Volunteer Information

 

ICE Volunteering Requirements:  All ICE parents are required to do the following three volunteer activities while their swimmer is an ICE member:

 

Fundraising:  ICE families are required to raise funds each season, so that the Club can keep practice/equipment fees low. A family with one swimmer must raise $100 per season, and a family with two or more swimmers must raise $150 per season. The two seasons each year are the Short-Course Season, running from September through February/early March, and the Long-Course Season, from April through July/early August. The Fundraising Committee plans many fundraising opportunities throughout the year. A family may opt to pay the required amount, without participating in Club fundraisers. The Fundraising Committee chair for the 2009-10 year is Don McGlaughlin.  More details about Fundraising.

 

ICE Committees:   All parents must work actively on at least one committee while their swimmer is with ICE. Find out as much as possible about the different committee activities, and choose work that will suit your talents and interests.

Committee work is essential. When every parent does a small part of the club's work, the load is easy, and our team functions well. Please pitch in, choose your tasks and talk with your committee leader about how you prefer to work — on your own, with a partner, with a small team — we try to accommodate anyone who is willing and ready to jump into the work! We're proud of our parent-run club, and we welcome you into helping shape the team with your participation.

More details about ICE Committees.

Meet Volunteering:  All families must work six meet sessions each for the short course (fall/winter) and for the long course (summer) season.  Choose your jobs and your desired shifts. Meets have two or three sessions per day. Each session is approximately four to five hours long, depending on the meet size. Consult the meet invitation for exact times of warm ups. Consult the Volunteer Sign-up pages linked to the ICE web site for shift start times.

Officials and officiating apprentices working shifts at home meets receive credit for those shifts.

Responsible swimmers and siblings can fill some volunteer shifts toward the family's obligation. Swimmers may not work shifts at a home meet until they have finished competing at that meet (until after they have swum their last event at that meet, or if they are not swimming at that meet at all). The minimum age for timing positions at State Championship meets is 12.   More details about meet volunteering.

 

 

 

How to Sign up

After the initial posting of paper sign-up sheets at each season's registration, available volunteer shifts will be posted on a direct on-line sign-up page at signupgenius.com. Register just once with signupgenius.com to enable direct on-line sign-up for all future ICE meets. Send questions to the Volunteer Coordinator at: meetvolunteer@iceels.org.

To ensure adequate coverage for our home meets, families are allowed to sign up for only two shifts for each meet at first. Exception:  2010 Long Course State Champs. Once open web sign-up is announced via Communicator Note and on the on-line Volunteer Sign-up pages, families can request to take on more shifts for each meet. Families who must cancel meet shifts during the week prior to that meet should try to make their own arrangements for someone else to cover those shifts and notify the Volunteer Coordinator of their replacement.

 

Other Ways to Fulfill Work Requirements

There are other ways to get volunteer work credit. Working or apprenticing as an official at any home meet will count toward fulfilling the family volunteer obligation. There are also some shifts available for the preparation of food for Concessions (food sold at meets) or for Hospitality (food served during the meet to coaches and officials). If you would like to explore these ways of fulfilling your family work obligation, contact the Officials' Coordinator (Cheryl McNeilly) or the Concessions/Hospitality Coordinator (Beth Ann Pigge, or another Concessions Coordinator specified on the sign-up page for individual meets).

Descriptions for Volunteer Positions

Announcer
Provides the voice of the meet. You will announce the events and the participants in each heat, along with any other pertinent information as needed. We need an announcer for each session. Begin one hour prior to start of competition.
Awards
This is a job for someone who likes to keep things orderly. To work with awards, you will take results from the Computer Operator and organize ribbons and trophies for distribution. Begin at start of competition.
Coaches’ Check-in (half credit): 
Before and during the very first session of a meet, we will need someone to monitor the coaches’ check-in table. The coaches must sign-in and show their coaching credentials prior to being allowed on deck to work with their swimmers. Begin 20 minutes prior to warm-up. Combine this short shift with another for full credit.
Clerk of Course--Proof of Times, Time Trials
At Championship meets, a Clerk of Course works on deck to take requests and fees for Time Trials and to verify that swimmers have qualifying times. Swimmers who fail to make the minimum qualifying time are required by USAS regulations to provide proof that they achieved said times at some point. The USAS SWIMS database verifies most of these proofs prior to the meet. Swimmers achieving qualifying times from non-USAS sanctioned meets (HS duals for example) should have some verification with them. If they cannot supply such validation they are subject to a fine. Begin 30 minutes prior to competition.
Clerk of Course--Swimmer Line-up
When meet sessions include younger swimmers, often a clerk of course is used to line up the swimmers and assist them with getting into the proper lanes. Begin 20 minutes prior to competition.
Computer Operator
Runs the Meet Manager software-- importing times, printing results, etc. In championship meets, there will be someone on site to serve as the Timing Judge (making modifications to the times as per the USAS regulations). When circumstances permit, you may be called upon to assist with seeding events for later sessions. Begin one hour prior to competition. 
Concessions
This involves selling and/or preparing food. Please observe the start and end times of these work sessions because they may be different from the beginning and end times of the actual meet sessions.
Console Operator 
Operates the timing console. All Mercer meets utilize the Daktronics console unit. Meets at the University of Iowa use the Colorado timing system. Tthis console is a little different from the Daktronics unit we use at Mercer but should be familiar enough for someone to operate after a few minutes of hands-on orientation. Begin one hour prior to competition.
Head Timer:
The head timer helps to coordinate the lane timers and provides a third watch time for the heat winner and maintains an extra stopwatch in case equipment or operator error requires a back-up watch. Begin 20 minutes prior to competition.
Lane Timers
Primary duty is to operate a stopwatch and electronic back-up button. Lane timers serve as the secondary and tertiary back up to the primary (electronic pad) timing system. At our home meets, we will supply all of the timers (16 timers per session). At championship meets we are required to supply 50% of the timers (8 timers per session), with the rest of the timer slots supplied by other teams, based on the number of swimmers each team has present at each session. One or two additional timing slots are often offered for people to serve as relief timers or to cover no-shows from our team or other teams. Begin 20 minutes prior to competition.
Program/Merchandise Sales
Sell programs, swim merchandise, and meet t-shirts. Due to heavy traffic, one person will be assigned to sell programs the first day of a meet. On the subsequent days, this duty will be included in concession sales. Begin 15 minutes prior to warm-up.
Runner
Will pick up lane timer sheets and deliver them to the timing table, post results outside the pool deck, and carry out other such duties as needed. This is a good job for a responsible young person. Begin at the start of competition.
Safety Marshal
USAS regulations require a Safety Marshal to be on site during a meet. From warm-ups until the session ends, you will be ensuring that the swimmers, coaches, and spectators adhere to certain standards of safe behavior. This position no longer must be filled by someone registered with USAS. For all of our meets, there will also be a trained lifeguard on duty. Begin 15 minutes prior to warm-up.
Pre-meet or AM Set-up
We will need people to assist with set-up on the evening prior to the meet — setting up the lobby, hospitality area, concessions area, and pool and testing the equipment so that all will be ready when the meet begins the next day. Consult the Volunteer Sign-up page for Set-up start times. Additionally, we need some people to set up equipment on each morning of the meet, prior to warm-ups — the mid-meet set-up shifts are for half credit; combine with another shift for full credit.
Tear-down/Clean-up
At the conclusion of meets, we need folks to assist with returning the facility to its pre-meet condition. Begin at end of meet. Additionally, we need two people to do some clean-up after each meet day, during the meet, (begins an hour before the day's last session ends and continues until that session is over and clean-up tasks fulfilled); these mid-meet clean-up shifts are for half credit; combine with another shift for full credit.