Monday, April 09, 2001

Letter to AMS swim coaches at swim meet at Highland Park Pool

Mark Rauterkus
formal role and job title to be announced later
108 South 12th Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15203-1226
Mark@


AMS Coaches

Dear Coach,

Welcome to Pittsburgh's Highland Park Pool! 
I'm passing around this letter as a way to get your feedback and make an introduction of myself. Are you ready to share ideas? Let's touch base with one another, anytime, anyway, if you so desire. Catch me on-deck, send email, call, or let's talk on the first day of JOs.
Pittsburgh's city-based team, Three Rivers Aquatics, is going to attempt to make some changes with its programs. TRA does not need a head coach. Hosea is going to continue as the head coach, for sure. Perhaps you can help in other ways?
I'm going to lend administrative assistance and leadership with TRA. A news release about this role is pending for the weeks ahead. But for now, can you please spare some of your insights as we make an evaluation and inventory of assets? 
This city has some excellent facilities. However, we realize that the city kids and region's competitive swimmers are not connecting with excellent programs. We want better opportunities with facilities, city-kids and regional swimmers.
The TRA team is small and central to the city. One potential agenda is to host and coordinate a number of special events that can include swimmers from your team. But, what to host, when, and for what groups is our question. What activities do you desire and what would gain your comfortable endorsement and encouragement? Some examples follow to stimulate early discussions.
We'd like to hold a week-long day camp at Highland Park that would feature morning long-course practices and an afternoon zoo camp.
We'd like to hold spring water polo practices one-time per week and a summer evening practices geared for boys and girls over the age of 13. Perhaps a Pittsburgh team could travel to an out-of-town tournament as well.
We'd like to have a youth bike race and some developmental sessions at the new bike course very near to Highland Park. A staged triathlon, perhaps in association with the Marathon or Great Race could be held too.
We'd like to utilize the month of August, after zones, for swim carnival events. The beach volleyball courts are to be done soon. Even Lifeguard Competitions and Canoe Polo could help to stimulate and engage the senior male swimmers.
We'd like to hold challenge practices on a monthly basis for test-sets, data collection and pulse-plots.
We'd like to host a sports-lecture series attracting national and international sports coaches and athletes from Olympic sports. Furthermore, we'd like to have a literacy program/book club that could supplement the headline events. Cable and radio broadcasting crew duties.
Other considerations include built-in extras to better accommodate participation. Finder's fees, open records, optional attendance, open-door welcoming of area coaches, advanced booking of visiting experts, flexible co-leader roles, team-wide reservations, and summary statements mailed to your home.
Reminder: These are all simply ideas. No program decisions or announcement is included in this letter. Rather, we are most interested in getting your feedback and insights for the betterment of the region's suite of swimming experiences.
Thanks  for your interest.
Sincerely yours,

Mark Rauterkus
Sports Advocate, Retired Publisher, Full-time Dad

Friday, April 06, 2001

Ebook Discussion List Contributor

Contributions to the e-book discussion list
1. eBook-List Archive
---------------------

Due to popular demand, and because it is a good thing to do, I spent the
weekend cleaning up and uploading the entire archive of eBook-List to
Exemplary's server.  The archive files are currently downloadable via
anonymous ftp at:

     ftp://ftp.exemplary.net/pub/ebook-list/

The file 'archive.info' gives complete information on the archive, including
a strong copyright statement.

It is hoped in a few weeks to a few months to implement a Web-based archive
search engine for the entire eBook-List archive, but it is intended that the
ftp-based archive will still be maintained.


2. eBook-List Daily Digest
--------------------------

Several people have asked for a digest to eBook-List, and I have been working
hard on this the last few days.

Since:

1) eBook-List may move servers in a few weeks to a few months, and

2) Implementing digest-mode in Majordomo may be problematic on the current
   server,

I decided to take Bowerbird's advice and setup the eBook-List digest at a Web
mailing list service, specifically, OneList.  This digest is intended to only
be a temporary solution (for a few weeks to a few months).

For various reasons, including the need to keep list administration simple,
the daily digest is accessible ONLY by the Web -- it will not be mailed out.
It is not possible to post or subscribe to this digest apart from eBook-List.
The URL to access the daily digest is:

     http://www.onelist.com/viewarchive.cgi?listname=ebook-list-daily

(The list at OneList is called 'ebook-list-daily', and so named to reflect
that it is a daily digest.)

Note that you do not need to be a "member" of OneList to access the daily
digest.

Also note that I have turned off subscribing and posting to ebook-list-daily
at OneList -- it is strictly a "mirror" of eBook-List.  If you wish to post
to eBook-List, you still have to do it as currently done, *and* of course you
have to be a subscriber of eBook-List to post.  But if you do not intend to
post to eBook-List, and only wish to read daily digests of all the posts made
to eBook-List, then this should work for you.


3. Charter
----------

I have updated the Charter to mention the new archive and temporary daily
digest, and to amplify on posting etiquette.  Since the "etiquette" changes
are only amplifications and clarifications on the current Charter terms, I
felt no need to ask the subscribership for prior feedback.  The new Charter
will soon be posted to eBook-List.


4. Miscellaneous
----------------

On the fun side, while cleaning up the archive, I had a few moments to answer
a question which has interested me for a while:  "Who is the most prolific
poster to eBook-List since it started?"

To answer this pressing question of great importance, I did a simple 'grep'
of the archive files, and out of the first 5600 posts in the archive, here's
all those who have made approximately 50 or more posts:

562  Bowerbird
449  Jon Noring 
267  Michael Hart
206  Eric Eldred
162  Roy Johnson
137  Laura Kecherson
130  Don Kafrissen
 97  Charles Demas
 94  Ron Gustavson
 92  Lee Harrison
 91  Chet Novicki
 88  Daniel Munyan
 85  Paula Mader
 78  Bennett Kobb
 62  Tony O'Seland
 60  Michael Ward
 60  Ben Trafford
 58  Jean Lorrah
 53  Julie Petersen
 53  James (N. Post?)
 51  Mark Rauterkus
 50  Art Pollard 


My congratulations to Bowerbird for his posting stamina.  Of course, I came
in a close second, and Michael Hart came in third.  The only excuse for my
high numbers is that some of my posts are administrative-related.  :^)


Anyway, here ends the latest administrative news for eBook-List-Land.

Jon Noring
eBook-List Admin

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