I would like to announce that Leslie Inman has graciously stepped forward and assumed the Chief Data Entry Clerk position for the upcoming 2015 Summer swim season.  Thank you Leslie for taking on this new role.

I would also like to take this moment to recognize George Ebelt, our swim team president the past three years.  I did a poor job recognizing him and his efforts at our Awards Ceremony and I want to apologize for that.  I have known George for more than 13 yrs now even well before we joined the Sharks. I believe George did a fantastic job of improving on what Jim Nusser, another past president, help rebuild many years ago.  George's dedication to the Sharks has always been strong but grew even stronger as President and this was evident through his dedication and desire to see every kid succeed and have fun no matter their swimming ability.  He put the needs of the swimmers first above all else and I believe we are a stronger swim team for that.  So I applaud you George for your leadership and I say thank you for what you have done in the past and what you will continue do in future for the Cypresswood Sharks.

Also, this will be Mark Heathcote's last year as the Meet Manager and he has agreed to finish out the 2015 Summer swim season.  I can't begin to tell you how much Mark will be missed. Mark has worked tirelessly for more than 15yrs within the Sharks organization performing many jobs behind the scenes that we only saw the net result of.  Mark has built a very efficient system of preparing for a swim meet that use to take a village of people and many hours to execute.  Through his knowledge and hard work this process has been streamlined into roughly less than an hour to set up and about the same amount of time to break down.  Because of Mark's leadership he has been able to assemble together a willing group of hardworking volunteer helpers at all of our home swim meets that enable this demanding task to operate smoothly.  Trust me when I tell you that this task used to be one of the most loathed  and unpopular volunteer tasks, however, since Mark has taken over, year after year more and more people are willing to help because of Mark's generosity of "thank you" to everyone that helped out.  I ask that as we get closer to the 2015 Summer swim season that a another dedicated volunteer will be willing to learn Mark's system this summer and be willing to take over this position for the 2016 Summer swim season.  Mark, thank you again for all your hard work and dedication to the Sharks.

One last thing, I promise for now, I want to thank all the volunteers who have worked and continue to work tirelessly in each of your individual roles that when brought together makes our volunteer group one of the strongest groups around.  It is always reassuring and makes me proud to be a Shark when I hear other swim team members complain about how hard it is to get people to volunteer. I know we have our fair share of issues as well but in the end everyone steps up to help and as your new president it is comforting to know that I work with a great group of volunteers who love our swim team and love our kids

Best Regards,

Rich Schluter

Cypresswood Sharks Swimteam President