Volunteering
For every swim meet, the home and away teams each must provide a certain number of volunteers to staff the various jobs related to the meet. Providing these volunteers is not merely “recommended” or “optional” but necessary to run the meet. When we host a meet at home, we have additional jobs related to concessions and facilities set-up that also need to be filled.
For every home meet, we need approximately 45 volunteers to make the meet happen. For away meets, we need to supply about 25 volunteers.
The table below summarizes all of the jobs related to the meets. All families with a swimmer participating in any meet should plan on having at least one parent volunteer to assist the team in some capacity for that meet.
If you are interested in any of the Meet Officials positions, contact the Officials Coordinator at [email protected].
Jobs That Do Not Require Experience
Clerk of Course 8/U Runner: Takes the 8 and under swimmers from the clerk of course benches to the starting blocks for their events.
Concessions (Home Meets Only):
Workers: Help with set-up, serving/selling food, and tear down at the concessions stand.
Shoppers: Coordinates with Concessions Chair to shop for concessions items at Costco or Sam's Club before the meet.
Early Morning Breakfast Shopper: Purchases Chick-Fil-A and donuts for Saturday morning meets and delivers to the pool.
Grill Masters: Grill burgers, hot dogs, and veggie burgers for the concessions stand.
Ice and Drinks: Purchase bags of ice, deliver to the pool, and ice down drinks before the meet.
Pizza Shopper: Purchases Costco pizzas before Monday night meets and delivers to the pool.
Data/Table Workers:
Awards: Secures computer-printed labels to ribbons/medals.
Place Recorder: Verifies official time is correct on each time card, arranges the cards for each heat in order of finish (fastest time on top), staples DQ slips to time cards, and records team/league records.
Time Card Reader (B Meets Only): Assists Computer Operator to ensure correct times are keyed into data system.
Facilities Crew (Home Meets Only): Responsible for getting the pool ready before meets. Set up includes moving chairs and tables, setting up bleachers, benches, time boards, tents, etc.
Marshals: Deck marshals stand at the corners of the pool, wear a reflective vest, and carry a "Quiet Please" sign. They monitor swimmer safety during warmup and assist with crowd and noise control during the meet. Duties begin at time of swimmer warm ups.
National Anthem (Home Meets Only): Performs the National Anthem before the start of the meet.
Relay Take-Off Judges (A Meets Only): Observe relay starts; work only the relay portion at the end of the meet.
Runners: Carry time cards from Chief Timer and DQ slips from officials to the awards table.
Timers: Three timers are assigned to each lane. The host team provides one timer on lanes 1, 3, and 5 and two timers on lanes 2, 4, and 6. Vice versa for the visiting team. One timer on each lane is responsible for posting the time on the time board, one timer writes down the time on a slip of paper, and one timer verifies the name of the swimmer.
Traffic Duty (Home Meets Only): Stand at pool entrance to welcome and direct visiting team to parking lot.
Jobs That Require Training and/or Experience
Announcer (Home Meets Only): Announces the lane assignments for each event, meet results, team scores, and other pertinent meet information. The announcer is also in charge of playing music during warmup and meet breaks.
Chief Timer: Oversees the timers; starts two backup watches for every race; collects cards from timers and checks them before giving them to the runner.
Clerk of Course: Assembles swimmers into heats according to the order of events and ensures swimmers are present at the start.
Data/Table Workers:
Data Coordinator: Conducts meet merge and creates meet sheets/timing cards and does data entry at the meets.
Computer Operator: Inputs completed times into data system.
Verifier: Confirms that computer generated race results match the individual time cards to ensure accuracy before results are announced.
Referee (Home Meets Only)/Assistant Referee (Away B Meets): The lead deck official who verifies all DQ calls by stroke & turn judges and false start calls by the starter; has responsibility for the overall running of the meet. Requires NVSL certification.
Starter (Home Meets Only): Gives the "take your mark" command and triggers the starting horn for each race; makes false start calls in conjunction with the Referee. Requires NVSL certification.
Stroke & Turn Judges (Two from Each Team): Observes 1/4 of the competition pool and makes disqualification (DQ) calls when a swimmer fails to adhere to the rules for a given stroke. Requires NVSL certification.
