Hello NOMAD Families,

Recently there was realignment in our local swimming community that left one or more of our area’s growing aquatics programs without a “home” pool in which to swim next season. At NOMAD, we are fortunate to have passionate, dedicated, and caring families participating in and supporting our program at all levels. Our recent renaissance put us in a position to positively impact an unfortunate situation to create a new and exciting opportunity that is mutually beneficial.

I am thrilled to share with you that NOMAD Aquatics will be merging with Sailfish Aquatics. Our team partnership begins today and we will be going forward as Sailfish Aquatics (at NOMAD). Sailfish’s mission, “Building excellence in youth and community through competitive swimming” compliments our “teach first, train second” philosophy and enhances our efforts to prepare our youth for the path ahead.

So what will be different starting tomorrow?

Nothing really… Our practice and meet schedule for the summer will go on as planned. We will continue using our Team Unify site for billing, meet entry, and communication through August. Over the summer your accounts will be migrated to the Sailfish site so that when you re-register for the fall season you will be on the Sailfish site as we phase ours out. We will start competing under the Sailfish Aquatics banner this fall on September 1. This spring and summer our athletes will need to compete “unattached” in order to be ready for our new adventures as Sailfish Aquatics. This will assist families in completing a “transfer request” from the NOMAD team to Sailfish. Our plan is to compete as a unified team on the 1st of September 2019!

In the fall, we will enjoy the benefits of an expanded coaching staff providing instruction and attention to your swimmers. We expect to see an increase in team size but we will still have room to grow! Because it is hard to gauge how many families will follow Coach Hubert Williams from their HFFA location to NOMAD, we will be opening re-registration early to current NOMAD and Sailfish families to ensure there is a spot in the fall for everyone currently participating on both teams. We will likely open registrations to new families outside the combined Sailfish/NOMAD family in July. We’ll be sure to send you communications about that in the next few weeks.

Coach Williams and I have great visions for expansions and improvements to our facility and team dynamics, and see unlimited potential before us with this partnership. We have created an extraordinary opportunity by seizing a common occurrence and making it great!  We are looking forward to blending the talent and creativity of our staff into something new and invigorating while pooling our resources.

Most of the challenges and changes going forward will be strictly administrative puzzles and won’t affect your day to day swimming experience (except of course for the conspicuous appearance of a new mascot and colors popping up here and there). Subtle changes to the schedule, group descriptions, and group nomenclature were drafted prior to our merger and not as a result of it.

While I’m sure that the information we’ll be providing to you over the next few weeks will answer a lot of questions you may still have, we will be scheduling a program wide parent meeting to discuss the merger and answer any unanswered questions. I’m happy to address any big or time sensitive concerns you might have. We hope that you are as excited as we are about our evolution and we look forward to where it will lead us! If you would like to read the official press release you can find it here.

Sincerely,

Coach Mark and the Nomad Coaches