Change of Season

We celebrated the end of Alyssa's 2014-15 Synchro Season at the annual banquet and her offer(s) for next year arrived as well. I guess that's a little bit of a teaser, so stay tuned if you want to see what next year has in store. First, let's looks at pics from the banquet.

All dressed up and ready to go!

 
The B2 table

 
B2 in the photo booth. The backdrop looked like it was made just for them since their theme was NYNY!


 
They give out certificates and patches for any USFS awards that were passed during the year. Since Alyssa passed her first Moves in the Field test, she got to go up. She will take another Moves test in August and I think she is going to start taking some Ice Dancing tests as well. 

 
All the skaters in the club. These are just the ones who are members. Many other kids take classes but do not have to belong to the club because they do not compete. This shot includes both synchro and solo skaters. 
 
Time to dance




 
This is Alyssa's coach Chelsea and some of her private students. They have a fundraiser at the banquet called No SK8 Coach D8. The coaches each offer up "dates" that the kids can win in a raffle. Alyssa bought 60 tickets (with her dad's money) and dumped them all in the box for Chelsea's date. She won. She gets to take a friend with her for pedicures and out to lunch with the coach. 
 
I think Alyssa is so pretty, so I was surprised when she told me to delete this next picture because of her "big teeth and gummy smile".  Not seeing it, and not deleting it.
 
Chloe made friends immediately as she does everywhere we go, and I had to chase her around to try to get a picture. 






 
When "Wobble" came on the B2 girls were the first ones on the dance floor. This was their pre-skate warm-up all year. 




 
Do you like how Chloe deliberately tried to look like a shy librarian? She's a nut! 


 
Alyssa was so embarrassed when Seth asked her to dance, but I quickly reminded her who pays her Synchro bill. 





 

And now on to offer(s) for next season.

Tryouts were in mid-April and then they waited three weeks for offer letters. It was like waiting for a mission call, and we were all texting each other daily to see if anyone had heard anything. Alyssa tried out for two teams. She tried out for Pre-Juvenile, which is a step up from Beginner 2. This is where her coach thought she would do best, but she technically also qualified (by level and tests) for Open-Juvenile, which is higher than Pre-Juvenile so she decided to try out for both. Several of the girls from B2 did the same. When letters finally came in, she made the Pre-Juv team. Three other girls from last year's team also made Pre-Juv, one went to another club, one went to Juvenile (which is way higher than B2, but this girl was actually WAY overqualified for B2 last year) and 7 made Open-Juv. Alyssa was thrilled with her placement, but many of the other B2 parents were up in arms about it. I was torn. She is a little bit overqualified for the team she ended up on and she is as good as a handful of girls who made the next team. But, I knew Open-Juv would be tough. She would just be keeping up, and on Pre-Juv she would be able to step into the role of a leader and be one of the strongest skaters on the team. I was sad to see her separated from so many of her friends, but she ended up with a great group of kids. Alyssa was never torn or upset or anything but happy, even when other skaters and parents came and told her how outraged they were.

Fast forward a week....I got called in to meet with the Synchro director and she showed me Alyssa's tryout scores. They are evaluated on 12 things. She coasted through Pre-Juv tryouts and she passed 11 of the 12 requirements for Open-Juv. As I suspected, all that was missing was power. They had 4 skaters across the 4 teams that they did not know what to do with, and Alyssa was one of them. So, they created an athlete in training position. They are asking Alyssa to compete with Pre-Juv, but to train with Open-Juv. Her new team practices twice as often as B2 did, and if she trains with both teams, she will train 4 times as often as she did last year, and to put that into perspective, she already skates 6 days a week. And of course, there is a fee to cross-train. But, we actually felt like this was the best of both worlds. She can skate on a team where she is strong and she can skate on a team where she has to push herself. She will improve her confidence with one team and her skills with the other. So we accepted. And then we went to contract night and only 9 of the 14 skaters that they offered positions to for next year's Pre-Juv team signed, which means that the rest of us have to cover their fees. Ack! I am hoping they recruit a few more skaters, not only for cost reasons, but also because small teams do not tend to score as well with the judges. Open-Juv also only had 9/14 sign so now I am nervous that they will ask Alyssa to cross-skate, which means she would travel and compete with BOTH teams. Then we would not just pay the cross-training fee, but full contracts for each team. So yep, we are hoping they recruit and then hold another try-out before the new season starts in July.

We do not know what Alyssa's theme will be next year, but she has the best idea. Harry Potter! She came up with costumes (inspired by Hogwarts uniforms), she put some music together (HP theme song, then into Do You Believe in Magic, and into Abra Cadabra, and then back to HP for the finish. She also came up with an idea for the team shirt. She wants just a pair of glasses and a scar on the front and on the back The Marauder's Map with the name of each team member and instead of footsteps, little skates skating around the map. I love it, and it is even more cool because she has a boy on her team this year! I even asked if she could submit her idea, but they said the coaches choose.