Embarking on a journey into year-round age group swimming is exciting, but it can get complicated - especially for parents! We've put together some information that should answer most of your questions. Feel free to contact us if there's anything else you'd like to know about joining the Tsunami Swimming family!

Equipment

Our swim team equipment partner, Sport fair, sells team suits, caps, sweats, duffel bags, and any other swimming equipment that your swimmer might need. Team caps are required for meets. Visit Sport Fair's website for order information. They are also the on-site vendor at most local swim meets.

You can purchase practice suits, caps, and goggles from Tsunami at Fredericksburg Academy on most Sundays from 4pm-6pm. Tsunami also sells team t-shirts.

For practice:
Suits $25 male / $32 female
Goggles $5 - 15
Caps $1 latex / $7 silicone
Fins $24
Pull buoy $10
Mesh equipment bag (optional) $7

Parent polo shirts are available in Red, Black and White. Not all sizes are in all colors. These are $25 each.

Swim Meet Information

Coach Pete passes out "meet invitations" for each meet 3-4 weeks before that meet. These have information on who qualifies to attend, location, times, dates, directions and other specifics. Swimmers and their parents choose which meets, if any, they will attend. The coaches can guide you in these decisions, and will recommend meets that would be best for your swimmer. There are no required meets, although all swimmers are encouraged to attend meets.

Swimmers are encouraged to swim a wide variety of events at meets. This is one of the great things about age group swimming. If your swimmer swims in summer league, high school and maybe college, they will probably have a "best" stroke or event, and will swim just this stroke or event all of the time. Age group swimming allows swimmers to try out all the strokes and events. Many swimmers find that the stroke they hate when they are 8 becomes their favorite at age 12.

USA Swimming Registration
All swimmers who wish to compete at meets must be registered with VA Swimming and USA Swimming. Your $80 registration fee covers this cost.

Meet Fees:
At the beginning of the year, you should put about $100 into your meet fee account. Each host team charges $4-7 per swimmer per event. These fees will be charged to your meet fee account. After each meet, Peter will have a sheet with meet fee charges for that meet, so you can help him keep track of your balance. If you sign up for a meet but don't attend, you must still pay meet fees, as the team must pay these up front when entries are submitted.

"SCRIP" FUNDRAISING PROGRAM

To help offset the cost of pool rental, team families commit to "raising" $200 in scrip profit each year. The program works like this: Tsunami purchases gift cards or gift certificates from a wide variety of merchants (grocery stores, restaurants, retail stores etc). The merchants make a donation based on the amount of "scrip" purchased. This usually ranges from $4-12 per $100 purchased (4-12%.) Anyone can purchase these certificates at face value and use them just like cash. Tsunami usually has several popular cards in stock, and hundreds of others may be special ordered. Families pay for the in-stock scrip when they receive it and for the special order scrip when it is ordered.

Coach Pete usually has a folder with scrip with him at practice, and you can purchase it at that time. There should always be a yellow sheet in the folder for you to record your purchase. Please write checks for scrip purchases separate from other items. A parent volunteer keeps track of how much scrip each family purchases, and how much "profit" has been raised by their purchases. You can combine dues, meet fees and equipment purchases in one check, but please keep scrip payments are separate.

Scrip coupons usually in stock:
Giant
Food Lion (also good at Bottom Dollar)
Walmart
Wawa
Chipotle
Starbucks
Kohl's (If you use your Kohl's credit card, you can use these to pay your bill at any register)
Darden (good at Red Lobster, Smokey Bones and Olive Garden)

If you will regularly purchase other scrip, let Coach Pete know, and he can keep some other cards in stock as well. To see a list of all participating retailers, please click here.