season is quickly approaching (or already behind you in some states!)! Both new and returning swim parents often have many questions pre-season, several of which may involve “Disqualifications” (a.k.a. DQs). Returning parents might have encountered DQs in seasons past and new parents may be wondering what this “scary” acronym could possibly signify. Never fear! … [Read more...]
SwimTopia Tips & Tricks
Swim Parent Expectations- How Best to Support your Athlete
After two years of social distancing, limited on-deck capacity, and virtual meets, swim team is officially back. Across the country, parents, kiddos, and coaches alike are rejoicing this quintessential summer activity’s return. As a parent, you may be anticipating the return of various activities: cheering on your young athletes, volunteering to keep all things “swim” smoothly rocking and rolling, … [Read more...]
Volunteer Signups: How Does Your Team Manage Them?
The Pros and Cons of Different Ways of Collecting Volunteer Signups SwimTopia works with over 1800 swim teams around the country, so we’ve seen thousands of different ways that teams can manage their volunteers. Ok, that might be a slight exaggeration. 😁 But teams can, and do, use many different strategies to manage their volunteers! Here we’ll explore some pros and cons of different ways of … [Read more...]
Updating Your SwimTopia Site to the New Swim Season
Happy New Year! For many of our SwimTopia community, it’s time to begin planning for the new swim season, and with that comes a refresh of your SwimTopia website. We’ll be sharing some tips to help make that transition easier! Get Ready for a New Swim Season! First, you’ll want to scan through your website content to see if there are any references to policies, dates, deadlines, etc. that are … [Read more...]
How SwimTopia pays for itself…and then some!
Photos [1] [2] by Gerd Altmann and Aquilatin, respectively Swim teams, especially summer and high school swim teams, run on tight budgets. Because they are largely volunteer-run and mostly non-profit, swim teams often find it challenging to provide quality swim programs for their community – at an affordable price – while staying financially afloat. For some teams, the total price of … [Read more...]
5 Tips and Tools for Better Volunteer Management
Better Organized Volunteers = MORE FUN I can’t think of another sport as reliant on voluntary parent participation as summer swimming. Summer swim teams couldn’t function without a handful of dedicated neighborhood parents. Here I’m talking about the head parents, willing to put in hours outside of the season to make sure all the decisions are made, coaches hired, equipment stocked, and systems … [Read more...]
Help Your Team Parents: Things They Should Know About SwimTopia
Your team has just signed up for this amazing new swim team management platform and you want to help team parents make use of all the great features. How can you help team parents get the most out of this exciting treasure trove of features and information? For the main functions of SwimTopia that your parents use (registration, meet and job sign up, website and account login, and viewing … [Read more...]
Making the Most of Your SwimTopia Reports
The power of SwimTopia is in the integration of your team’s information; to harness that power you need to be familiar with our reporting options and capabilities. SwimTopia reports give you the flexibility you need, to find the information you want. During the swim season SwimTopia added some reports and upgraded the functionality of others. We have a great selection of reports; read on to … [Read more...]
Encourage Signups for Your Next Meet with “Upcoming Events” Snippet
Many of our teams have begun their seasons, and meets are well underway. Make it easy for your parents to sign up for meet entries and volunteer shifts for your next meet by embedding the next swim meet option of our Upcoming Events snippet on your page template. The Upcoming Events snippet offers two options: Display several upcoming events (you can set the number) Display the next … [Read more...]
Best Practices for Meet and Event Setup
Summer swim season is ramping up, registrations are coming in, and practices have begun in our warmer states! As you launch into your summer season, we’d like to make sure your meet and event setup is correct from the get-go! Meet and Event Setup In the SwimTopia world, we have two kinds of events: 1) Swim Meets – complete with swim events (i.e., Girls 6 & Under 25 Free, Boys 7-8 25 Back, … [Read more...]
