Upcoming meets hosted by FOS in Summer 2008:
If you are interested and available to help Friends of Swimming host one of these meets, please contact George Galounis at 815-726-5723 or email gagalounis@comcast.net.  No previous experience is needed!  You can read more about what Friends of Swimming is and what they do below the table.

About the Friends of Swimming (FOS)
Some time ago, a group of very insightful Jets parents encouraged the team to buy its own Colorado timing system.  This equipment is expensive enough that very few other teams have their own so, over the years, a group of Jets parents collectively known as Friends of Swimming (FOS) have volunteered their time to run the timing equipment for other teams who host meets throughout the Chicagoland area.  The money FOS earns from running these meets comes back to the team in the form of scholarships for graduating high school Jets swimmers, maintaining the timing equipment and purchasing new equipment, and donating things such as computer equipment and swimmer awards.  Friends of Swimming is always interested in recruiting more volunteers to help run meets.  This is a very worthy cause for our team and our sport.  If you are interested in helping in any capacity (no experience with timing equipment is needed to help--on the job training is provided), or simply wish to learn more about the cause, please contact George Galounis at 815-726-5723 or email gagalounis@comcast.net.  Please click here to view a more detailed description of what Friends of Swimming does and how meets are run.

Friends of Swimming Scholarship  [View details]
In an effort to give something back to the dedicated swimmers who graduate from the team as seniors in high school and to help them on their way to college, Friends of Swimming set up a scholarship program for Jets swimmers.  In short, each graduating Jet will receive a stipulated amount of money that is determined by the number of years they swam on the team.  For full details on the Friends of Swimming Scholarship, please click here.

FOS Update from George Galounis:  August 20, 2007
Friends Of Swimming ran the timing system for the final meet of the summer on August 2-4.  It was the Madison Wisconsin "All-City" Championship swim meet.  I went up to help Lee Rakoski and Bob Baish set-up and run our timing system.  This was my second year, but my first to help out with the whole meet.  We went up on Wednesday to set up the system.  Prelims were Thursday and Friday, with Finals and relays on Saturday.  There were nearly 1600 swimmers!  FOS has participated in this meet for 11 years.  I'd like to thank Lee for his continued support and especially Bob Baish for not only his help but his generosity.  He paid one of his workers, Matt Ferdon along with Matt's friend Pete Wheeler, to transport the trailer and help with set-up and breakdown.  Thanks, Bob for your continued support.

As in past years, there are 12 community/country club teams around the Madison area that participate in this meet.  The coaches dress up in costume all three days - there were super heroes, Elvis look-a-likes, elves, trolls, Blue Man Group look-a-likes, and many more.  The coaches wore different costumes each day.  A lot of planning and work goes into this meet not only by the volunteers but also the coaches.  To see pictures and streaming video go to http://www.allcityswim.org/AllCity2007/RidgewoodSwim2007/Main.html.

Coach Steve Thompson of the Lewis University Flyers has recently revised their home meet schedule.  FOS will provide and run the timing system and Meet Manager for the following meets at Lewis University:

Saturday, November 17, at Lewis University.  Meet starts at 1pm vs. Wayne State University.
Friday, January 25, at Lewis University.  Meet starts at 5pm vs. University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

If you'd like to help, let me know:  E-mail gagalounis@comcast.net or call 815-726-5723 (home) or 815-922-2748 (cell).

Thanks,
George A. Galounis

FOS Update from George Galounis:  July 30, 2007
FOS just completed another Dolphin League Championship meet.  This meet was a one day event held at Ruth Lake Country Club in Hinsdale.  Six country clubs competed:  Aurora, Butterfield, Edgewood Valley, Itasca, Kankakee, and Ruth Lake.  The meet lasted about five hours.  Thanks to Sophia and Patricia Galounis and Tom Sweet for helping me.  Sophia ran the timing console for the first half of the meet and Tom ran it for the rest.  They did a great job!  Ray Fairbairn was unable to help because Michelle competed at Age Group Champs in Quincy.  However, Ray was gracious enough to lend us his truck to haul the trailer.  Tom not only hauled the trailer to Ruth Lake and back to Rockdale, but he also came up with me on Friday for set up.  Thanks Tom and Ray.  Sophia, Patricia, and Tom helped get all the equipment back into the trailer and truck at the end of the day.  Thanks to my family for coming to my rescue, once again!
 
Our next and final meet for the summer is the Madison Wisconsin, All City Championship meet.  Preliminaries are this Thursday and Friday, with Finals and Relays on Saturday (August 4^th).  I will be traveling up to Madison on Wednesday along with Lee Rakoski and Bob Baish.  This will be Lee and Bob’s 11^th year at Madison.  This is my second year.  This meet will be quite an experience with over 1500 swimmers participating!
 
For those of you who might be interested in helping FOS, our fall/winter schedule with Lewis University has been set:
 
Saturday, November 3, 2007, vs. Illinois Institute of Technology - Starts at 1 PM
Friday, November 16, 2007, vs. Morningside College - Starts at 5 PM
Saturday, November 17, 2007, vs. Wayne State University - Starts at 1 PM
Friday, January 25, 2008, vs. University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee - Starts at 5 PM

Let me know.  Thanks.

George A. Galounis
gagalounis@comcast.net
(815) 726-5723 (home)
(815) 922-2748 (cell)

FOS Update from George Galounis:  July 17, 2007
FOS ran the timing system for the La Grange Country Club this past weekend.  They hosted the Country Club Swim League's annual end of season championships.  The league consist of six country clubs:  Beverly, Glen Oak, Hinsdale, La Grange, Oak Park, and Riverside.  Established in 1947, they claim that this is the oldest country club swim league in the nation! Their swim program runs about 5 to 6 weeks. The meet ran very well.  We had a problem with just one button falling apart.  The meet was a prelim/finals format.  Prelims ran on Saturday and Finals on Sunday.  Just prior to Finals, all the kids march onto the pool deck displaying some sort of theme, e.g., dressed like cowboys/girls.  Very exciting.  This year, the league recognized Rich Mueller, the head Meet Ref, for his work by presenting him with a plaque, a beautiful watch, and a dozen roses.  He has been involved with this league for 20 years.  Rich not only is the head Meet Ref, he also manages the entries, seeding, results including the awards.  He even recruits the deck officials and Friends Of Swimming.

Ray Fairbairn and I went up on Friday to set up and test the timing equipment.  Ray ran the timing console for nearly the whole weekend, while I supervised (I learned that from Lee Rakoski).  Ray has become quite the expert at running the console.  Thanks Ray for all that you do.  And thank you, Kathy for letting him help me.

Friends Of Swimming's next meet is Saturday, July 28th at Ruth Lake Country Club in Hinsdale.  If you would like to help, please let me know.

FOS Update from George Galounis:  July 10, 2007
FOS worked their first summer meet last weekend - Hinsdale Midsummer Classic hosted by the Hinsdale Swim Club (HSC).  The meet was held at the Hinsdale Community Pool.  It is an outdoor eight lane 50 meter pool.  There were over 700 swimmers participating in a three day meet.  I would like to thank Lee Rakoski for his continued support of FOS and the JETS.  He not only helped with set up and breakdown but worked the whole meet.  His expertise with the Colorado Timing System continues to amaze me.  He fixed several faulty pushbuttons and touchpads during the meet.  Thanks Lee.  An added benefit is Lee's humor, which certainly helped the long hot days go by a little faster.  Thanks to Ray Fairbairn who took time out of his busy schedule to haul the trailer to and from Hinsdale and helped with set up Thursday night.  I'd also like to thank Tom Sweet, a first-timer helping FOS outside of a JETS hosted meet.  He came out on Thursday night to help with set up and returned on Sunday to run the timing console and help with break down.  Thanks Tom.  You certainly made that last day a lot easier.  Well, HSC must have been happy with us, because they've already invited us back to work their meet next year!

I'd also like to thank Patricia and Sophia for their continued support and understanding.  Since I have to make commitments to these clubs for FOS long before the JETS meet schedule comes out, I sometimes miss my daughter's competitive swims.  Sorry.

FOS has two country club swim meets:  July 14-15 (this weekend!) at the LaGrange CC and July 28 at Ruth Lake CC (Hinsdale).  If you would like to help, please let me know.

FOS Update from George Galounis:  Nov 16, 2006
Lee Rakoski, active FOS member has a daughter, Kristen Liyeos, who is a coach for the Naperville Central HS Swim Team.  The school's timing system scoreboard stopped working and so she called her dad for help.  Lee ran the timing system for three of their hosted meets in October, with some help from Ray Fairbairn and myself.  It turns out that the Maverick Swim Club also used the Naperville Central pool for a meet that was held November 4 and 5.  Because of the scoreboard problem, they recruited FOS to run the timing system at their meet.  It was a good learning experience.  We really enjoyed working with the Maverick parent volunteers.  Thanks to Ray Fairbairn for helping me set up on Friday and for hauling the timing equipment trailer there and back.  Also, a big thanks to Lee for his continued support of FOS by working both Saturday and Sunday.  The Maverick computer room workers were very impressed with our help.

Helping Naperville Central HS and the Maverick Swim Club was unplanned, but it did provide additional funds to the FOS account.  As you know, FOS supports the Jets team in a number of ways.  We are currently preparing for the Lewis University Swim Team's first hosted meet this Saturday (November 12) against College of DuPage.  Ray will be helping with setup and hauling the trailer.  Lee will be running the timing console and I will be running Hytek's Meet Manager.  If anybody is interested in helping out, please let me know.  We're always looking for volunteers who are interested in learning the timing system or Meet Manager.  Our next scheduled meet will be at Lewis University on Saturday, January 20th against Northern Michigan.  This is the team that Sarah Cempel swims for.  Contact me at gagalounis@comcast.net or call (815) 726-5723.  Thanks.

Summary:  2006 Summer Country Club meets and Fall preview
Just to give everybody an update on Friends of Swimming (FOS), we ran the Colorado Timing system at the Kankakee Country Club on Saturday, July 29th.  This was the last of the Country Club league swim meets.  Thanks to Lee Rakoski, Ray Fairbairn and Sophia Galounis for their help.  FOS couldn't have done it without them.  Ray hauled the trailer and helped with set-up, then was called to work at Citgo in Lemont.  He came back after the meet to haul the trailer back.  Thanks, Ray, for your continued dedication to FOS and to the Jets.  Sophia came out and helped again; this time she ran the timing console and even got the DQ's in before the heats were over.  Great job, Sophia!  (She's getting better at it than me.)

The final meet of the summer, the All City Championship meet (August 3-5) in Madison Wisconsin, has been a long standing tradition for FOS.  This was the 10th year for their participation.  This was my first year to go up and help out.  Traditionally, Lee Rakoski, Bob Baish, and Ernie Redfern have worked this meet.  Due to scheduling conflicts, Ernie could not make it and Bob couldn't work Saturday.  This meet draws 1500+ swimmers from 12 community swim teams who participate over three days.  Thursday and Friday were the Prelims and Saturday was Finals.  I had the pleasure of working Saturday during Finals which included relays.  The relays were for all swimmers and Finals included a consolation heat, which resulted in over 1300 swimmers participating on a single day!  The bullpen area had seating for 24 heats!!!

Very exciting.  This event was televised on Madison's local cable channel, with video streaming on a dedicated web site:  http://www.allcityswim.org/AllCity2006/MononaSwim2006/Main.html.  All the coaches were dressed up in costume:  KISS rock band look-a-likes, cool high-tech ninjas, firefighters, hippies, and dice, just to name a few.  The community pool is set in a park area with a large open grass area next to the pool.  This is where each team had set up large tents for their team area.  A bag-pipe performer walked through this area while playing his instrument just before the start of the meet.  Like the Piped Piper, he attracted the attention of the kids who followed him to the pool.  From within the community center he then led the coaches, timers and officials out on deck to start the meet.  What a big production!

There are ten community pools that are used for this event.  Each team is responsible to host the diving competition one year and the swim meet the next.  This year Ridgewood hosted the diving and Monona hosted the swimming.  Next year, Ridgewood will host the swimming, where FOS started the tradition.  I asked one of the organizers how they got FOS involved.  They were looking to lease a timing system, so they called Colorado Timing for information.  Colorado Timing told them about the Joliet Jets and Friends Of Swimming.  The organizers contacted FOS, made arrangements and the rest is history.  Hah.  Not only does the hosting team pay for the use of the timing system, they also pay for hotel rooms and provide a "food allowance", so the FOS volunteer has no out-of-pocket expenses.  Well, almost none:  Bob Baish continues to donate money by paying one of his workers to haul the trailer up to Wisconsin and back.  Thanks, Bob.  If my wife doesn't kill me before then, I'm looking forward to helping out in the future.  Hey, I even got a free t-shirt out of the deal.

Lewis University will need the help of FOS for this upcoming school year.  The tentative schedule has Lewis hosting only two meets this season:  Saturday, November 18, versus COD, and Saturday, January 20, versus Northern Michigan and Findlay.  For those parents interested in helping out, please don't hesitate to contact me.  This is a good opportunity to learn the intricacies of our timing system.  We desperately need help for those meets where we use our own timing system, e.g., Jingle Bells, December 9 & 10, 2006 and Fab 50s, January 26-28, 2007.

Thanks,
George A. Galounis
gagalounis@comcast.net

Summary:  2006 Summer Country Club meets run by FOS
We ran the timing system for Riverside Country Club, who hosted the annual Country Club Swim Finals, this past weekend. It was a two day event, with prelims on Saturday and Finals on Sunday.  There were six country club teams competing:  Beverly, Riverside, Oak Park, Hinsdale, Glen Oak, and LaGrange.  Just like USA-S Age Group competition, which the Jets normally participate in, the country club swimming participants are swimmers ages 8 to 18.

I'd like to thank Lee Rakoski, Ray Fairbairn, and my daughter, Sophia, for helping out.  Despite the heat and humidity, they came out and did a great job helping with set-up, running the system, and putting everything away Sunday night.  Thanks!  Lee continues to support FOS even though he has absolutely nothing to gain from it.  He is very knowledgeable of the Colorado Timing System and I continue to learn something from him every time we work together.  Besides, Lee has a great sense of humor, which is a real morale booster at times.

As for Ray, he continues to amaze me.  He has an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and understanding and, like me, decided to help FOS to learn as much as he could about the timing system.  He gave up his weekend to help out, not only with this meet but with the Jets meets this past year.  He has shown an interest in being a meet director and he will run his first meet during this upcoming swim season at our first hosted meet on October 28-29 at UIC.  I'm sure he'll do a great job.  Ray is very detail oriented!  The Jets are lucky to have Ray and so many other parents who are so willing to help.  Thanks, Ray.

I'd also like to thank my daughter, Sophia, for helping.  She was carrying sandbags, scoreboard parts, cables, pushbuttons, computers, and whatever else that needed moving.  Most importantly, however, she was our DQ recorder.  Typically, officials write down their own DQ's, but sometimes it is necessary to have an individual dedicated to writing DQ's.  Well, I must say, Sophia did a great job.  She had a headset on to listen for the DQ's, which made her look important.  I think she got a couple of free snow cones because of it.  Thanks, Sophia, for giving up your free time this past weekend to help.  As your dad, I certainly feel blessed and am very proud.

Friends of Swimming has committed to two more country club meets.  They are July 29 and July 30.  The July 29 meet is at the Kankakee Country Club and the July 30 meet is at Eagle Brook Country Club (tentatively) in Geneva, Illinois.  We need help.  This a good opportunity to learn everything that there is to learn about our Colorado Timing System.  Remember, we run our own timing system for two of the three meets we have planned to host this upcoming swim season:  Jingle Bells at Waubonsie Valley High School (December 9-10, 2006) and Fab 50's at Oswego East High School (January 26-28, 2007).

If you'd like to help or have any questions about Friends of Swimming, please don't hesitate to contact me either by email: gagalounis@comcast.net or phone:  (815) 726-5723.

Thanks,
George A. Galounis

Story from Mark Anderson, a Friends of Swimming helper
On July 30, 2005 I volunteered to work at the Butterfield Country Club for the Friends of Swimming.  George Galounis had asked me several weeks ago if I would like to help out with the timing equipment for this meet and I told him I would but I didn't know what to expect.  I would have to say it was fun, exciting and a great learning experience.

George Galounis, Sophia Galounis, Dean Jones and I started to set up the equipment at 7:30am with the help of two very nice young men from Friends of Swimming who brought the trailer to the meet.  The hosting team had a very nice breakfast spread at the hospitality area with all of the country club touches.  The meet ran smoothly with little problems and we even got to hear over and over again about how Dean Jones caught a 5 lb. largemouth bass out of the Kankakee river the night before.  We think it was 5 - 1lb. fish but, we will give Dean the benefit of the doubt.  A barbeque lunch was served and snacks were provided during the meet.  As you can tell, I thought the food was very good.  I was most impressed how Sophia Galounis helped me with the timing equipment.  I have used it before, but she taught me a thing or two.  She did most of the work during the meet and I thought it was great that she was willing to help out.

In all, I had a great time helping with the Friends of Swimming.  It was a great experience and a lot of laughs.  I met a lot of nice officials and helpers who did a great job.  It was totally worth giving 7 hours of my time for such a great cause, and I would not hesitate to do it again.  Please contact the Jets for information about helping with the Friends of Swimming.  You will have as much fun as I did.