POOL CUES - View Ridge Swim and Tennis Club
POOL CUES - View Ridge Swim and Tennis Club
POOL CUES - View Ridge Swim and Tennis Club
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<strong>View</strong> <strong>Ridge</strong> <strong>Swim</strong> &<strong>Tennis</strong> <strong>Club</strong><br />
August, 2009<br />
<strong>POOL</strong> <strong>CUES</strong><br />
What a Day!!<br />
About every 14 years we are asked to host the All City<br />
Championships for the Seattle Summer <strong>Swim</strong> League. This summer<br />
we celebrated the 50th year of our club's involvement in<br />
this group of summer pools. This event is enormous <strong>and</strong> a great<br />
challenge. Around 2,000 swimmers, parents, gr<strong>and</strong>parents, <strong>and</strong><br />
other fans spend a few hours swimming <strong>and</strong> yelling. This year<br />
we were able to provide a larger pool <strong>and</strong> gave two more swimmers<br />
<strong>and</strong> relays a chance to participate. This also increased the<br />
size <strong>and</strong> needs of the crowd. (To see photos of this event <strong>and</strong> to<br />
get an idea of it's scope, go to www.vrstc.org <strong>and</strong> click on the<br />
links to Steve Moss' <strong>and</strong> Leo Santiago's efforts at capturing the<br />
day.)<br />
By all accounts we did a spectacular job! Our goal from the<br />
start was to make it a great meet, give spectators a chance to see<br />
their kids, <strong>and</strong> get kids closer to the action. Our beautiful facility<br />
helped us meet our goals - for many All City Meets the kids end<br />
up a long way from the pool, usually on the tennis courts.<br />
But none of this would have happened without the incredible<br />
efforts of many, many members! First to congratulate is<br />
Rachel who headed up the planning. Her vision gave us all the<br />
direction we needed. You might not know that Rachel has also<br />
served as league president for many years <strong>and</strong> grew up as a<br />
<strong>View</strong> <strong>Ridge</strong> swim team member. Summer swimming is part of<br />
who she is <strong>and</strong> you could tell this in how she helped us create a<br />
memory for so many kids <strong>and</strong> their families.<br />
Thanks also to Gail Moss for her help, especially in organizing<br />
the meet <strong>and</strong> running the concessions. There were a lot of<br />
hungry people <strong>and</strong> she <strong>and</strong> her staff took good care of them!<br />
Hi,<br />
I just wanted to commend your club on<br />
how well you ran the All-City meet on Tuesday.<br />
You have a beautiful venue <strong>and</strong> your new<br />
facility is perfect to host this caliber of meet. I<br />
appreciate all the volunteers who helped run the<br />
meet smoothly. We hosted All-City in the summer<br />
of 2006, <strong>and</strong> believe me, it takes a village to<br />
pull off this size meet with close to 1000-1200<br />
combined athletes/coaches/spectators. I was<br />
especially impressed with how well the parking<br />
was managed, from dropping swimmers off in<br />
front of your club to directing us to across the<br />
street into the bigger parking lot.<br />
Your pool deck space <strong>and</strong> seating was<br />
ample <strong>and</strong> I loved how you had all the swimmers<br />
on the grass in the shade. It made for a<br />
memorable swim meet with very fast times.<br />
The pool temperature felt perfect, as I dipped<br />
my foot into the deep end during warm-ups. I<br />
felt everyone who volunteered did their job <strong>and</strong><br />
did it well. The shaved ice was awesome!<br />
Thanks, again, for hosting a fantastic<br />
All-City. It will be one that I will remember<br />
forever. My daughter swam great <strong>and</strong> she<br />
went out with a bang, since this was her last<br />
All-City.<br />
Please share this with your other volunteers<br />
who helped run a great All-City!<br />
Kim Gansneder, parent<br />
Olympic <strong>View</strong> <strong>Swim</strong> <strong>Club</strong><br />
A vision is made real by the hard work of many people.<br />
Jeanette Whiting took on the job of volunteer coordinator - <strong>and</strong> coordinate she did! We will never forget her in<br />
the middle of 77th directing visitors to drop off points <strong>and</strong> parking - many from other clubs said they loved the<br />
way they were greeted <strong>and</strong> made comfortable.<br />
We can't list everyone who helped out. The days became so fast paced that much became a blur. We'll list<br />
a few: our All City Committee who helped with the overall planning, the <strong>View</strong> <strong>Ridge</strong> Staff members for their<br />
for many crucial roles, Jeff Grose for coordinating the meet officials, Alan Humphrey for creating our meet web<br />
continued inside
Showers - Please Watch the Water<br />
Our campaign to reduce the length<br />
of showers is moving in the right direction.<br />
Members report less cases of<br />
kids camping out under the shower<br />
heads. Parents seems to be more aware where<br />
their kids are when they are at the pool. Haven't seen<br />
Billy for a while Maybe check the shower. We'll continue<br />
this effort next season.<br />
Although not as bad as the beginning of the summer,<br />
we still have a few boys who not only stay in the<br />
shower <strong>and</strong> waste water. They play with the soap.<br />
There have been days when we've had to fill up the<br />
dispensers with a gallon of soap. Almost every time<br />
we hose the dressing room, we have to wash down<br />
the wall opposite the showers to get read of the soap<br />
that's been thrown. We're sure this problem only involves<br />
a h<strong>and</strong>ful of boys. To these boys - please stop.<br />
Be a bit more respectful. Avoid a suspension <strong>and</strong> find<br />
some other way to have fun at the pool.<br />
<strong>POOL</strong> <strong>CUES</strong><br />
<strong>View</strong> <strong>Ridge</strong><br />
<strong>Swim</strong> & <strong>Tennis</strong> <strong>Club</strong><br />
5815 N.E. 77th<br />
P.O. Box 51079<br />
Seattle, Washington 98115<br />
524-3500<br />
vrstc@vrstc.org<br />
www.vrstc.org<br />
Board of Trustees<br />
Mary Ruckelshaus.................... President ................................... 528-9879<br />
John West................................. Vice President............................ 525-2839<br />
Eric Zimbelman......................... Past President............................ 523-5619<br />
Richard Pelly............................. <strong>Tennis</strong>......................................... 522-4953<br />
Gail Alverson............................. Social.......................................... 524-6254<br />
Heather Curtis........................... Secretary.................................... 361-0294<br />
Richard Pulkrabek.................... Grounds...................................... 522-6491<br />
Jane Fields............................... <strong>Swim</strong> Team................................. 524-7368<br />
Drew Kelly................................. Treasurer.................................... 525-0542<br />
Joel Delman.............................. Membership................................ 525-2528<br />
For billing inquiries.................... Laura Finlon................................ 985-7880<br />
Manager<br />
Composting Pilot<br />
We have 4 cubic yards of garbage <strong>and</strong> 4 cubic<br />
yards of recycling hauled away from our facility<br />
each week. Some members have wondered about<br />
composting. We don't have the dumpster space for<br />
a far-reaching effort <strong>and</strong> most serious composting<br />
requires a great deal of supervision - but we can take<br />
some small steps.<br />
We will be dedicating the garbage can under the<br />
clock by the bleachers as a composting bin. It will<br />
be lined with the required compostable liner. Please<br />
only put compostable material in this bin.<br />
In addition if you want to compost those pizza<br />
boxes - <strong>and</strong> how we love our pizza at the pool - remove<br />
the liners, collapse the boxes, <strong>and</strong> place behind<br />
this garbage can. We'll take these to the composting<br />
tote each morning. (Remember, pizza boxes can't<br />
be recycled <strong>and</strong> take up a lot of space in the regular<br />
garbage.)<br />
We'll see how this pilot goes <strong>and</strong> determine if we<br />
want to keep it or increase it in the future.<br />
Questions <strong>and</strong> concerns about your bills<br />
can be sent to Laura, our bookkeeper extraordinaire,<br />
at:<br />
vrstc_lf@comcast.net<br />
Peter Klein<br />
Tom Evans Awards<br />
The Tom Evans Award is given to a member<br />
of the club to acknowledge his or her extraordinary<br />
contributions. <strong>Club</strong>s like ours just<br />
couldn't exist without the effort <strong>and</strong> talents of<br />
the members.<br />
This year we were lucky to have two recipients,<br />
Susan Lansverk <strong>and</strong> Eric Zimbelman.<br />
Susan served on the Board through the<br />
remodel, but continue to contribute when<br />
her time was officially up. She was one of the<br />
architects of the financing plan that made our<br />
remodel possible - serving as our CFO at a<br />
crucial time.<br />
We have also been lucky to have a "corporate<br />
attorney." Eric also was a long-time Board<br />
member - several years as president - but was<br />
still with us when his "official" time was up. He<br />
helped steer us through the legal issues with<br />
the remodel <strong>and</strong> recently is involved in working<br />
with the developers north of the parking<br />
lot.<br />
Thanks Susan <strong>and</strong> Eric for all you've done<br />
<strong>and</strong> continue to do.
site, <strong>and</strong> all the other members who helped out.<br />
from front<br />
We rented quite a few bleachers for this event. They came in pieces. The rental company said to plan on<br />
4-5 hours to assemble. They obviously didn't know about our members! We had them up in about 2 hours <strong>and</strong><br />
down after the meet in about half that time. Bleacher volunteers - you were awesome!<br />
We've had many people from other clubs say, "Why don't you just host it every year." Besides the obvious<br />
(it's a lot of work) - these comments kind of miss the point. All clubs need to go through these experiences from<br />
time to time. Our club is not buildings, tennis courts, <strong>and</strong> pool. It's a collection of people creating a special<br />
place for their families. Working together on a project like the All City Meet brings us closer together <strong>and</strong> creates<br />
memories to share for years to come.<br />
Again, thanks to everyone who made this a very special day!<br />
September<br />
Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday<br />
1<br />
Early<br />
Morning<br />
<strong>Swim</strong><br />
6:00 am -<br />
8:00 am<br />
Open <strong>Swim</strong><br />
12:00 pm -<br />
9:00 pm<br />
2<br />
Early<br />
Morning<br />
<strong>Swim</strong><br />
6:00 am -<br />
8:00 am<br />
Open <strong>Swim</strong><br />
12:00 pm -<br />
9:00 pm<br />
3<br />
Early<br />
Morning<br />
<strong>Swim</strong><br />
6:00 am -<br />
8:00 am<br />
Open <strong>Swim</strong><br />
12:00 pm -<br />
4:00 pm<br />
Water Polo<br />
Pool Closes<br />
@ 4:00 pm<br />
4<br />
Early<br />
Morning<br />
<strong>Swim</strong><br />
6:00 am -<br />
8:00 am<br />
(last day)<br />
Open <strong>Swim</strong><br />
12:00 pm -<br />
9:00 pm<br />
5<br />
Open <strong>Swim</strong><br />
10:00 pm -<br />
9:00 pm<br />
6<br />
Open <strong>Swim</strong><br />
10:00 pm -<br />
9:00 pm<br />
7<br />
10:00-7:00<br />
Labor Day<br />
No Parties<br />
8<br />
4:00-7:00<br />
No Parties<br />
9<br />
4:00-7:00<br />
No Parties<br />
10<br />
4:00-7:00<br />
No Parties<br />
11<br />
4:00 - 8:00<br />
No Parties<br />
12<br />
10:00 - 8:00<br />
No Guests<br />
13<br />
10:00 - 6:00<br />
No Guests<br />
Last Day<br />
How do we decide on the closing date<br />
We often get asked about the closing date of the pool. Why can't it stay open longer to take advantage of the typical<br />
nice Seattle fall<br />
The closing date is largely a function of staff availability. As older staff members go off to college, more <strong>and</strong> more<br />
responsibility is shifted to high school aged kids whose hours are restricted by state laws concerning student workers.<br />
Many of our high school kids are also involved in after school sports. The new pool takes a lot of guards - fitting all the<br />
puzzle pieces together comes increasingly impossible.<br />
It is also difficult to keep the pool in top shape when no one is there during the day. Peter cleans the dressing rooms<br />
<strong>and</strong> checks the chlorine on the way to his teaching job, but there is no one there to monitor chemicals for most of the day.<br />
If a tank runs out <strong>and</strong> we open at 3:00 - we've got problems.<br />
Pool usage also naturally drops off when schools begin <strong>and</strong> the evenings do get much colder. The increased cost of<br />
heating the pool for fewer <strong>and</strong> fewer swimmers is also a factor in closing.<br />
We know you love your pool, but all good things must end - but just for the season - we'll open again for another<br />
great summer next May!