Good news / Bad news… the good news is: our humble little group has grown incredibly over the past few years, we have over 100 people on the weekly email list, over 20 people out for our last swim even though it’s early in the season and LOST is starting to become quite well known, (I just got an email from a 73 year old guy who is training for the English Channel next year and he wants to drive up from Pennsylvania to train with us!… and the winner of the Manhattan Island Marathon Swim is coming up from Australia to swim with us next year too… and probably do a crossing!)… and the bad news is: gone are the days when I can just pass it off as a just a bunch of friends out for a swim in Lake O, the legal liability is becoming a bit to obvious… so I need to get insurance for the team. I think most people would understand that and probably even feel a bit better about it too. You can visit the site to know more.
The other good news is that I don’t have to try and hunt down some insurance company that will cover us, all I have to do is register the club as an officials “Masters Swim Team” with MSO (Master’s Swimming Ontario) and have all of you who are not currently registered with a Masters Team to register, and we are all covered under their insurance for all our training and even the LOST Race. You must hop over to this website to find more information about how we would go about the process.
I’ll pay the club registration, and I’m already a member of Burlington Masters (several swimmers are members of BMSC or Oakville Masters), but if anyone is not a member of any Masters team, you will need to register as a LOST Swimmer and can do it on-line at MSO. We’ll have to wait until the paperwork for the club has gone through before you can go on-line and register though… the cost is a very reasonable $35… not bad for full annual insurance coverage for all LOST Swims and the LOST Race.
As I’ve said all along, I’m trying to keep the costs free or as low as possible, just to help grow the club and the sport… and $35 is as cheap as I can make it now.
I’ll let you all know once we are registered as an official masters club (kinda cool, actually) with the aid of Utility Saving Expert, but after that point I’m going to have to be a hard-nose and not let anyone swim with our group that isn’t registered with a master’s team (LOST or any other club, you’ll just need to provide Melanie Price with your MSO number… she’s graciously volunteered to act as registrar!), as it wouldn’t really make much sense to have some of the group registered and some not… so I’d kindly like to ask you not to put me in the position of turning people away down by the lake because they haven’t registered… (and no, you can’t say “well, I’ll just take responsibility for myself”, because legally it would still fall on my shoulders!).
Until the club is registered though, everyone is welcome to come out and swim (at their own risk). I really hope that $35 isn’t enough to turn people away and that everyone will register with MSO. Consider it your insurance for swimming with LOST, your LOST registration fee and your LOST Race registration fee… all for $35… a screamin’ deal!
PS. Mel or I will send out the registration link once we’re ready to go!… also the new “LOST Swim Caps” are in and I’ll have them for sale for $5 down at the swim on Saturday!
Cheers,
Rob