24-25
SASKATOON GOLDFINS SWIM CLUB
Junior Goldfins Registration
Guide
Online registration opens:
Training starts Monday, September 9, 2024
president’s message
Welcome to the 2024/25 Swim Season!
Dear Goldfins Community,
The 2023/24 swim season was an incredible year for our athletes and our club.
The Goldfins saw many record breaking and personal best swims across all competitive groups.
The Goldfins were successful in their bid for the 2025 Speedo Canadian Masters Swimming Championship and look forward to hosting the event in May. This will be great opportunity to see many Masters swimmers from across Canada compete and the opportunity to officiate on a National swim deck in our home pool.
The Goldfins Board of Directors worked diligently on governance, budgets, growth, and future planning for the ongoing success of the Goldfins for years to come during 2023/24. This swim season welcomes some new faces to the board. We look forward to continuing our successes in and out of the pool as we continue our Project Streamline pathway.
The Board would like to thank all our Coaches, Administration, Members, Volunteers and Community Stakeholders for their continued support and contributions to the Saskatoon Goldfins Swim Club.
On behalf of the Goldfins Board of Directors,
Randall Keays
Excellence in sport, excellence in life.
Excellence in sport, excellence in life.
01
head coach’s message
Welcome to the 2024/25 Swim Season!
Dear Goldfins Families,
What a great year it has been! Last season the Goldfins graduated its largest ever class, with 15 swimmers graduating high school in June 2024. July 2024 will see the Olympic Games hosted in Paris, France with Goldfins member Blake Tierney representing Team Canada! As an Olympic year – and with graduating so many members – summer 2024 will be a natural transition period as the Club continues to grow and evolve. Goldfins coaches will continue to deliver an inclusive and progressive program for all ages and abilities. The mission for the Club is to “Excellence in sport, excellence in life” by creating an environment of Inclusive, Committed, Community, Excellence.
I want to thank everybody for their support in the 2023-2024 season, I am happy to say that the Club grew at all levels, from grassroots to competitive to Masters. Thank you to everyone that worked hard to keep the pool a safe and welcoming place to be. Goldfins swimmers will move through our White (LTAD Learn to Train), Blue (LTAD Train to Train) and Gold (LTAD Train to Train/Train to Compete), with each stage having a dedicated curriculum to best fit each stage of athlete development.
The Goldfins Swim Club continues to offer the best educated and NCCP certified coaches in the country, with two coaches on staff that are Senior Coach Certified, three that are Age Group Trained and all staff with a minimum of 101 Coach Trained. For 2024 Coach Gary will join me as a graduate of the Advanced Coach Diploma program through the Canadian Sport Institute. As part of our NCCP training all coaches must go through the Making Ethical Decisions module that helps to ensure you are getting the highest standards from the staff as we coach and mentor your child(ren).
I am looking forward to seeing you on the pool deck and thank you for choosing the Saskatoon Goldfins Swim Club as your sport provider.
Yours in Swimming,
Steven Hitchings, ChPC NCI Advanced Coach
Head Coach
Saskatoon Goldfins Swim Club
Excellence in sport, excellence in life.
Excellence in sport, excellence in life.
02
junior goldfins program administrator message
Hello and Welcome to the Junior Goldfins 2024-2025 Season!
My name is Nicole Soloduik and this will be my second year as the Junior Goldfins Program Administrator. I have been a part of the Junior Goldfins since childhood, beginning as a swimmer and eventually coaching for the Junior Goldfins. The past year has been a big learning experience full of great experiences and I look forward to continuing this role with the Junior Goldfins.
My love for swimming began at a young age and never wavered. My love for children and teaching was always a big part of my life which led me to become a teacher. Merging these two passions has allowed me to work with the Junior Goldfins Coaches and colleagues to help to offer the highest quality of swimming that we can!
I look forward to continue working with the swimmers, their families and our coaches to help the swimmers build their strengths, technique and confidence. We celebrate all of our swimmers' successes and push them to reach their fullest potential. I hope to keep building our program to be the best it can be for our swimmers and families!
See you this season!
Nicole Soloduik
Excellence in sport, excellence in life.
Excellence in sport, excellence in life.
03
vision, mission, values
vision
Excellence in sport, excellence in life.
mission
Saskatoon Goldfins provides growth and development opportunities to teach life skills through the sport of swimming. Our successes are celebrated by the excellence we achieve in and out of the pool.
values
inclusive
We provide opportunities and pathways for all ages, abilities, cultures, and identities.
community
We are stronger when we support each other through our challenges and celebrate our successes.
committed
We show up for ourselves and for our team.
excellence
We work to achieve our best as an organization and as individuals.
The Saskatoon Goldfins Swim Club Board of Directors proudly approved our Strategic Plan (2023-2026) in January of 2023.
Click on the image to view the plan!
Excellence in sport, excellence in life.
Excellence in sport, excellence in life.
04
Board of directors
The Saskatoon Goldfins Swim Club is governed by a Board of Directors, which is elected by the membership. The current Board members are listed below as well as on our website under Coaches and Board.
Board meetings are usually held the third Tuesday of the month during the swim season. All club members are entitled to attend regular board meetings, and are encouraged to attend the Annual General Meeting, usually held in November, and the Spring General Meeting, usually held in May. Each member family is entitled to vote at the Annual and Spring meetings.
officers
directors
President
Vice President
Treasurer
Secretary
Randall Keays
Tracey Kennedy
Amanda Anderson (Dwight Grayston - mentee)
Carey Hodgson
Registrar
Public Relations
Officials
Meet Manager
Team Manager
Jay Magus
Rebecca Gotto
VACANT
Rachel Boyko
Belinda Bilous (Drew Findlay - mentee)
coordinators*
head coach*
Bingo
Fundraising
Equipment
Sponsorship
Shawna Dubiel
Shawna Dubiel
Tina Zimonick
Kae-Lynn Gebhard
Steven Hitchings
*Coordinators and Head Coach are not voting board members
Excellence in sport, excellence in life.
Excellence in sport, excellence in life.
05
season welcome
The Saskatoon Goldfins Swim Club welcomes you to another exciting season of swimming. As many of you know, the closure of the Harry Bailey Aquatic Centre has presented limited space for Goldfins programming. The Goldfins Swim Club’s coaching staff have been working diligently behind the scenes to attempt to create space to admit as many interested members as possible.
During the month of September 2024, the Goldfins coaching staff will be assessing swimmers to determine if proper swimmer placement in the program has taken place. If changes need to be made to ensure your swimmer is being properly challenged, you will be contacted to consider moving to appropriate level placement, more advanced lessons, or your swimmer will receive an invitation to join the competitive swim club – Goldfins White 1 level (3X/week).
Please ensure you are bringing your swimmer to the Junior Goldfins lessons you have registered your swimmers to attend i.e., correct days/times. The Club does not have space to accommodate swimmers in lessons that they have not pre-registered in. Therefore, if you are unsure of which day/time you have registered your child please contact Nicole to confirm their program placement. Please have your swimmer arrive on pool deck for their lesson, no more than five (5) minutes prior to the start of their scheduled lesson. This will help to keep the Goldfins’ deck space available for dryland programming.
Please direct all Junior Goldfins program/lesson inquiries to Nicole Soloduik – Junior Goldfins Program Administrator, by emailing nicole@goldfins.ca.
See you at the pool!
Excellence in sport, excellence in life.
Excellence in sport, excellence in life.
06
program description & Goals
Our goal is
GRADUATION!
The Junior Goldfins Swimming Lesson Program is designed to prepare swimmers to graduate into the Saskatoon Goldfins Swim Club competitive program. The Saskatoon Junior Goldfins program serves as an excellent preparation step for those swimmers who look forward in taking the next step in perfecting swimming technique and building endurance skills.
Swimmers focus on improving technical execution of the four competitive strokes and accompanying competitive skills, while building endurance and speed technique. Swimmers register for appropriate age/stage lesson levels; Novice, Bronze, Silver and Gold.
Endurance and speed requirements increase as swimmers move through the four groups beginning with single 5 – 25M stroke/skill execution, progressing into continuous 100M Freestyle and Backstroke event completion.
Swimmers are taught competitive skills: flip turns, transitions from one stroke into another and dive starts. Although this program is pre-competitive, the program features opportunities for swimmers to embrace competition; learning to race in skill testing events and at the Little Caesars Fun Meets (November 2024, March 2025 and June 2025).
All four stroke segments are introduced in a progressive manner: Freestyle, Backstroke, Breaststroke and Butterfly.
Swimmers are provided with an introduction to the rules of competitive swimming. This program provides a progressive learning scheme to bridge the step between “learning to swim” to “learning to race”!
Excellence in sport, excellence in life.
Excellence in sport, excellence in life.
07
program levels
Checklist for choosing the appropriate level of Junior Goldfins swimming lessons for your child.
Register your swimmer for the highest level for which they can meet the listed requirements.
NOVICE
Can put face in the water
Can float on front & back assisted
Minimum age 4 years
Level equivalency:
bronze
Can swim on front & back 10M with arm action
Can enter water unassisted
Is comfortable in deep water (2.0M)
Approximate ages 6 - 7 years
Level equivalency:
silver
Can complete 25M Freestyle stroke breathing to the side
Can complete 20M Backstroke with arm and kick action
Is comfortable in deep water (2.0M)
Approximate ages 7 – 9 years
Level equivalency:
gold
Can complete 50M Freestyle stroke breathing to the side
Can complete 25M Backstroke with arm and kick action
Can perform Breaststroke Kick
Is comfortable in deep water (2.0M)
Approximate ages 8 – 10 years
Level equivalency:
Excellence in sport, excellence in life.
Excellence in sport, excellence in life.
08
novice
Tentative Weekly Training Schedule
2x per week
Monday & Wednesday | |
Start | End |
4:30 | 5:00 |
5:00 | 5:30 |
5:30 | 6:00 |
6:00 | 6:30 |
Tuesday & Thursday | |
Start | End |
3:00 | 3:30 |
3:30 | 4:00 |
4:00 | 4:30 |
4:30 | 5:00 |
$75.00 per month
All lessons are 30 minutes in duration
All lessons will be at the Shaw Centre
Schedules are subject to change, based on facility availability
equipment
Visit Al Anderson's Source for Sports.
The official equipment supplier for the Saskatoon Goldfins Swim Club!
Excellence in sport, excellence in life.
Excellence in sport, excellence in life.
09
Bronze
Tentative Weekly Training Schedule
2x per week
Monday & Wednesday | |
Start | End |
4:15 | 5:00 |
5:00 | 5:45 |
5:45 | 6:30 |
Tuesday & Thursday | |
Start | End |
3:00 | 3:45 |
3:45 | 4:30 |
4:30 | 5:15 |
5:15 | 6:00 |
$105.00 per month
Friday & Sunday | |
Start | End |
4:30 (Fri) 1:00 (Sun) | 5:15 (Fri) 1:45 (Sun |
5:15 (Fri) 1:45 (Sun | 6:00 (Fri) 2:30 (Sun |
1x per week
Sunday | |
Start | End |
2:30 | 3:15 |
3:15 | 4:00 |
$75.00 per month
All lessons are 45 minutes in duration
All lessons will be at the Shaw Centre
Schedules are subject to change, based on facility availability
equipment
Visit Al Anderson's Source for Sports.
The official equipment supplier for the Saskatoon Goldfins Swim Club!
Excellence in sport, excellence in life.
Excellence in sport, excellence in life.
10
silver
Tentative Weekly Training Schedule
2x per week
Monday & Wednesday | |
Start | End |
4:15 | 5:00 |
5:00 | 5:45 |
5:45 | 6:30 |
Tuesday & Thursday | |
Start | End |
3:00 | 3:45 |
3:45 | 4:30 |
4:30 | 5:15 |
5:15 | 6:00 |
$105.00 per month
Friday & Sunday | |
Start | End |
4:30 (Fri) 1:00 (Sun) | 5:15 (Fri) 1:45 (Sun |
5:15 (Fri) 1:45 (Sun | 6:00 (Fri) 2:30 (Sun |
1x per week
Sunday | |
Start | End |
2:30 | 3:15 |
3:15 | 4:00 |
$75.00 per month
All lessons are 45 minutes in duration
All lessons will be at the Shaw Centre
Schedules are subject to change, based on facility availability
equipment
Visit Al Anderson's Source for Sports.
The official equipment supplier for the Saskatoon Goldfins Swim Club!
Excellence in sport, excellence in life.
Excellence in sport, excellence in life.
11
gold
Tentative Weekly Training Schedule
2x per week
Monday & Wednesday | |
Start | End |
4:15 | 5:00 |
5:00 | 5:45 |
Tuesday & Thursday | |
Start | End |
3:00 | 3:45 |
3:45 | 4:30 |
4:30 | 5:15 |
5:15 | 6:00 |
$105.00 per month
Friday & Sunday | |
Start | End |
4:30 (Fri) 1:00 (Sun) | 5:15 (Fri) 1:45 (Sun |
5:15 (Fri) 1:45 (Sun | 6:00 (Fri) 2:30 (Sun |
1x per week
Sunday | |
Start | End |
2:30 | 3:15 |
3:15 | 4:00 |
$75.00 per month
All lessons are 45 minutes in duration
All lessons will be at the Shaw Centre
Schedules are subject to change, based on facility availability
equipment
Visit Al Anderson's Source for Sports.
The official equipment supplier for the Saskatoon Goldfins Swim Club!
Excellence in sport, excellence in life.
Excellence in sport, excellence in life.
12
program calendar*
Date | Event |
September 9, 2024 | Program Start-Up |
October 14, 2024 | PROGRAM IS CANCELLED (Thanksgiving Day) |
October 25 - 27, 2024 | PROGRAM IS CANCELLED (Goldfins Invitational) |
November 11, 2024 | PROGRAM IS CANCELLED (Remembrance Day) |
November 15, 2024 | Little Caesars Fall Fun Meet (Regular lessons are cancelled) |
December 15 - 18, 2024 | Report Card Distribution |
December 23, 2024 - January 2, 2025 | PROGRAM IS CANCELLED (Winter holiday break) |
*Calendar is tentative
and subject to change.
Additional cancellations may occur as the result of other planned aquatic events.
Date | Event |
January 31 - February 2, 2025 | PROGRAM IS CANCELLED (Goldfins Winter Classic) |
February 17 - 20, 2025 | PROGRAM IS CANCELLED (Scholastic break) |
March 16, 2025 | Little Caesars Fall Fun Meet (Regular lessons are cancelled) |
March 19 - 23, 2025 | Report Card Distribution |
April 11 - 13, 2025 | PROGRAM IS CANCELLED (Lasers Long Course Invitational) |
April 18 - 24, 2025 | PROGRAM IS CANCELLED (Easter break) |
May 15 - 19, 2024 | PROGRAM IS CANCELLED (Masters’ Nationals & Victoria Day) |
June 20, 2025 | Little Caesars Fall Fun Meet (Regular lessons are cancelled) |
June 25 - 29, 2025 | Report Card Distribution |
June 29, 2025 | Final Day of the 2024 - 2025 Junior Goldfins Program |
Excellence in sport, excellence in life.
Excellence in sport, excellence in life.
13
equipment
Al Anderson's Source for Sports will again be partnering with the Saskatoon Goldfins Swim Club to assist our members with their equipment/team gear purchases. The link to the Junior Goldfins Gear Package will be available soon!
Please have your swimmer bring the following equipment to their first lesson:
We realize that some of the equipment orders will not arrive until later September 2024. Coaches will be aware of this situation and will make accommodations until all swimmers receive their equipment.
Please ensure that your swimmer's equipment is marked with a permanent marker with their name as to prevent loss.
Goldfins Swim Caps can be purchased through the club's Equipment Manager, Tina Zimonck. Please contact Tina to arrange cap purchases at equipment@goldfins.ca.
Excellence in sport, excellence in life.
Excellence in sport, excellence in life.
14
fee schedule
Novice | Bronze | Silver | Gold | ||||
Lesson Schedule (x/week) | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 |
Lesson Duration (minutes) | 30 | 45 | 45 | 45 | |||
Monthly Fee* | $75 | $105 | $75 | $105 | $75 | $105 | $75 |
*A one-time SNC registration fee of $30.00 will be applied at registration.
paying your account
The Club does not accept cash payments. There are three methods to pay monthly swim fees:
CREDIT CARD: The preferred method of payment. If you choose to pay by credit card, the card must remain on file throughout the season.
POSTDATED CHEQUES: If paying by postdated cheques, all cheques must be received in the office before registration is approved for swimming. If there are any additional charges added to the account during the month, an additional cheque or etransfer must be received in the office by the 7th day of the billing month. Please check your account online at month end for any outstanding charges not covered by the postdated cheque.
Saskatoon Goldfins Swim Club
122 Bowlt Crescent
Saskatoon, SK S7M 0L1
E-TRANSFER: If paying monthly fees by e-transfer, the e-transfer must be received by the Club Administrator by the 1st of the month. If the e-transfer is not received by the 1st of the month, the non payment of fees will be treated the same as a “NSF Cheque or Declined Credit Card”. All e-transfers should be directed to payments@goldfins.ca.
There will be a $30 service charge per transaction on all NSF cheques,
declined credit cards, and e-transfers (not received by the 1st of the month).
Excellence in sport, excellence in life.
Excellence in sport, excellence in life.
15
Policies and rules
withdrawal policy
To withdraw a Junior Goldfin swimmer, “official notice to withdraw” must be emailed to the Goldfins Office at: administration@goldfins.ca.
Please do not give either written or verbal notice to the Coach(es) as this will not constitute “official notice” received by the Goldfins Office.
If during the season a swimmer moves from Junior Goldfins to competitive Goldfins, there is a 30-day window that if a swimmer reverts back to Junior Goldfins that there is no financial penalty. After the 30-day window, if a swimmer chooses to remain in the competitive program, the Competitive Withdrawal Policy will apply.
pool and deck rules
Every swimmer must take a shower prior to entering the pool. Outdoor footwear may not be worn on the pool deck. Outdoor shoes must be removed before entering the pool area. Food is not permitted on the pool deck. Glass is not permitted anywhere in the pool area. No exceptions. Bad behaviour will not be tolerated. We ask that parents to monitor their children during the lesson. The instructors are there to instruct every swimmer and cannot do that if a child is being disruptive. The instructors have a 3 strike rule. The child will be asked to leave the lesson if they are being disruptive and not fully participating in the class to the best of their ability.
photographs
By registering in the Junior Goldfins Swim School, I give permission to the Saskatoon Goldfins Swim Club to publish (post) photographs of my child(ren) on the bulletin boards at Harry Bailey Aquatic Centre and the Shaw Centre, Website, Newsletter/Flash and promotional materials.
Excellence in sport, excellence in life.
Excellence in sport, excellence in life.
16