OAC: Blog Posts

Swimmer of the Week/Month

Bonnie Burmaster

Congratulations to my April Swimmer of the Month, Bekah Bruckner. Bekah had 100% attendance and tried everything I asked of her. My swimmer of the week was Tristian Shelton. Tristian has really applied himself for the last 3 weeks and is making tremendous strides in his strokes.

In April, I had 17 swimmers with 100% attendance. That is a record for my group. Good, Good job. Coach Bonnie

Thank you from Head timer, Niki Shelton

Bonnie Burmaster

I estimated that our meet this weekend was about 20 hours! That is over 240 hours volunteer hours! This did not count the hours for all the wonderful people who helped relieve our timers for breaks, the kids who were the runners for the time sheets, nor the head timer hours. We couldn't have had such a successful meet without ALL these volunteers! Those were JUST the people that I had the honor of working with, but doesn't include the people who helped set up, tear down, announcing, awards, officials, or concessions. As you can see, this meet really did take everyone! I wanted to thank all my timers, most of who worked at least 5 hours. Several even worked 10-15 hours each, plus had their family help on top of that! What an impressive family we have here at OAC!

The people that helped at this meet were: Beverly & Terry, Jessica, Jamie Miller, Wendy, Bill, Amy, Neil, Shannon, Jeff, Yumi, Mark, Brian & Rae Wood, Brian, Tracie & Keith, Janet, James, Trish, and Christine. Lance, Robbie, Tami, and Heidi were a huge help getting the kids in their lanes and also helped relieve for timer's breaks.

The people that worked at least a double shift (and sometimes more) were: Meredith, Whitney, Cherese, Marietta and her daughter Maureen, Robbie, the Andersons, Jamie Miller, Jeannie, the Boekenoogens, Sally, the LaHaies, Aaron, and Melia.

We had several kids that also helped out at this meet. These are kids who came in, at times when they didn't have to swim to be here, to help out our team. Timers were: Craig, Tristian, Jordan, Scott & Jessica, Ries, Quaid, Sarah, Becca, Kelsey C., McKenzie, and Lindsay. Many of these kids worked when they didn't feel good, had to swim the next session, etc. That really says a lot about the character of these kids. We had some terrific runners too. They were Tiernann, Samantha Miller, Max, Ian, & Melina. Several of the runners are young kids and their commitment to their "job" was amazing! Renee helped out our timers by bringing out snacks to them on Saturday morning. She was a last minute volunteer, but all of us were so thankful for her help! I am so proud of all of these kids!

I also wanted to say thank you to Deb Hirata and her crew for the snacks to get us through the day. She was so organized and did such a great job, with my last minute request to make sure we were covered with snacks and drinks. THANK YOU!!!

Every meet I learn something new and think of new ways to make sure the next meet is more organized. Thanks to everyone for working with me and being understanding. I am really enjoying getting to know the parents in the different swimming groups better and always love to hang with the parents I already know. Please feel free to give me your feedback about the meet. (Shelton_niki@msn.com)

If you were not able to volunteer this meet, I hope you will consider one of the upcoming meets. We need everyone!

March Challenge Success..

Marilyn Grindrod

All,

I can't come up with words that describe my thanks to all the people that stepped forward this weekend and made this meet a success. It was amazing!!! For me as the meet director that was the scariest meet I have ever put together. The meet information sheet was a struggle, the entries were a struggle, the coordination with pool and district were a struggle, and having picture day was a struggle. BUT, you all pulled off the meet flawlessly. It could not have gone any better. All the coaches were happy, the visiting clubs were happy and the officials from other clubs were very happy (and fatter when they left).
We should all be very proud of our club,
Thanks,
Jim Kohnke
OAC Meet Director

General Suff

WebMaster - Wes Williams

Ok guys and gals, you have a good, active, progressive webmaster and we have issues BIGGGG (loss of our pool) to really small (new you tube video) that needs to be communicated. Please contribute to making this website work for yourself and the team!

Our website hosting service (http://www1.telebyte.com/) is upgrading a lot of stuff. You might have noticed that I have not been very active changing the site, but you might have also noticed that the site comes up much faster on your computer. As telebyte finishes there major service upgrades you will again start seeing new helpful (hopefully) and interesting content and features. Please help us make this site useful and interesting to yourself and the team members. It is our site and we can pretty much make it what we want. YOUR constructive suggestions and input would be greatly appreciated.

Until then I have placed a link in the site that maybe of interest to a number of swimmers and/or their parents. Check it out!!! (If you can find it.)

January Challenge

Bonnie Burmaster

I will be taking entries for the January Challenge until December 21, 6:00 P.M. This is a rare circumstance, so please always get your entries in before the posted due date on the meet entry forms.

WHAT A NIGHT!

Bonnie Burmaster

Nice job swimming tonight all of you. 5,150 yards. You'll sleep good tonight. See you tomorrow. Coach Bonnie

HALLOWEEN RELAYS

Bonnie Burmaster

Wednesday night practice at Olympic will be from 5:00 to 6:00. Coaches Amy and Bonnie have put together some really fun relays and trick or treat bags for after practice. Hope you can be there!

Age Group Practice

Bonnie Burmaster

Tonight, my age groupers were amazing. They were fall focused, worked hard and most importantly encouraged one another and worked as a team. Congratulations to all of you. Coach Bonnie

STROKE AND TURN VIDEO/CLINIC

Bonnie Burmaster

Swim meets are one of our major fundraisers. All parents are needed to help in some capacity whether it be timing, set up-tear down, concessions or officiating. Clinics are usually held in other areas, so please take this opportunity to become a certified Stroke and Turn judge at our home facility on October 10th

13th Annual Holiday Wreath Fundraiser

Marilyn Grindrod

Here it is .. our first OAC fundraiser of the year!..

What a great opportunity for our OAC families to get out in the community and take care of thier fundraising obligation, as well as making someones holiday a bit brighter. I have been known to box wreaths up and send to my family in California.. they much appreciate such a wonderful gift from the Pacific Northwest. All these wreaths are fresh and last a long time.

So don't wait ...take advantage of this fundraiser. Michelle Reynaga is the chairperson for this event. You will find information in your mail boxes. This fundraiser begins 1 October and runs through 25 October. Orders and money pick up will be either Monday 22 4-6PM or Thursday 25 October 4-7PM. Pick up for your orders will be Friday 16 November at OLY Pool (hot chocolate, cider and cookies provided)..

So don't wait, start now and get out to the community. If you have any questions, please contact Michelle Reynaga @ 360-377-7831 or e-mail her at mssnset@hotmail.com..

And don't forget to ask cOACh Marilyn if she would like to order a wreath or 2..

Where does the term Blog come from.

WebMaster - Wes Williams

The best place by far to learn where the term blog comes from is Wikipedia. In fact it is a great place to learn about alot of things. They have an amazing amount of information about swimming. But for as where the term "blog" comes from right from Wikipedia

"The term "weblog" was coined by Jorn Barger on 17 December 1997. The short form, "blog," was coined by Peter Merholz, who jokingly broke the word weblog into the phrase we blog in the sidebar of his blog Peterme.com in April or May of 1999.^[8]^[9]^[10] This was quickly adopted as both a noun and verb ("to blog," meaning "to edit one's weblog or to post to one's weblog")."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog

Another term that will probably become very common is wiki - guess where that comes from ;-)

Letter from one of our new college swimmers.

Marilyn Grindrod

Below you will find a very touching letter from Heather Nelson. With her permission, I wanted to post this. Heather is an amazing athlete. She is driven, has wonderful work ethics, is focused and is a silent leader in the pool..

Thank you Heather for sharing your letter.. Best of luck to you and others as you venture off towards your future..

~cOACh Marilyn

Heather Nelson wrote:

To Everyone on the senior team,
I will miss training with every single one of you! You are all very talented individuals who will go on to change the world. It was my pleasure getting to know all of you and swimming with you all.

Even though my time with OAC was short, I learned more about swimming and life than I ever though possible. I learned that being a workaholic does not garner the satisfaction you would expect. My junior year I studied/swam non-stop and the rest of my time I did work in the community. Even though I loved waking up at 5:10 AM to swim after studying until 2:30 AM, I was missing out on a lot great experiences and getting to know a lot of great people. I worked so hard because I wanted to change the world by becoming the best doctor ever; but what I did not realize was that you change the world by helping the people around you. I came to OAC on the tail end of my junior year, and from there everything changed. Marilyn kept reminding me to take it easy and maybe sleep once in a while. That's when I made a promise to myself to have fun my senior year. I decided to get to know more people that I never knew existed. I spent my summer tutoring special needs kids who thought I was an astronaut. I started reading books for fun again. I didn't finish all my homework on time. I wrote 7 page essays and lab reports instead of my normal 12 page ones. My GPA went from 3.89 to 3.75. I skipped practice once in a while to take naps. I learned more my senior year than I would have with my nose in a book.

On OAC I learned how to swim more efficiently in the water so I would not look like a dying cow. I learned that you do not need to do a millions yards a day to get better. I learned crazy drills that made me look ridiculous, but helped me swim better. But most importantly I realized how important it is to have swimming in our lives. It gives us a balance during our hectic days. It allows us to work with others to achieve more. I have always thought swimmers make better students due to the increased hormonal regulation of the medulla oblongata because of the increased release of endorphins and HHG, but really us swimmers have a zeal for our sport and pride in our work that goes unmatched in the athletic world. It is that zeal that carries into the many aspects of our lives such as academics and other hobbies and activities. It is the same love and pride in the sport that pushes us all to achieve more. I have learned so much from all of you and I will miss everyone!

To the college bound seniors
Oh goodness the stress of applications will hit and you will be scrambling to get letters of rec and transcripts and SAT scores. Just take it one step at a time. Applications suck, but the essays suck more. Don't add too many big words and always have a teacher read over them. ( my aunt did graduate admissions at William and Mary so she looked over my essays to make sure I had what the admissions people were looking for). Oh, and the common application is your best friend, It is an amazing resource and will save loads of time.

Thank you Marilyn for all you have done, I have so much more to say, but I know you don't have 10 hours to read it all. You are amazing and I look forward to visiting over breaks!

Heather Nelson