STARTING A NEW UNIVERSITY TEAM

DIFFICULT BUT NOT IMPOSSIBLE

It is not an easy task to start a synchro team when the university does not have a history of supporting synchronized swimming but it is not impossible. The Brock University Group was started in January of 2001 and it has faced many obstacles and survived. If you are the type of persons or persons who do not give up easily and who love to swim synchro it is amazing what you can accomplish. But you must be prepared that you may get discouraged and wonder if it is worth it to fight for what you want. When you see the swimmers compete somehow it is all worthwhile. Any university in Canada could be approached. We have universities in 4 provinces now but would like to expand even more.

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STEPS TO START A NEW TEAM - CLICK ALSO ON TWO ARTICLE BOXES BELOW!!

1. FINDING THE SYNCHRONIZED SWIMMERS AT YOUR UNIVERSITY
The Brock Group accomplished this by putting ads in the student university newspaper and putting posters in the residences, pool area and around the campus. In the ads and posters we listed phone numbers for the swimmers to call and mentioned that there would be a meeting. It is important that you put a date such as the week of Sept 15 for the meeting because without a date swimmers may not bother to call.

2. MEETING WITH THE UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATION
Once you have enough swimmers ( at least six should be a minimum) then you can approach the university and set up meetings with the athletic administration. This varies as per university but you could try the athletic director, the aquatics director, the intercollegiate coordinator or the club team organizer. If you can find anyone in the athletics department that will support you then use this person to help you out with your discussions. Since synchronized swimming has lost OUA status in some ways it may be easier to start a "club" team. The most important thing you will need is pool time. Most universities synchro teams have less pool time than with OUA status but you do need at least four hours per week.

3. RUNNING THE TEAM
TO REALLY GET THE BEST ADVICE ON RUNNING A TEAM - READ THE ARTICLES WRITTEN BY TWO OF OUR BEST ORGANIZERS.

UNDER KRISTINA BUCHMANN, MCGILL GREW BOTH IN NUMBERS FROM ONE TEAM TO THREE TEAMS AND IN SKILL LEVEL. WHAT WAS HER SECRET??

AT WESTERN THE AMAZING SONYA CLARK TOOK WESTERN SYNCHRO FROM THREE SWIMMERS TO TWO FULL TEAMS. HOW DID SHE MANAGE THIS AND HAVE FUN AT THE SAME TIME??
CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING TO READ THEIR ARTICLES AND ADVICE.

SONYA CLARK KRISTINA BUCHMANN

You really need to organize your team. Who will be your coach? How will you handle your practices? Will you just have a team or will you have solos and duets as well. How will you handle the financial details? You will have to cover the costs of transportation and entry fees at the meets. This will depend a lot on your location. Will you do fundraising or have each swimmer pay the costs. Can you find a sponsor for your team?

CAN THE UNIVERSITY COMMITTEE HELP?

FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE

The university committee of Synchro Ontario will reimburse any new university group up to $150 for ads in student university newpapers or for the cost of posters etc. The committee will also help if necessary in the first year of a university team with costs such as pool time fees and may even help in other years in emergency situations. We hope to be able to raise more money in the future to support the new synchro league so that we can help even more.

WEB PAGE
We hope that the university synchro web page will help to publicize the new CUSSL/LUCNS League so that we can get more swimmers involved at the university level in future years. We have corporation status for the new league and have conducted conferences and conference calls with a representative from each university synchro group as well as many e-mails. Every other year we hold a conference and reps from each university get together to discuss the league and how to improve it. On the other year we have a group conference call with reps from all the universities. Because of these conferences and conference calls we have been able to expand and evolve our league with input from all the universities involved. We want to encourage cooperation as well as competition between all the universities. Synchro Ontario and Synchro Canada have both been very supportive with university synchro and our work to keep the programs going. We have a link set up on their web pages to tie into the CUSSL/LUCNS Web page. We have our own registered web name universitysynchro.ca.

QUESTIONS??????
E-mail us at univ_synchro@yahoo.ca if you have any questions and we will try to help in any way we can.