Hello Dolphin Families!

This email is full of information about progress being made at the Hanarry West Club – and some exciting additions for the summer. We also have some continuing volunteer needs, and those are included as well. We love all the different ways Dolphin families contribute to the team and the Club throughout the year. Whatever skills you have, time you have or how you enjoy contributing – let us know, and we can likely find a use for them!

Pre-Season Work Days

A huge thank you to everyone who came out this weekend to our Pre-Season Work Days! Thank you for showing up with tools in hand and sweating and working together for hours. Thank you for bringing your kids, introducing yourself to others and helping build community!

And please give a big thank you to Adrianne Leonard, who spent days prepping the Club grounds for these work days. She’s not only a volunteer leader with our team (Fun Friday) but also serves on the Hanarry West Club board as a volunteer, continually going above and beyond to prepare the Club for the summer season.

This year, a Pre-Season Work Day is a requirement for Swim Team families. If you couldn’t come this weekend, there are two more on the schedule: April 27 2-5 p.m. and May 3 9 a.m. - Noon. We have some more grounds cleanup to tackle on these days, plus wood repair and painting, pool deck and furniture cleaning, cleaning of appliances, bathrooms and other items in the Clubhouse and prepping some of our swim team equipment for the summer.

Volunteer Leadership Needs

We have two roles we still need filled for the 2025 season: Volunteer Coordinators & Starter Trainee. Your Team Managers love summer swim league and our Dolphin community, but we are only able to continue to volunteer in this way when other parents step into leadership roles as well. The roles below are essential to our team and our season. Please take a moment to read through them and consider stepping into these roles this season.

Volunteer Coordinator(s) – This sounds like a big role, AND it is. BUT our previous Volunteer Coordinator put a lot of systems in place (email templates, meet templates, detailed notes) and created a lot of goodwill with our parent volunteers. Hanarry West’s Volunteer Coordinator (or two working together) coordinates volunteers and volunteer shifts for regular season swim meets. Parents will sign up for their own volunteer shifts the first week of the season. The Volunteer Coordinators will check that all shifts are covered and all families have met their requirements for the season. The Coordinator role involves answering questions from families, checking in volunteers at meets and trouble-shooting any issues. We have Coordinators/leaders in several of our meet areas who work with and train those specific volunteers (officials, timers, bullpen, concessions), taking some of the traditional workload off our Volunteer Coordinators. If you have the skills and time to take on this role this season, please consider it – and please reach out to us.

Starter – For each home meet, our team provides two starters (one for the first half and one for the second half). We have two awesome veteran starters as part of our team already, and they would love to have anyone interested in this role shadow them this season. Starters complete free online training that can be done in your own timeframe. Starters should have a strong voice, be comfortable speaking on a microphone and have an understanding of meet structure and rules. Please let us know if you are interested in learning more. This is an essential role for our team!

Woodworking Skills

One of the continuing needs at Hanarry West is for repair or replacing of wood in some of our structures – pool and tennis deck, trash enclosure, clubhouse and pavilion. If you have skills (and tools) in this area and would be willing to use those skills for the Club, please let us know. Several of these projects can be done on your own timeframe and would fulfill some of a family’s volunteer requirements for the season.

Fun Friday Sponsors

Thank you to the Dewald family and Nelson-Valera family for sponsoring a Fun Friday this season! We love to have sponsors for our other two Fun Fridays as well. These $150 sponsorships cover the costs of treats for kids (and coffee for adults!) and supplies for our fun games and free swims. If you are interested in contributing to the team in this way, please reach out to your team managers.

Free Little Library

A big thank you to the Atkins family for donating a Free Little Library AND boxes of kids books to fill it with! This will be another great addition to our summer community at the pool. If anyone else has a Free Little Library (or would like to purchase one) that they would like to donate to the team, we think the adults deserve a book swap library too!

Thank you
Patricia Heys & Christina van Maanen
HW Team Managers