How a meet is prepared.  A swim meet starts as a date on the calendar set sometimes over a year in advance. These dates are decided upon by North Texas swimming's (the governing body for all the teams in North Texas) Technical Planning committee.  They go through make sure the dates don't fall on holidays or other large meets.  They decide what type of meet will go there such as an A meet,  BB/B/C meet, or a Championship meet.

Once they have finalized dates they are emailed around to all the teams in North Texas.  Teams bid on the different meets.  They send in their requests, and then have a meeting, usually in October, to vote for the meets for the upcoming year. It's then voted on by representatives (usually coaches) from each swim team to see which teams will get which meets.

Once that has been set, it's up to the host team to set up the meet.  They decide how many days it will be, the events, the cost, and the location.  They do have to follow general rules laid out by USA and North Texas Swimming.  They publish all these rules and decisions in meet information which is posted on the North Texas website.  The teams that are eligible for that meet then take the information, and publish it for their families.  A file is sent to each participating team which we upload to our website. This allows people to register for a meet.  We have to submit the file of our swimmers back to the host team. Usually 8-9 days before the meet. 

The host team collects all the files and merges them together into one database.  The database then gets sent into North Texas swimming for verification. This means that all swimmers are verified to be USA registered and that the times listed are correct. They also make sure that the swimmers are eligible for the meet.  This keeps faster swimmers out of lower level meets and vice versa. Fines are associated with swimmers that are NOT USA registered.  We keep tabs on that to make sure we aren't fined!

After the database is verified, it is sent back to the host team. They build the meet.  If it's a pre-seeded meet, they will make all the heats.  If not, they will get check in sheets ready for each event. The host team builds the meet program and sends it off to the printer.  These become the heat/psyche sheets for people to buy at a swim meet.  This process takes a good week which is why it's important to enter a meet on time.  Once the database is sent in for verification, we can't get you into the meet.  Sometimes a meet has late entries (entries after the deadline) that you enter at the meet itself at usually 3 times the cost.  If they don't accept late entries, you will have to wait until the next meet to compete.