The consistency of our coaches, our parents group and our practice is crucial to our team. A lot of people have made a big investment in the last eight years. When I took over I had two coaches and 40 swimmers from 30 families. Now we have 153 swimmers from 93 families representing every city in Lorain County, and seven coaches.

I do believe it's time for a British manager. It's time to have somebody who understands the passion and the belief and the commitment to the game.

They'll show how it used to be done historically when ice was used for shipping. They'll be scratching it in a checkerboard way and scoring it.

It's time for a British boss, somebody who understands our passion, belief and commitment. There's no distinction between English and British.

It's easy to give up on something, but I wasn't about to do that. At first I was nervous about people wanting to throw in the towel, but the closing had the reverse effect. It brought everyone together to rededicate themselves to the team. Our future looks extremely bright now.

It's a chance to show our recreational activities in winter because a lot of people stay around home.

It was a perfect day, right around freezing with snow, ice and sunshine.

Bill Roberts has worked for British Swimming on child protection issues and on working with vulnerable adults, and both those bits of work are ongoing. I couldn't discuss his contract.

We live and breathe the four core YMCA values of honesty, respect, responsibility and caring. We try to build strong families, children and communities. We promote character development and high self-esteem on the team. I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't believe in those values. I pick my coaches with the values in mind.

We lost about $50,000 worth of equipment. Our six starting blocks were worth about $1,000 each, and we also lost two computerized timing systems, one for practice and one for competition. We have raised about $4,000, so we're behind where we need to be.