For those parents and athletes who are new to the club…WELCOME! A lot of our communication with parents is through email, although at times we sent notices home, or phone each family for particular occasions. The club emails will also be posted on our website: www.avtrackclub.com , especially when it undergoes its “make-over”! Please read the Athlete Handbook that was given to you at Registration, as it has a lot of important information in it!

There are some very important things to share:

  1. The singlet order will be placed right after practice on Tuesday (April 1), so please check to make sure that your athlete/s still fit from last year, or have been ordered and paid for this year. Tracy will be at the practice Tuesday to take any last orders. They will arrive right before our first meet on April 19-20.

  1. For those families who are going to sell raffle tickets, please see Justine Haley at the practices next week to pick up yours. The money and ticket stubs can be brought to any practice before the draw in May. Details for those who want to sell extra books of tickets will be available from Justine.

  1. TAG DAYS fundraising information will be available for the next two weeks at practices. Our dates are Friday and Saturday, April 11-12. Joell is organizing this, and will have the signup and details at practices. The funds raised will be divided equally between the club and the members who raised the money. Families can use their share of the funds raised to pay for meet fees at the Dogwood meet in Victoria in May, the Provincial meet in Nanaimo in July, or for transportation or accommodation for meets.

  1. If you have friends, neighbors or siblings that are still interested in joining the Track Club, please let them know that they are welcome to come out to any practice to sign up and join in the fun.

  1. If you have track spikes, or outgrown singlets that you would like to sell, please feel free to post a small notice on the bulletin board in the Track Room.

  1. Please come into the Track Room and look around! For the returning parents, you will notice some big changes! For new parents, check out the equipment and notice board.

  1. The signup sheet and schedules for the Peninsula Meet in Sidney on April 19-20 is now up in the Track Room. Athletes may attend for one or both days. Meet fees are already paid for in your club registration fee. Coaches will help prepare athletes for this meet, and coaches and returning parents will be around at practices to help new parents understand about how the meets and schedules work. It’s a lot of information at first, but you will quickly understand things!

  1. At each Island meet, each club runs one part of the meet. AVTC’s responsibility is to run the High Jump event. For new parents, we will have sessions at practices the week before the meet to teach you how to do this, however, you will most likely be able to team up with a returning parent or coach to learn at the meet. If each parent signs up for one or two events (do the one/s that your child/ren are in because you will be hanging around the high jump area anyways!), then we can easily cover this responsibility.

  1. There is a Race Walk clinic coming up in Nanaimo on Saturday, April 5, for a few hours in the afternoon. It is open to any age athlete and coach, and parents are welcome to watch and learn as well. Clinics like this are rare, so it would be a good opportunity to learn from the expert coaches in this event. A signup is in the Track Room, but that is mainly so that they can find out approximate numbers who will be attending. If you don’t sign up, you can still attend. I will put the info about the Clinic at the bottom of this email.

  1. I still need a few volunteers to help with some basic jobs: Personal Best ribbons are being coordinated by Laurel Seabrook, so if you are wanting to know more about this, and might be willing to help out, please email her at: jlseabrook@shaw.ca I also need one or two people who are good with computers to make up the stickers for each athlete that we use at most of our island meets. If you might be interested, please contact me: Sharon, at smacauley@telus.net If you love to take pictures with your digital camera, or are good at writing newspaper articles within a couple of days of each meet, let Sharon know as well. The High Jump mats and Hurdles are always time-consuming things to set up and take down. We like the parents to help with this when they can, rather than having our coaches do that job as well, so if you are around near the beginning or end of a practice, and a coach indicates that we will be doing that event that day, please feel free to help with the equipment!

  1. Our Track Meet in Port Alberni is coming up on May 3-4. Although that seems like a long ways away, we have already started much of the planning and preparations. If at all possible, we ask that each family help at the meet for at least half a day. Many hands make light work, and it is a huge job to run a meet, but one that our club has traditionally has done an excellent job. There are sign-up sheets for various jobs at the meet in the Track Room, so it’s never too early to indicate what you are willing to help out with!

  1. As you have noticed, the weather can be very unpredictable the first month or so of the season. Sometimes we can use Glenwood Center, but many times we can’t. Please know that on particularly cold, rainy or windy days, we may cut practices short, so you may want to check for an early pickup. Athletes can always use the phone in the track room to call you – they must press 9 to get to an outside line. Athletes should wear layers of clothing: pants, t-shirt, sweatshirt or jacket, etc. On cold days, they may even want to wear gloves or hats. If they get hot, they can always take clothing off, but if they get cold, it makes it less fun for them. Bringing a water bottle is also a good idea!

  1. The format of the training groups will be established in the next week or so. All our coaches will be back from their holidays next week, so you may see some changes from our first week of practice. We always get new athletes for the first couple of weeks, so we will wait a bit to see if we want to make any changes to the practices. The younger athletes will be practicing all the events, even if they only want to go into some of them at the meets. Some athletes go into all the meets, and some go into only our meet. The older athletes will do a warm-up together, and then they will break into events, where they can select which ones they want to practice. Encourage your children, especially if they are new to Track, to practice ALL the events, no matter how old they are, because that is the fun of track!

Thank you for wading through all this information! It seems that there are so many things to communicate to parents at the beginning of the season! If you have any questions about these things, or any other track related items, please don’t hesitate to call or email me, or talk to your child’s coach. Thanks to our terrific coaches and parent executive and helpers, who are working hard to make this a great season…and Thank YOU for being part of this exciting new Track Season!

Sharon Macauley