Hello Gators,

My name is Kevin Rizzardi and I am your officials & volunteer coordinator for our 2024 summer swim season. I will be responsible for making sure that we have the required amount of officials & volunteers in order to run a seamless and successful meet. There is no maximum requirement for volunteering, but a good rule of thumb is a minimum of two volunteer slots for your first swimmer on the team and an additional one slot for each additional swimmer. That being said, we typically find ourselves short on volunteers so please know that I will call on you if needed and we cannot start the meet without the required amount of volunteers.

For all volunteer positions there is no training needed and I can walk you through any questions you might have. For those who are new to swim I wanted to share with you what the various positions are about.

• Finish/Place Judge - Stands at the end of the pool and writes down what place each lane come in for each event (great view of the entire meet)
• Marshall - Keeps track of all the 10 and under swimmers and makes sure that they get to the blocks on time for their events. The ask here is that if you have a swimmer(s) who is 10 or under please plan to volunteer for this position at least once this season. If you are a parent then you know the drill…kids will be kids and they need to be told where to go.
• Meet Set Up/Break Down - Helps to set up the tables, and equipment and tents during home meets and then break down at the end. Easy way to support the team by doing something that is very important, but requires only a short commitment.
• Runner - Walks around collecting paperwork from the timers, judges, and referee and delivers it to the scoring table. Great job if you like to walk around during the meet.
• Timer - Stands at the starting blocks with two other volunteers and operates a stopwatch to time the swimmer. No pressure as you have two other timers with you and we have backups in case of malfunctions. Great job if you like to socialize with other swim parents.

To sign up just go to the specific meet on the schedule and click the green job signup button. Then just click on the black "sign up for jobs" button under your name and select the job that you would like to volunteer for. Ideally I would like to have our volunteers identified prior to the day of the meet otherwise I end up going around and asking for last minute volunteers and that could potentially hold us up from starting.

If you are interested in being an official this season or if you have officiated in the past please go to the PJSL link provided and take the officials certification test. When you go to this site just click on the "Officials Training/Test" link on the green bar. This will take you to the test and there are videos you can watch at the start of each section. If you do decide to officiate please send me an email so I know to look out for your credentials and I can make plans to get you on deck to shadow an existing official.

All officials must take and pass the test prior to being permitted to officiate even if you are an experienced official.

https://pjsl.swimtopia.com/login

I will plan to send out another email this weekend if there are any slots that still need to be filled for our upcoming meet against Nazareth which is an away meet.

If you have any questions please reach out to me directly and I will respond as soon as possible.

Thank you,

Kevin