Wheat Ridge Piranhas

Parent volunteers are at the heart of a successful swim season for everyone! We are so grateful for your help supporting all the summer swim meets.  Thank you!

Every meet--both home and away--requires the participation of parent volunteers to ensure the meet can happen.
None of these jobs are hard--they just require some focused attention.

This year, we are asking parents to commit to volunteering a minimum of 16 points for the team. This can be done in any number of ways.

EVERY MEET

TIMERS: This is the most needed volunteer of all. At every meet, we need to supply timers for each lane of the pool for the duration of the meet. We time in 2-hour shifts and are always looking for timers in the last shift. This is as easy as clicking a stopwatch on and off and reading the time. And it offers a great front-row seat to the events in the meet.

OFFICIALS: Each team supplies officials for every meet, we would like to have a decent supply so we don't wear out the officials we have. Training is required. Email [email protected] if you are interested. Another great way to get deeper into the sport and have an even better poolside spot.

VOLUNTEER COORDINATOR: We like to create a sweet spot for our swimmers and parents to gather, which makes an easy place for volunteers to check in. Hang out and chill while each of the volunteers turns up or harvest from the family tent if they don't.

HOME MEETS: We need additional help running our home meets as we want to be good hosts.

• Set up: Everybody!  As you kids jump in the water to warm us, stay warm by helping to get the pool deck ready for the meet. Involves putting up tents, moving chairs into position, hauling concessions, etc. Must be able to carry things. The more the merrier on this--many hands can get this done quickly.  Unsure of what to do?  Ask a Piranhas parent wearing a shirt and name tag. Key tasks involve getting materials from the storage ( aka Concessions building behind the water slide).  Task include. 
  • Set up heating tent.
  • Set up chairs under tent.
  • Carry tables and tents to starting area
  • Arrange chairs behind starting blocks
• Concessions: Selling coffee, donuts, breakfast burritos and whatever other fare we decide to peddle. Must be able to count money and relate to sleep-deprived people and mumbling children.
• Hospitality: Keeping timers, officials and heating tent volunteers hydrated and cared for. Must be able to navigate through crowds while carrying beverages.
• Runners: Collecting time sheets from each lane and delivering them to the computer people who are compiling the results. Must be able to move fast without violating the "no running at the pool" rule.
• Computer operators: Entering results for events throughout the morning. Requires some training on how the program works. Must be able to keep a cool head while processing numbers. These intrepid souls are often the last to leave a home meet as they make sure all events are recorded.
• Heating: Getting swimmers organized for their events by heat and lane. Must be able to control children with one's voice and answer the same questions from the same children over and over again. Also must be able to gently guide parents out of the area and use a microphone/bullhorn to track down stray swimmers.
• Clean up: Again, Everybody!Helping to hide all evidence of the swim meet after it is over. Breaking down tents, re-packing the storage sheds, rearranging chairs, picking up the odd towel or set of googles.
• Ribbons: After it's all over and everyone has gone home, someone needs to print out the stickers from the meet, affix them to the appropriate ribbons, work with the coaches to get the visiting teams' ribbons to them, and file our team's ribbons by swimmer. This job can be done at home or at poolside on Monday mornings.

Non-meet Volunteer Opportunities

In addition to helping out at our home and away meets, we need parents with particular abilities to take on special tasks like:

• Friday donuts
• Coordinating team photos
• Planning our team banquet
• Planning fund-raisers