March 12, 2026

Teams,

Thank you for taking part in our first organizational meeting of the year. A recap of the meeting can be found at ASA Meeting Recording. Also please view the 2026 ASA Rankings. The Power Point presentation can be found at ASA Meeting 1 Presentation . Don't forget to complete your team status survey at the link listed below by March 25. Other helpful links from the meeting are as follows.

League Webpage:asa.swimtopia.com

Teams Page on League Webpage: asa.swimtopia.com/asa-teams

Instructions on setting up team page:Team Info Page Editing Instructions

Designating Reps, Coaches and Computer People - Designating People to Roles

(This ensures your team reps, coaches and computer people are in the communication loop with ASA)

Background Check Instructions:Background Check Instructions

Team Status Survey

We still need team status forms from the following teams below. This is crucial info we need about your team to complete the schedule. Please click on the Team Status Surveylink and take care of this ASAP if you are one of the teams listed below. If you do not complete this form, your team may not be included on this year's schedule.

Rules Proposal for 2026 and Ballot

We had three rules proposals for 2026. One that applies to tech suits in dual meets, one that clarifies resolving conflicts when dealing with a rainout situation, and one that establishes a minimum age for swimmers to participate in dual meets or the ASA championship. Details and some context are listed below.

Rule Proposal 1 - No tech suits can be worn at any dual meets for any swimmers, including stitched suits. Tech suits and other racing suits will be permitted at asa championships.

Rationale/Context - Swimmers do not need to be wearing highly expensive swim suits designed for high end competition during a regular season meet. This is akin to entering a Ferrari in a kids go cart race.

Rule Proposal 2 - Update the rainout rule (Rule 22 on page 16 of the ASA rule book to manage situations where 2 teams cannot align on a solution for a meet that cannot be called based on the score of the meet or number of events completed. The rule would now read if no agreement can be reached for how to determine the outcome of a meet for a meet that is unable to be called based on the number or events completed or score of the meet, the meet shall be concluded virtually. If teams are unable to arrange a virtual session the results of their next meet will be used for the uncompleted events. If this occurs in the final meet of the season, results from each team’s most recent meet will be used.

Rationale/Context - This provides clarity on a situation where a meet is not past the halfway point and/or neither team leads by more than 40 points and teams cannot agree to reschedule the meet or call the meet a weather tie. This does not eliminate those options, but simply provides a clear manner to resolve the meet using a virtual meet. Teams should continue to try to work collaboratively to resolve the meet.

Rule Proposal 3 - Establish a minimum age, age 4, for swimmers to participate in ASA dual meets or the ASA championship.

Rationale/Context - This establishes a lower age limit for the league. Some teams were placing swimmers as young as age 2 into regular season meets, in many cases those younger swimmers were not equipped to be on the competitive swim team. Additionally, very few programs if any allow participants below age 4 to be part of a competitive program. Swimmers below age 4 are welcome to be part of team's junior/guppy programs as a way to be part of the team prior to aging up. Additionally, teams are reminded that each team should have some minimum standards for swimmers to be part of their teams, as these are swim teams not swim lesson programs. Most teams have a minimum criteria for swimmers to be able to swim a length of the pool unassisted, in order to be on their competitive team. The primary focus of this is for the safety and well being of your athletes.

Please use the following link to submit your vote - ASA Rules Change Ballot

Please one vote per team. A majority of teams in the league must approve passage of this proposal for the change to be enacted. Please submit your vote no later than April 1.

Upcoming ASA Meetings and Training

2026 ASA Rules Clinic – Wednesday, April 15, at 6:30 pm. This meeting will cover a thorough review of league rules and some meet processes.

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/93804786502

Meeting ID: 938 0478 6502

One tap mobile

+19292056099,,93804786502# US (New York)

+13017158592,,93804786502# US (Washington DC)

2026 May Ribbon Distribution and Meet Procedure Review - Weds. May 6 at 7 pm at Marist Teams can pick up their ribbons for the season on this date. This meeting will be in person and is specifically designed to walk teams through the process of running a swim meet. We will cover an in depth review of all of the jobs involved in running a swim meet and the process flow of how all of these jobs interact amongst each other.

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/93804786502

Meeting ID: 938 0478 6502

One tap mobile

+19292056099,,93804786502# US (New York)

+13017158592,,93804786502# US (Washington DC)

Required Coaches Meeting - A mandatory coaches meeting for rules review that at least one member from each team’s staff must attend either this session or the April rules clinic.

Sun. May 17 at 3 pm at Marist (this meeting will be in person with a virtual option)

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/93804786502

Meeting ID: 938 0478 6502

One tap mobile

+19292056099,,93804786502# US (New York)

+13017158592,,93804786502# US (Washington DC)

More Swimtopia Training Webinars for the Upcoming Season

We have already had one Webinar covering team page setup and registration. Below are some future topics we will cover in greater detail to let teams get the most out of their Swimtopia accounts and hopefully make your seasons easier from an organizational standpoint.

Registration and Team Page Setup

Thank you for taking part in our Swimtopia webinar last week. Special thanks to Tracy Nelson from Swimtopia for conducting a great introduction to their platform and providing a wealth of helpful information to get teams rolling on using Swimtopia for the 2026 season. As promised here are links to a recording of last nights Zoom call Swimtopia ASA Registration Webinar Recording Below are links to a number of other helpful resources to help teams new to Swimtopia become familiar with their platform and get your registration set up for the coming season.

Tracy has come up with a great set of instructions for teams to help get your registration set up for the 2026 season. Please click on Registration Setup Steps for the 2026 Season. These steps should help ensure you include the appropriate league fees and waivers for your swimmers when creating your registration. Please review these instructions carefully before opening your registration for the 2026 season, and feel free to reach out to Swimtopia for customer support if you have any questions via their help center Swimtopia Help Center or at [email protected]

Several things to note for registration for this year:

As was the case last year is that all swimmers who are part of your junior teams (guppies, mini-cudas, minnows, etc…) are subject to an ASA fee of $28 per swimmer plus Swimtopia and transactional costs (about $31.30 per swimmer). We have been advised by our risk management advisors that these swimmers are part of your programs and therefore part of yours an ASA’s liability responsibility. Teams that chose to opt out of this responsibility were not covered by the league liability coverage for those swimmers, this change avoids that issue. Many teams already were having their swimmers pay the full ASA fee at the full cost, so this will reflect a savings for those swimmers. Additionally, these athletes receive many of the same benefits of league membership as your competitive team swimmers receive. Instructions on how to include this as part of your registration are included in the registration instructions for 2026.

Teams will no longer have to set up separate registration forms for your junior programs and regular team. We put in place a new process for this in 2024 and will do so again this year. Steps to complete this setup are included in the links above. Essentially this means when parents sign their kids up they just need to go to one registration link to complete their sign up. making things a little easier for families who have swimmers in the competitive and non-competitive programs.

You can continue to use Swimtopia for registration for other programs like Dive Team, Clinics and Lesson Programs. Specific instructions on how to do that are included in the link above that talks about setting up your registration.

More Swimtopia Training Webinars for the Upcoming Season

Last night's webinar was only the beginning of the training we will offer teams and coaches for the upcoming season. Below are some future topics we will cover in greater detail to let teams get the most out of their Swimtopia accounts and hopefully make your seasons easier from an organizational standpoint. All of these webinars will be recorded and made available to our teams.

Volunteer Management

Thursday, March 12, 6:30pm - 7:30pm EDT

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88168319679?pwd=VGJOy9bcpIi71nPTyYURnlpd0tD2uC.1

Meet Entry/Roster Management and Reporting

Thursday, April 16, 6:30pm - 7:30pm EDT

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85480864618?pwd=PDx0E5aniy2ky53Ybd9ptI7HTLKieB.1

Meet Maestro Training

Saturday, May 9, 10:00am - 12:00pm EDT

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82652317279?pwd=nj09wC6joOooVvLOHlW5ZwvHPxyYva.1

We will send reminders of these meetings as they approach, but figured we'd get them on your radar now. As always we will record these meetings and make them available to teams via e mail and the league website.In the meantime, existing support videos are already in place and will give you a great tour of many of the features of Swimtopia and Meet Maestro. These can be found at Webinar Video Guide - Topic-Focused Training. They cover important topics like customizing your team page, setting up your volunteer roles for the coming season, Swimtopia's communication tools to text and e mail your team members, setting up team registration for the upcoming season, completing your weekly lineups, and a host of other helpful topics. Additional Swimtopia training resources can be found at ASA Swimtopia Training Links and Tutorials

We are really excited about a return to swimming and the fun that your teams offer your families and the community. Please stay tuned, as we will do our best to provide you as much info and guidance as possible. If you have any questions in the meantime, please don't hesitate to call or e mail as we are always happy to help.

Thank you again,

Franke Marsden - ASA

[email protected]

404-664-3975