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Meet Officials
Are you wondering what all the different officials and positions at a swim meet do? Look no further! We have our volunteer job descriptions here...
Click here for online official courses
Descriptions of Meet Officials
Description: The job of the timer is to push a small button with the index finger when the swimmer touches the wall with either their feet (on turns) or their hands (on turns and finishes). This is one of the simplest jobs at a swim meet and it gives you a great seat to watch all the action.
Experience Level Required: Level 1 training course is required and offered online. Please contact nrstofficials@nanaimoriptides.com for a link to the online course.
Hospitality
Description: The hospitality people prepare and serve the food to the coaches and on-deck officials during the meet. Since we don't have full kitchen facilities at the meet, food preparation typically involves lots of chopping and sandwich-making. Hospitality is a key role since the success of a meet is often gauged by how well-fed the officials and coaches are.
Experience Level Required: Low.
Safety Marshal
Description: The Safety Marshal's role is to observe swimmers' safety during the warm-up period and ensure established safety procedures are followed. The person must be calm, discreet, patient, and polite with the swimmers and the coaches while maintaining control and applying the rules. Usually, the person acting as a Safety Marshal is also working in another position during the meet.
Experience Level Required: Low to Intermediate levels of experience are required for this position. Level 1 training course is recommended
Judge of Stroke/Inspector of Turns
Description: The role of the Stroke and Turn official is to observe the correctness of the stroke and/or turn to ensure that no swimmer gets an unfair advantage.
Experience Level Required: Low to Intermediate levels of experience are required for this position. A short (2-3 hour) training course is required before you can be a stroke and turn official. Courses are offered frequently and are usually done near the time a swim meet is happening.
Chief Judge Electronics/Chief Finish Judge
Description: The Chief Judge Electronics sits in the booth beside the timing computer operators and imports the swimmer's race times from the timing system into the meet management (Hytek) system. It actually sounds a lot harder than it really is. It's literally one mouse click and one keystroke on the keyboard. However the real magic of the job is that the Hytek operator makes any final adjustments to the finish times of the swimmers, prepares the list of finish times for each event and publishes times to the Live Results link on the website.
Experience Level Required: Intermediate. A training course is required for this job. During this course, a basic overview of the Hytek software is covered.
Description: Formerly Clerk-of-Course and is responsible for making deck entries of swimmers, scratching swimmers from races, and entering relay teams. A good understanding of the meet management (Hytek) system is required.
Experience Level Required: Intermediate. A training course is required for this job.
Chief Timekeeper
Description: The chief timekeeper is responsible for all the timers, watches and plungers. The chief timer may also be asked to collect "sweeps" (the visual observation of the order in which the swimmers have touched the wall).
Experience Level Required: Intermediate. A short training course must completed in order to be a chief timer.
Starter
Description: The starter starts each race through the activation of the electronic timing system (horn and strobe flash) and ensures a fair start has occurred.
Experience Level Required: Intermediate to Advanced level of experience is required to be a starter. A short training course must also be completed.
Referee
Description: The referee is the senior official at the meet and is responsible for all the deck officials.
Experience Level Required: Advanced. Years of experience and many training courses are required to be a referee. The referee is usually selected by the meet manager.
