Welcome to the Independence Day Edition of the Chlorine Chronicles, the erstwhile email newsletter of the Metropolitan LMSC. And read now the news…

I. 2002 US Masters Swimming "Mentor Coach & Swimmer Clinic" Presented by Asphalt Green's Peter Jay Sharp Center for Sports and Fitness Education, Sunday, October 6th, 2002 - Submitted by Paul Weiss

The Mentor Coach and Swimmer Clinic consists of a 2-hour coaches' clinic and a 5-* hour swimmers clinic. Both clinics are run by mentor coach Scott Rabalais. Coach Rabalais was the 1995 USMS Coach of the Year, serves as Vice President of USMS, was formerly USMS Coaches Committee Chairman, and in 2000 received the Masters Aquatic Coaches Association Lifetime Achievement Award. Coach Rabalais is a frequent contributor to Swimming World, the Fitness Editor of Swim Magazine and a Contributing Editor to Swimming Technique Magazine.

The coaches clinic is a comprehensive two-hour classroom based workshop on masters coaching issues, including "attracting and retaining swimmers", "tips for coaching Masters workouts", "special considerations for Masters coaches", "methods of video critiquing", and a segue into the intensive freestyle stroke clinic that composes the Swimmers clinic. The classroom section of the coaches clinic is supplemented by the swimmers' clinic, which is also an educational opportunity for the student coaches.

The Swimmers clinic consists of a one and a half hour classroom session, a two hour pool session including videotaping, and a one hour and 15 minute videotape review and wrap up session back in the classroom. The primary focus of this clinic is the development of the Freestyle stroke and techniques, as well as skills and components relevant to this stroke discipline. The student coaches will actively participate in the swimmers' clinic under the direction of the Mentor Coach. For more information contact Paul Weiss at pweiss@asphaltgreen.org.

II. Public Relations and Marketing News from USMS - Broadcast One. Submitted by Tracy Grilli, Executive Secretary, USMS

Greetings from the USMS marketing and public relations committee! Beginning with this email, you can expect to hear from us regularly with information you can use with your clubs, communities, and newsletters.

PUBLIC RELATIONS COUNSEL ON BOARD:

Effective this winter, USMS moved forward on the decision made at the 2001 convention to hire public relations counsel. Our new counsel is Aimee Fitzgerald, president of Fagan Business Communications, Englewood, Colorado.

Aimee brings 18 years' experience in communications planning and implementation, messaging, and several tactical areas of public relations, including news media relations, community relations, and member communications. Her industry experience spans high-tech, financial services, and recreation/tourism. She holds a bachelor of business administration degree from the University of Notre Dame and an MBA from the University of Minnesota. She's also a masters swimmer.

WHAT WE'RE DOING:

You'll find more about these topics - and others - in upcoming emails: Key messages - Clear, concise, quick way for all of us to explain USMS. Getting the message out, often and consistently, is the number one means to making others aware of, and understand, who we are. Watch for these in the next email!

• Researching a comprehensive list of national media outlets and writers who may find swimming of interest as a news topic
• Developing an experts' database (for which we'll need your help - stay tuned!)
• Researching and writing a first set of news releases we'll issue to targeted members of the national media
• Updating the Web site for press relations

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

Public relations can't exist in a vacuum - Each of you, and each swimmer in your club, can help. To start with: Got an idea that you think may be newsworthy, whether in your local community or on a larger scale? Contact Aimee for insight, perspective, suggestions, or to just run with it. When you see mention of USMS in a news article or broadcast media news spot, let Aimee know. Since we don't have a clipping service, we're depending on you to help us capture some of our results. Aimee will track and document what we find.

QUESTIONS/COMMENTS: Contact Rich Burns: marketing@usms.org, Aimee Fitzgerald: aimeecolo@aol.com

III. News from Red Tide - submitted by Joe Piscitelli

Red Tide of NYC is pleased to announce the addition of the brand new, state-of-the-art, 25-meter, six lane Baruch College pool to its workout schedule. Beginning in September, swimmers will have the following choices:

At Baruch: (24th and Lexington Avenue)
TUE and THURS. 6:30-8:00 AM
WED. 7:30-9:00 PM
SAT and SUN 7:30-9:30 AM

At John Jay: (59th and 10th Avenue)
MON., WED. and FRI. 6:45-8:15 AM
TUE. 6-7:30 PM
THURS 6:30-8:30 PM

For more information check out http://www.redtidenyc.org.

IV. Swim Across America - Submitted by Rich Infield V. Swim Across America is a truly nationwide effort by those in the swimming community to raise money for Cancer Research and to raise awareness of the disease. Despite its nationwide base the proceeds of local SAA events go to local Cancer-fighting needs.

This year, for the first time, Nassau/Suffolk is running its own SAA events to raise money for the new Miracle Oncology Center at Mercy Hospital in Rockville Centre. This effort is being spearheaded by Gerry Oakes (one of our very own Aquafit members) and backed by several other team members (Steve Johnson, Kevin Simmons and me).

For all these reasons I hope that many - if not all - of you will sign up for one of the two events I will outline below. We want to have a great showing of support in terms of both numbers participating and monies raised because of the worthiness of the cause and of all the hard work which so many people (amongst whom are your teammates) have put in to make this happen.

Pool Swim: Thanks to Lisa Baumann's support and that of Dave Ferris we will have a great portion of pool time available for the swim on Monday July 22nd. On that day, during the regular workout time of 6-9am, we plan to dedicate blocks of time to those near and dear to team members who have died or suffered from cancer and make the swimming during that period be in their honor (or memory). In addition the workouts will be in 1 hour segments (6-7, 7-8, 8-9am) during which those who are participating will have special lanes and workout options and others - not participating - will have their own workout. Having said this, I really hope most of you will participate. There will also be a similar setup in the evening between 5 and 8pm for those who cannot swim in the morning. In order to participate you need to have collected - by the day of the swim - pledges of at least $100 towards SAA. There will be food on the pool deck throughout the event and - more exciting still - Jenny Thompson will be at the pool and possibly even in the pool in support of it.

Sound Swim: The main event of the Nassau/Suffolk SAA calendar takes place on Saturday August 17th at Morgan Park in Glen Cove. On that day there will be a 3.2 mile and a 1 mile swim "across the Sound" into Morgan Park. Those of us who have participated in the Sound swim before (albeit in the other direction) can vouch that the water is clean and pretty warm and that the event is one of the best organized open water swims you will ever do.

In order to participate in the Sound swim you need to have collected -again by the day of the swim - pledges of at least $500 towards SAA. In addition you will need to pre-register using the forms available at
workout or from the SAA website, which can be found at http://www.swimacrossamerica.org. This event has breakfast before the swim and lunch after it and will also have several celebrities present at the post-swim ceremonies.