MSC Ops Blog

An overview of the Swimming Canada registration system

For the 2008/2009 season Masters Swimming will be using the new registration system developed by Swimming Canada (SNC) to register masters swimmers. The SNC registration system is an online web application which means that it is accessible on any computer with internet access. This should facilitate timely access to data for meet management and administrative purposes. There are four basic roles in the registration system:

• Families
• Athletes (swimmers)
• Club registrars
• Provincial administrators

The system was designed to meet the needs of age group swimming, which is the origin of the Family role. Each family has a single account on the system under which one or more athletes can be registered. An account provides contact information, in the case of age group swimmers it will be the contact information of parents or guardians, in the case of masters swimmers it will be for the swimmers themselves. References to Families may seem confusing to masters swimmers but just think of it as an account that maintains the contact information for the swimmer. What is different about the new system is that it is now the responsibility of the account holder to enter and maintain up to date contact information. In the past contact information has been maintained by registrars, either at the club or provincial level, depending on the province. Under the new system the data entry and administrative burden is distributed over all the swimmers instead of on a few individuals and the swimmer can update the information at any time. If the contact information is not up to date the swimmer has no one but themself to blame.

Athletes are the individual swimmers being registered. Normally, for masters swimmers, there will be one swimmer for each family account. Even if two swimmers in one family register two accounts can be created for the one family, one for each swimmer.

Each club will have a club registrar who is in charge of registering swimmers with the club and passing their registration fees on to the provincial body. Individual swimmers will ask the club registrar to create an account for them and give their payment to the club registrar.

Each province has an administrator that collects registration fees from the clubs. Until the provincial administrator receives the fee from the club and marks it as paid in the online system the swimmer's registration is not complete. The provincial administrator also creates and sets up accounts for each club.

The registration process

The registration process is initiated by the swimmer giving their name and email address to their club registrar, who then creates a new account for the swimmer. The account is created with just an account name and an email address. When an account is created and activated by the club registrar an email is sent to the specified email address giving a link to the registration system.

When the swimmer receives the email they just click on the provided link and are taken to the registration system web page where they fill in their contact information and a few bits of data that are being collected for statistical purposes. The system will guide them through the data entry process. Swimmers should just enter their own contact information when asked for contact information for the first parent, and just go on to the next screen when they are asked for contact information for the second parent.

Once the swimmer has registered they will appear in the list of athletes for the club they selected during registration. The club registrar can then create an invoice that they send, along with the swimmer's registration fees, to the provincial administrator. When the provincial administrator receives the payment they will mark the invoice as paid and the swimmer becomes a registered member.

Posted at 02:15PM Aug 28, 2008 by Lindsay in General  |  Comments[0]