The IU outdoor pool opened its waters last Monday for another summer of swimming for the whole Bloomington community.
The pool’s first large event this summer will be a free open house for the whole community from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Friday May 22.
Emily Ward, director of aquatics for Campus Recreational Sports, said the open house will include games such as water volleyball and free food like pizza and freeze pops.
“We just want to invite students, faculty, staff and community to experience the outdoor pool and see what it’s about and have fun,” she said.
Swimming instructors will also be at the open house to give swimming skill ?assessments to place swimmers into appropriate lesson groups, Ward said.
Swimming lessons begin June 1 and are open to children and adults, according to the IU outdoor pool website.
Ward said the open house will also feature an activity new to the IU pool called ?logrolling.
“It’s an activity that started off in the Northeast with lumberjacks walking on logs to help fix log jams,” she said. “In the offseason, they’d use to have logrolling ?competitions.”
Ward said the IU pool purchased synthetic logs from a company in Minnesota started by world-champion log rollers.
“They came down and trained our staff,” she said.
Ward said log rolling will continue to be introduced all summer through “open ?rolling times” and small ?competitions.
Another new activity this summer will be a “dive-in movie series” where visitors can float in the pool and watch movies, organized in collaboration with Union Board and Residential Programs and Services, ?Ward said.
“On a beautiful summer night, that’s the most fun thing to do in the pool,” ?she said.
The movie series is still being planned but is tentatively scheduled to take place monthly in June, July and ?August, Ward said.
Ward added that the summer will include smaller impromptu events like chalking contests, water basketball shooting contests and poolside yoga.
“We’re looking to have a lot of really fun events throughout the course of the summer to keep people entertained and coming back,” she said.
Ward encouraged all IU students and faculty to take advantage of the pool and special activities through the lower membership rates offered to people affiliated with the University.
“We’re trying to make access to the pool more affordable, especially for students,” she said.
The pool will be keeping its regular hours from Saturday onward, but it is open until Saturday from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
Senior Zach Tromley, who works the front desk at the pool, said the limited hours this week are a “warm up” period.
“It’s just for people to get their foot in the water,” ?he said.
Suzanne Grossman
