VOLUNTEER JOB DESCRIPTIONS
Equipment set-up or take-down — For home meets, this involves positioning tables, chairs and electronic equipment (Friday pm) and benches and shade canopies (early Saturday am). “Many hands make for light work” when setting up and then storing these necessary items after the meet (early afternoon). For away meets, this job involves hauling and building shade canopies (early am) and dismantling them after the meet (mid-afternoon).
Concessions— a key function to ensure our team’s solvency. Work only at home meets setting up concessions, selling refreshments, or cleaning up concession area after the meet. Everyone is asked to make food/drink item donations during the season, so please look for the sign-up sheet at practice and be generous.
Ready area— Assist the clerk of course by distributing entry cards and placing swimmers in lane order on the ready benches for their heat; also, maintain order in the ready area. Help ease concerns of younger swimmers by delivering them to their appropriate starting block.
Timers— Time swimmers using stopwatches and record times on the swimmer's entry card. Three timers are in each lane, and the head timer will have backup watches in case you or your stopwatch goofs. A great “up-close” location to see some swimming, especially if you like wet feet!
Runners —Collect disqualification slips from timers and take them to the scoring table. During the 25-yard events, runners earn their title: first delivering heat sheets to all officials and collecting them throughout the meet.
CERTIFIED MEET OFFICIALS [CCSL training required] - The CCSL provides short clinics to train parents to fill these positions. Familiarity with competitive swimming and a working knowledge of CCSL rules are essential and available through the league handbook provided with training. To maintain certification, officials must attend training each year (unless a USA Swimming or TISCA official). Sharks swimmers are best represented when the rules are fairly interpreted by Sharks’ parents. Relying on other teams to supply officials on our behalf leaves Sharks’ swimmers at a disadvantage and places our meets in jeopardy. Training to become a stroke & turn judge is the first step for most of the certifications. Please consider stepping forward to become a meet official and key member of your child's swim team.
Referee - The senior official at a meet; has final authority in all decisions and rule interpretations.
Starter - Calls swimmers to the starting blocks; starts each heat; and handles false start disqualifications.
Stroke & turn judge - Judges the technical form of strokes or turns according to league and USA Swimming rules; responsible for disqualifying swimmers and explaining reason for disqualification to swimmer/coach in an effort to improve swimmer's performance.
