NVSL Swim Meets are run by volunteers and cannot happen without the support of parents' help. If your child is swimming, someone from your family will be expected to volunteer. Each week you will be able to sign-up for jobs (or provide food for the concession stand) on-line through our website.

NVSL requires all volunteers on the deck to wear a plain white shirt and blue shorts/skirt.

Jobs That Require NVSL Training

Referee - Runs the swim meet. They a responsible for signaling the beginning of the each event. They receive all disqualifications from stroke and turn judges and decide if they are valid or not. We are only responsible to provide a referee at home meets.

Starter - Responsible for starting each event. They wait for clearance from the referee, indicate to swimmers to go into a racing stance, and then start the race. We are only responsible for providing a starter at home meets.

Stroke and Turn - Each meet requires two individuals from each team. They stand at either end of the pool and ensure that all starts, strokes and turns are done legally. If they see that a swimmer is not swimming legally, they will write up a DQ slip and discuss it with the meet referee.

If you are interested in a job that requires NVSL training, please let one of the Brandywine Team Reps know so they can share training information. Stroke and Turn certification through Potomac Valley Swimming (PVS) counts for NVSL. All trained volunteers must re-certify every two years.

Jobs That Require Previous Experience with NVSL

Chief Timer/Ass't Chief Timer - The home team provides the Chief Timer and the visiting team provides an Ass't Chief Timer. This individual is responsible for all the timers at the swim meet. They fill in if a timer has a problem with their watch. They make sure that all the time cards are collected and properly filled out at the end of each race, and sent to the scorer’s table. This individual is responsible for handing out stop watches to Brandywine timers and collecting them at the end of the meet and handing them to the Brandywine Team Rep.

Table Administration: The table is comprised of several roles: Place Recorder/Table Chief, Data Entry (Data Coordinator), Verifiers, and Awards Clerks. For a complete job description table administration roles other than data coordinator, refer to NVSL Table Administration.

• Place Recorder/Table Chief: Oversees all the table workers. They are responsible for the Home/Away Meet Table Supply box: bringing it to away meets and unpacking needed supplies when both home and away. As Place Recorder, they work with the other teams place recorder to receive, verify, and rank time cards.
• Verifier: Verifies the time cards against the printed results verifying name, place, and DQ’s for each event. At B meets this role works directly with the data coordinator to verify the results entered into the swim software.
• Awards Clerk: Selects appropriate ribbons, attaches swimmer labels, and sorts or files ribbons alphabetically directly or for later filing into the team ribbon box, which is kept at the pool.

Clerk of Course - Each meet we provide one or two individuals in this position. They receive swimmers from each team area prior to each events, organize the swimmers by lane, and make sure they make it to the correct end of the pool to start the race. As you can imagine, organizing 12 eight and under boys and girls can take a lot of patience

Concessions Chief - This individual is responsible for the concessions stand at home swim meets. It is an important job as it is one of the main methods to generate income for the swim team and allows us to pay for many things.

Announcer - The home team provides one announcer. They work along with the referee to make sure the meet runs smoothly. They make sure warm ups start and end on time. During A meets, they will announce the name of every swimmer. Periodically they will report results of races if time is available.

Data Coordinator - This person has responsibilities during the meet and during the week. During the meet they enter results into the computer and tally the score. During the week, this person assists the coach in creating the line-up and communicates with the other team’s data coordinator to create a meet sheet.

Jobs Where No Experience or Training is Needed

Timers - Each team provides 9 timers. Each lane will have 3 timers (mixed between the two teams). They are responsible for starting the watch when the starter goes off, and stop the watch when any part of the swimmer touches the wall. They make no decisions regarding to legal swimming or not. They also fill out the time card and hand it to the chief or assistant chief timer.

Runners - There is one runner provided by the home team. The runner receives the time cards from the chief timer and makes sure the time cards make it to the scorers table.

Marshall - Each team provides one marshall at all meets (including divisional meets). This person wears the “orange vest of authority” and ensures that swimmers are in the appropriate location, noise is kept to a minimum, monitors warm ups, and generally acts as a parent to make sure everyone behaves.

Table Workers - Receive the time cards from the runner. They determine the place order for each event and submit the results to the data coordinator for scoring. They help verify the score. The table workers also are responsible for creating ribbons for each event.

Concession Workers - They assist the chief concessions worker with set up, clean up, and sales. Every effort is made to ensure concession workers see their child race.

Relay Take-Off Judges - After the individual events are over during the A meets, relays begin. Only 2 lanes are used, so timers in lanes other than lanes 3 or 4 will be asked to act as Take Off Judges. Relay Take Off Judges make sure that when a child leaves the wall, the previous child has touched.

Assistant Data Coordinator - This individual will help the Team Data Coordinator work with the Table workers and enter results into the computer during home Saturday A meets.

Meet Set Up/Meet Clean Ip - These are separate positions and are usually filled by 4 individuals. Heavy lifting of picnic tables is involved.

Food Donations for Snack Bar - Specific items will be listed on the volunteer sign up page.

Ways to Help Outside of Swim Meets

Fundraising - Work with our current sponsors and help solicit new sponsors. Parents are always welcome to come up with fun and interesting fundraising ideas for the team.

Spirit Wear - Help with sales, design and vendors.

Friday Night Pot-Lucks - Help set up and organize weekly pot-lucks. Coordinate pep-rallies, games and activities.

Fun Swim Team Activities - Help coordinate our trip to Kings Dominion. Coordinate fun breakfasts and fun practices. Come up with a new team activity.

End of the Year Banquet - Help design end of the year slide show. Help out with coaches gifts, ordering trophies, coordinating banquet dinner.