Hi HVSL family!

We miss seeing you at the pool and hope your kids have had a successful start to the school year!

Believe it or not, we are already planning the 2026 swim season! A few of you mentioned wanting to get more involved with the team next year, so we wanted to let everyone know about the team committees and roles we are always looking to fill. (You can find a full list of all volunteer roles and their descriptions under the Volunteer Job Descriptions section of the team website.)

Team Committees

If you are interested in getting involved with any of the committees below, please reach out to the Parent Reps so we can coordinate with our committee heads. Team committees include:

• Fundraising and Sponsors
• Ribbons and Trophies
• End of Season Banquet
• Concessions
• Social Events

Below are a couple of roles we are actively seeking help with for the 2026 season:

• Meet Manager: Runs the meet and confirms swimmers' times for each event via SwimTopia. This is an exempt role, meaning the Meet Manager and their family are not required to sign up for any volunteering shifts for the seasons for which they fill this role. However, the Meet Manager must be able to attend and work the entirety of all home meets for the season when they hold this role. (We are actively seeking a shadow for this position for the 2026 season. This shadow would be able to watch Jennifer Sparks work her magic during the 2026 season, so they could take over the role in 2027. The shadow and their family would be exempt from other volunteering shifts for the 2026 season.)
• Stroke Judges: Ensure proper execution of strokes and turns as described by the RMSL and USA Swimming rule book, and follow the process for disqualifying swimmers. (We know, this does not sound like fun. HOWEVER, this is a critical role for our team because this is how our swimmers improve meet after meet and ultimately succeed in Prelims and Finals. As a team, we are also required to provide 4 stroke judges per meet, so having a pool of people to pull from makes this so much easier for the volunteer coordinator and team as a whole.)
  • This role requires a short training in the spring and a 2-hour shadowing session at a meet before you can become a full stroke judge.
  • As a perk for this role (and because it is so important), our Stroke Judge families are allowed to register for the team early so they can sign up for meet volunteering roles before the crowds! If we can recruit enough stroke judges for our season, we will reduce the volunteering points requirements for Stroke Judge families, so they only have to fulfill SJ roles, so please consider signing up for this critical role!

We will be publishing the 2026 meet schedule on the team website soon. (It still has to be approved by RMSL.)

We look forward to seeing you all soon. Go Sea Lions!

Brian Sparks and Lauren Barela

HVSL Parent Reps