In this Newsletter
Dear Club President,
Volume 1 - January
2017
An archive of previous editions can be found here:
1.
2.
Why Market Your Club
2017 Build A Pool
Opportunities
3.
Swim-a-Thon™
4.
Upcoming Free Webinar
5.
Effective Meetings
6.
Financial and
Fundraising Issues —
FAQs
7.
Why Smart Coaches
(and bosses) Embrace
Delegation
8.
3 Surprising Ways to
Succeed in SelfLeadership
9.
The Three People Who
Matter Most in Your
Network
10. Possibilities in Spare
Moments
Quote of the Month:
“Live up to the best that is in you: Live noble lives, as you all may, in whatever
condition you may find yourselves.”
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, poet and educator
Why Market Your Club
The obvious reason most clubs market is to recruit new members into their programs.
Successful marketing can also help a club to:
•Retain current members
•Secure team or event sponsorship
•Increase support from community stakeholders
Every club at some point in the year must find new members in order to grow the team.
USA Swimming has a page that is designed to share some of the most effective tools we
have seen clubs use to grow their team and attract new members.
Learn more here:
2017 Build A Pool Opportunities
Are you still thinking about developing a plan to build that perfect pool(s). Now is the time
to check out the entire list of
Regional Build & Program A Pool Conference. Click on the dates to learn more about the
conference and to registration.
Join over 1500 coaches, city personnel, architects and engineers who have attended the
2 day workshop.
Dates of Regional BAP
March 11-12, 2017
May 5-6, 2017
June 16-17, 2017
August 5-6, 2017
September 2-3, 2017
October 21-22, 2017
City/State
Lewisville, TX
Minneapolis, MN
Uniondale, NY
St. Louis, MO
Washington, D.C.
Denver, CO
Hotel
SpringHill Suites Dallas Lewisville
Renaissance Minneapolis, The Depot
Long Island Marriott
Renaissance St. Louis Airport Hotel
Washington D.C. Hilton
Omni Interlocken Hotel
Special events along with BAP conference
• 2nd day of all BAP’s; Kevin Post of Counsilman-Hunsaker will be presenting – included
in the price of conference.
This portion is a small groups activity where each group will be given “puzzle pieces” that
must be used to develop a successful aquatic facility. Participants will have to balance
community expectations, construction budgets, and operational concerns while working
in a constantly changing environment. New challenges will be presented throughout the
that will make the groups re-think and re-develop their solution.
• Lewisville – Lunch and a tour of a Myrtha Pool included in price of conference.
Dave Thomas
Sport Development
Consultant
Southern Zone
USA Swimming
719-866-3573 Direct Line
719-330-3824 Cell
719-866-4669 Fax
719-866-4578 USA
Swimming Office
1 Olympic Plaza
Colorado Springs, Co. 80909
email
Sponsored by:
Any questions please email Sue Nelson
Swim-a-Thon™
Fundraising tips from a successful fundraising team
When it comes to hosting successful a Swim-a-Thon fundraiser, Rose Bowl Aquatics has
it down to a science. Rose Bowl Aquatics once again broke the all-time Swim-a-Thon
fundraising record in 2016 by raising an unbelievable $150,800!
What is the secret to their continuing success?
• For the past 16 years, Rose Bowl Aquatics has consistently hosted a USA Swimming
Foundation Swim-a-Thon as their singular, annual fund fundraiser.
• The event is led by Rose Bowl’s Head and Head Age Group coaches who provide
overwhelming enthusiasm, motivation, inspiration, competition and congratulations
throughout the entire process.
• Each year the team creates a new Swim-a-Thon event theme and develops their
fundraiser around the theme, using it in their promotions, emails, decorations, prizes, and
an event party.
• The fundraiser is consistently held in springtime and the entire program never runs
more than eight weeks total, culminating in the actual event and celebratory party for all.
• Internal fundraising competition is created between different practice groups throughout
the eight week program with individuals and practice groups receiving fun incentive
rewards along the way.
• Swim-a-Thon Lane Sponsorships are sold to families or groups of families and
acknowledged with large lane signage on event day.
• Rose Bowl added an online giving component to their fundraiser in 2011 and as a
result, have surpassed their annual fundraising goals every year since.
Check out how fun and easy it is to host your own successful USA Swimming Foundation
Swim-a-Thon fundraiser in 2017 by visiting www.usaswimmingfoundation.org/SAT today!
Upcoming Free Webinar
By BoardSource, January 2017
As a part of USA Swimming’s ongoing efforts to provide leadership and skill-building
resources that support and strengthen swim clubs and each of you as leaders, we are
pleased to offer you a complimentary annual membership with BoardSource. This yearly
membership normally would cost you $99/year per person. This membership is
recommended for both the Head Coach and all Board of Director members.
If you’re not already familiar with BoardSource, it is widely recognized as the leading
organization promoting exceptional nonprofit governance and board service.
BoardSource membership is a year-round educational resource that helps to connect,
engage, inform, guide, counsel, and support a community of thousands of nonprofit
leaders from across the country.
Your complimentary BoardSource membership includes access to over 170
downloadable governance documents, a monthly newsletter and access to their free
monthly webinars on important issues facing board leaders.
It’s very simple to activate your membership! Just visit here and complete the
membership registration form.
Theory of Change: The Strategic Planning Process
January 18 @ 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
A critical component of board governance is overseeing the organization and determining
its strategic direction. Strategic planning is more than a work plan for the organization.
Learn how organizations can benefit from the strategic planning process itself, how to
identify the right facilitator, and specific tools for implementation and accountability.
Governance Has Its Virtues
January 25 @ 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
We tend to think of virtues — courage, generosity, good temper, modesty — as abstract
and fuzzy, but in fact they can be very practical in nature and offer concrete guidance for
sound decision making. This webinar will provide resources and rationales for helping
board members identify, cultivate, and practice virtues as they govern. The result will be
an ethically sophisticated board of directors that is more inspired to achieve
organizational mission.
Cultivation of virtues in organizations have been found to
•foster a sense of meaning, well-being, and ennoblement
•promote good will
•nurture harmony in relationships
•become self-reinforcing as they amplify positivity over negativity
•further resilience
Participants will learn how, once regularly practiced at board meetings, virtues may
prompt more of what you want at board meetings and from board members, and less of
what you don’t want. Participants will learn practical steps designed to introduce virtues
to the board; identify the virtues currently practiced as well as those that are lacking; and
how to start making governing decisions with virtues in the foreground.
Participants will learn why a focus on the virtues at the board level is different than a
focus on organizational values. The virtues of classical Greek philosophy constitute and
extend human excellence. In addition, the virtues are activities, not simply statements of
value propositions. The virtues make those who practice them as well as those affected
through their practice better and more engaged board members. Values, on the other
hand, are less precise. They usually only identify those things a person or an
organization wants more of rather than less of.
After this one-hour webinar, participants will be able to
1.identify and understand the virtues important to governing
2.learn how to educate board members on the virtues
3.create practices that encourage governing decisions to be made in light of virtues
Effective Meetings
By Councilofnonprofits.org
The best meetings leave us focused and energized: the goal of the meeting is clear; our
team is motivated; and the process is smooth. Not-so-great meetings, on the other hand,
drain energy, and lower morale because of the perceived waste of time.
We've pulled together some tips and resources to help you set the stage for meetings
that are strategic, outcome-oriented, and productive for all. Here are our favorite meeting
hacks followed by a curated list of tips for more effective meetings:
Learn more here:
Financial and Fundraising Issues — FAQs
By BoardSource, December 2016
BoardSource has been answering governance-related questions posed by nonprofit
leaders for more than 25 years. Here are our answers to some of the most frequently
asked questions about financial and fundraising issues.
Learn more here:
Why Smart Coaches (and bosses) Embrace Delegation
By Matthew Syed, Columnist at The Times. Author of Bounce and Black Box
Thinking. LinkedIn, December 15, 2016
Delegation will be the big idea in sport in 2017. It is already familiar in the military, where
in a number of seminal examples, such as the leadership of General Stanley McChrystal
in Iraq, a willingness to push authority down the chain of command helped to transform
performance.
Why was delegation so crucial in Iraq? Well, the forces on the ground – eyeball to eyeball
with Al Qaeda – had context-rich, real time information that leaders back at base cannot
possibly keep up with. If a decision to deploy against a rapidly-moving target has to go up
and down the chain of command, the response-time is too sluggish.
Learn more here:
3 Surprising Ways to Succeed in Self-Leadership
By Michael Lee Stallard, Wall Street Journal, April 2015
It’s ironic that successful self-leadership has more to do with others and less to do with
self. I learned this later in life.
The sooner you see it, the better.
Following are three lessons I learned from personal and professional experiences over
the course of my life. My hope is that they will help you be more successful over your
career and journey in life.
Learn more here:
The Three People Who Matter Most in Your Network
When it comes to networking that has the power to make a difference in your
career, it's not about quantity, it's about quality
By Josh Mait, fastcompany.com, June 8, 2015
We’ve all seen the Power Networker in action: working the room, flitting from
conversation to conversation, a bulge of business cards in his jacket pocket. He’s quick
with a handshake and even quicker with an elevator pitch. He’s there to meet as many
people as possible. He’s also doing it wrong.
I recently sat down to discuss the building blocks of a lean, effective network with my
colleague, author, and behavioral economics expert Gary Belsky. "The danger in trying to
connect with everyone," says Belsky, "is that you won’t understand your network enough
to identify the people who can help you. You know a lot of people, but you only
understand a few."
Learn more here:
Possibilities in Spare Moments
By Brett and Kate McKay, Art of Manliness Newsletter, January 03, 2017
Success in many of the new year’s resolutions and goals folks are now making will be
predicated not just on willpower but on time. If you’re aiming to do more reading,
studying, listening to podcasts, writing, stretching, exercising, journaling etc., you’ve got
to find the time each day to do so.
Identifying these needed minutes and hours in what likely feels like an already packed
daily schedule, with all of its slots apparently accounted for, can seem like a daunting
task. From where then can these fresh resources of time be mined?
A promising first place to look are your morning and evening routines. Waking up an hour
earlier every day can open a rich, quiet, wonderfully productive expanse of time that has
the power to shift your life in a totally new direction. Swapping the couple hours of Netflix
and mindless web surfing you typically engage in at night with the pursuit of a hobby or
side hustle can be a similarly transformative move.
Beyond your mornings and your evenings, also consider what you might do with your
lunch hour at work. If you eat your meal in 15 minutes, there’s much that can be
accomplished in the remaining 45.
Yet, outside these larger, more obvious chunks of time, there are even more golden
threads of it waiting to be discovered.
If you know where to look.
The Hidden Gold Dust of Time
“On the floor of the gold-working room, in the United States Mint at Philadelphia, there is
a wooden lattice-work which is taken up when the floor is swept, and the fine particles of
gold-dust, thousands of dollars’ yearly, are thus saved. So every successful man has a
kind of network to catch the rasping’s and parings of existence, those leavings of days
and wee bits of hours’ which most people sweep into the waste of life. He who hoards
and turns to account all odd minutes, half hours, unexpected holidays, gaps ‘between
times,’ and chasms of waiting for unpunctual persons, achieves results which astonish
those who have not mastered this most valuable secret.” –Orison Swett Marden, Pushing
to the Front, 1894
Years ago, I discovered a guide who helped me locate…
Learn more here:
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