In an email dated 9

In an email dated 9/28/05 from the new VP of Junior Diving at USA Diving:

I just wanted to get off a short letter to inform everyone with a quick summary of what transpired at the convention.

First of all, I am currently trying to get all the dates for the upcoming Spring (or Winter) Regional meets. As soon as I get all of these dates finalyzed, they will be posted on the usa diving website. Please look at the date changes for the summer events as well. If you have not noticed, there has been some changes from what was originally planned. If there are any problems with facility availability for the new dates, please contact me as soon as possible so we can notify the back up sites to check on availability.

As far as rules are concerned, perhaps one of the biggest changes is that your divers now have to compete in their FINA age group. This means they have to dive in the age group according to their age on December 31 of the calendar year. This is bound to cause some confusion for the first year, however, this is the new rule. As far as dive requirements are concerned, the 13-under and 11-under age groups have not been changed. 14-15 and 16-18 age groups will now follow FINA dive requirements -WHICH HAVE BEEN CHANGED FROM LAST YEARS' OR PREVIOUS FINA RULES. Make sure you are familiar with the new changes in the FINA dive requirements. You should double check them in case I type them wrong but I'll try to do a quick summary:

With adopting FINA procedures, there is no more changing dives on the board. All dive sheets are due 24 hours before the start of competition. Changes can be made up until three hours before the start of the event. If a change is made to a sheet between three hours before and the start of the event, a $15 penalty is to be assessed. A whistle will be used during non-simultaneous events (i.e. platform events, and if there are any non-simultaneous finals at nationals). In all events, a diver will need to make eye contact with the referee before diving or proceeding to the end of the board for a back or inward take off.

There are more changes that might be less important - but these are the ones that will have the greatest effect on your kids at the Regional, East/West (Zone) Championships, and Nationals.

Please don't respond to me about how much you dislike these rules. I'm not saying whether I'm for the changes or against the changes, I'm just pointing out to you that this is how it is - regardless of how you or I feel about it.

As the Jr. VP, I will be working with the Jr. Subcommittee to come up with the qualifications for the Canada-USA Challenge and this summer's Jr. Worlds. When this is complete, I will make sure that it is published in a timely fashion.

Please forward this on to anyone you have email address for, I only have a limited email list and your cooperation is much appreciated. Also, if there is anything I can do to help you out, please contact me.