Track and Field Team Meeting on Tuesday, April 17 at Recess and First Practice on Wednesday April 18 at 8 am

Hi parents,

I just wanted to let you all know that our Vice-Principal Mme Regina Vosahlo is a *super star* for Lord Tennyson Track & Field!  

Mme Regina will be holding a student meeting for all current and interested Track & Field team members on Tuesday, April 17th @ recess (10:30-10:50am).  Parents are invited to attend as well.

Mme Regina has taken over the coordination of the program for the school, and has even procured three more teacher-sponsors for practices and meets!  Thank-you sponsor teachers!!!  

These teachers are:
Mondays - M Raphael Perdue (Grade 6)
Wednesdays - M Pav Wypych (Physical Education Teacher)
Fridays - M Jean-Paul Carriere (Grade 3)

Additionally, Mme Regina will be at school available for backup during each practice, if needed.

Track & Field practices will begin on Wednesday April 18th @ 8am (7:45 am set up).  Practices will run every Monday, Wednesday & Friday that school is in session.  On extremely rainy days we will play gym games indoors during the downpour, and stay outside as much as possible with light rain.  

Mini-meets will be at Camosun Park, next to Queen Elizabeth Elementary School (4102 West 16th Avenue) and are as follows:

Juniors (Grades 3-5) Thurs May 10th & Weds May 16th.
Seniors (Grades 6 & 7) Tues May 8th & Mon May 14th.

The official season will end with the VSB divisional meet, for our Junior and Senior teams Wednesday, May 23 at Point Grey Secondary School (5350 East Blvd).   Parking is limited.  Juniors (Grades 3-5) will compete from 8:30 am to 12:30pm.  Seniors will compete from 1:00pm to 3:30pm. 

Junior grade 3s do not compete in shot put or high jump, as per the VSB safety policy.  However, if all teacher sponsor and volunteer coaches agree, the grade 3 athlete may be allowed an exception.  The athlete will have had to attend numerous practices and mini-meets, and have participated to their full ability.  Grade 3s do, however, attend these events and positively support their Grade 4/5 teammates. No students will be allowed to compete in high jump unless they have trained several times previously, and can jump 0.09m (Juniors) and 1.05 (Seniors). This is as per VSB safety policy.

Our Lord Tennyson Tiger Junior-X Meet will run on  Friday May 25 at 8:00am, for our grade K-3s, on the Lord Tennyson School field in all of the Track & Field events that we practice.  All other Junior & Senior team members may also participate, after they have supported the Junior-Xs.  This meet will be run for the younger grades, by the Junior and Senior teams - Grades 4-7.  It will include achievement ribbons, adoring supporters, student coaches and (of course) Friday snack!  All team members are expected to attend, fully participate, and support their Junior-X teammates.

All participants need to submit a signed permission form -- copies will be available at the following: Tuesday April 17th at the Student Meeting at recess, online on the school PAC website, and in front of the school office attached to the top of the 'Tiger Track & Field' box.  

Currently, we have received confirmation emails from 4 parents who are able to volunteer with the team this year -- thank-you so much!  Unfortunately, we have lost quite a few of the previous years volunteer parents who had taken lead volunteer coaching roles - due to their children leaving the school, or new work commitments and/or schedules.

Hopefully, many of you will be available to help manage and support our Track & Field Tigers in some way during our short practice season.  No time contribution is too small, and all your help is very meaningful.
We will also need parents to coordinate amongst themselves to contribute to Friday snack -- please try to include something healthy.  We find that the athletes are really ready for more breakfast after the practices.  

On another important note, we have already sold two more team shirts, one to a parent!  Yay!  The shirt is the team uniform and costs $20 per shirt. Shirt requests and cash/cheques for shirts can also be dropped together into the box. Please make cheques out to 'Lord Tennyson School', with a notation that it is for deposit into the Track & Field budget, and your child's name and approximate shirt size. If you (as an keen parental athletic supporter) or your athlete need a new shirt, we have all sizes available for both children and adults (small, medium, large).  Each shirt is $20.  The shirt is the team uniform.  If this amount is not feasible for financial reasons, please send a confidential email to our Principal, M Doug Roch.  Bursaries are available, so absolutely no student needs to go without.  We also have a cache of previously worn shirts that can be used for meets as "loaners", if an athlete forgets their shirt.  They are a variety of sizes, with varying degrees of stains.  All are laundered to the absolute best of my ability.  Please give me your old unneeded shirts for the cache.

My sincere thanks to all of the parents who have done so much volunteer work in past seasons.  I am looking forward to another fun and event-ful (pun intended) spring Track & Field season!