The club is responsible for setup and cleanup of our equipment, as well as all of the details involved in running the games each week. We’re remarkably fortunate to have a pool to play at — it’s very difficult to find pools that will allow kayak polo at all, so it’s critical to keep the pool managers happy! If everyone pitches in, the nights run quickly and smoothly. Everyone is responsible for helping with refereeing, scorekeeping, setup, and cleanup.
General Dos and Don’ts:
- Do NOT EVER stand on random bins, chairs, or other items on the pool deck to help you reach things. The pool provides ladders for us to use to get to the goal ropes and such. ONLY use the ladder.
- Do NOT grab onto random bolts or screws in the walls to balance yourself or climb up to reach the goal ropes. The bolts/screws can accidentally pop out of the walls, and then we get in trouble.
- If ANY kind of damage to pool property or equipment does occur, let the person organizing polo for the night know IMMEDIATELY. We need to address issues rapidly, regardless of how minor they may seem.
- If you’re thinking about ignoring any of these rules, don’t. The pool has security cameras all over, and they will see you behaving poorly. Don’t ruin it for everybody.
Setup:
- Bring in common gear (PFDs, Balls, Helmets, Spray Skirts) into the pool area from the designated storage area. Each player that uses a club boat is responsible for bringing their own boat in/out. All gear must be clean. If boats must be rinsed, ask the pool staff for assistance with a hose. Note: Only polo boats, polo PFDs, polo paddles, and helmets with facemasks are allowed in polo games for safety reasons. If you require an exception to this rule, talk to one of the polo organizers.
- Only pool staff is allowed to remove lane lines, flags, and move the bulkheads, so let them do their job without interference.
- Clip in the goals and nets and raise them to the bottom clip position.
- Set up the scoring table near the middle of the court. A team will be appointed to table duty for each game. The team on table duty is responsible for keeping the games running on schedule and keeping score.
Cleanup:
Everyone is responsible for pitching in to clean up at the end of the night. PLEASE NOTE: We must be completely out of the pool half an hour after games end, other wise we will incur a $25 penalty for EVERY 5 minutes after that! Please clean up and change quickly – post-game chatting is always better over a beer (or your beverage of choice) at the bar anyway!
- Take the goals/nets down and raise the rigging (to the upper clip position). The nets should be thrown into the goal frames. Make sure the hauling ropes are coiled and tied up above arms reach from the pool deck, and put the goal frames in their designated location.
- The lifeguards will move the bulkheads and reset the lane lines, please let them do their job without interference.
- Put club boats and other gear into the designated storage location. If you use a club boat, you are responsible for putting your boat back in storage area and helping with other common gear!
- Do a sweep of the pool for trash, leaves, etc. (Do a very good job of this, please!)
Making sure that the pool is looked after is imperative! Don’t be the jackass that gets kayak polo kicked out of the pool after a quarter-century of happy polo-ing!