Mixed Bag

Hi everyone. A few things to talk about in 1 post: a Mixed Bag if you will.

Last night was the HHBF Year End Party. Its amazing to think that this was my 6th one (techincally 5th because I was forced to skip one while sick) and how much the club has grown. When I started, HHBF did this in a church basement and you could count the athletes. Last night we had to use the Georgetown Secondary School cafeteria and it was still crowded. Watching the club and athletes grow never gets old for me. A lot of work went into making it a great night; thank you to all the volunteers who made it possible. A special thanks to Shellie Little-Taran for putting it together.

Individual Award Winners from last night were:

Intro
President Award
Kate Erdley
Julia Kerrigan

Most Improved
Intro - Female - Jordan Pawlowski
Intro - Male - Spencer Zylstra
Intro Comp – Female - Angela Wallace
Intro Comp – Male – Hartley Snyder

Silver Presidents Award
Anthony Hartsink
Jordan Stott

Bronze Presidents Award
Sydney Taran
Simon Olsen


Gold Presidents Award
Justin Lochert
Victoria Gibson

Regional Development Presidents Award
Viktoria Plackoska
Bronte McMaster

Platinum Presidents Award
Brooklyn Shelley
Quinn Jaggard

Elite Presidents Award
Matt Fox
Samantha Ceci

Rookie of the Year
Katherine Peel

The Mandy Bull Award
Avery Jans: Avery is an outgoing, loud cheering, positive, team supporting, Bluefin machine. From pompoms and face painting at meets to leading and motivating her lane at practice she is a ball of energy. Her humor energy and positivity (even at 5:30am) at every practice keep us smiling even when the sets are long and hard. Her ability to lead a set and keep everyone on track even when everyone (including the coach) has lost count on how much we've done, is second to none. She's a kind hearted, caring individual that is a joy to coach. Great Attitude, Great Attendance, Great Effort, Great Results! Congrats Avery.

I really want to express my mixed emotion (happy and sad) that Karl Massey and Elizabeth Skuriat will be moving on next season. Both were crucial to my plan to expanding the Bluefins to where we are now and set a great example that both school and athletics can be done. They will be missed as coaches and as swimmers. They're both outstanding citizens and we should be proud that they represented us for so long (hopefully Elizabeth can still represent us when CIS season is done). Since we couldn't watch the slide show that the club put together for them, I'll see if I can post it here in the next few days. Happy trails, you guys.

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I stopped in at D-Moos.com headquarters this morning to do some work and pass along a copy of the Andrew Ford Interview that we did last week. It will be airing tonight at 8pm. You can listen live here, but don't just wait for the interview (because I know you've listened like 100 times already... right?) listen all the time. Fantastic mix of music and the guys over there are great. They're huge HHBF supporters.

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We are past the due date for Ontario Open Water Championships. Registration for the event is still possible but I am doing the group registration for HHBF tomorrow. Anyone else that wants to save themselves the trouble of registering online had better make contact with me ASAP.

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My cousin, Paul DeCarli (I am obligated to refer to as a pioneer in the field of digital music editing) who resides in California, started up a great blog for music lovers from the 1980s. Check it out, it makes you think of songs and bands that you haven't thought about for ages. Thanks, Paul!
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That'll do it for today. Don't forget to follow me on twitter and check the blog over the summer.