I don't think NVSL teams that do not have evening practices are openly trying exclude swimmers. At my pool, our pool won't allow the swim team to have lanes in the evening for practices once school is out. Some other clubs with multiple pools or bigger spaces might have more flexibility to do this. I wish my club could offer evening practices but our pool just won't allow it. |
RTO? People are losing their jobs, so they are cutting costs. Whole government contracting companies are basically closed now. |
You make it sound so easy to just add another practice on a whim. But who is going to coach that practice (Coaches have contracts. They were hired to work a certain number of hours and certain times of the day)? What about the rest of the members who will lose access to part of the pool for another hour in the evenings? |
This. It's not about the Team Reps excluding families intentionally. Is the PP that self-centered to think that more practice times negatively affect other people? Plenty of us bring our kids to practice and rush them to camp (yes, maybe late) because it's worth it to us. Or we hire a summer sitter, which is often cheaper than camp and allows for better hours. |
More practices times won't negatively affect other people? |
Our practice for the oldest swimmers is at 7:30 once school is out and the youngest swimmers have theirs at 9:20. I think if the youngest were earlier it would help. |
You can propose that switch to your team or just ask if your kid can go at 7:30. Our team offers camper practice at 7:15 and people complain that it's too early..... In response to (some) parent requests that younger kids go earlier so they could get to camp we got a ton of pushback from other parents of younger kids that they didn't want to get their kids up that early. |
You do understand that it is not one person being denied? And that all of those people pay to be members of the pool? And that all of those people's kids are excluded from large events held by the pool? The idea wasn't explored and the explination was a simple rude dismissal to many families over multiple years. And now this year, when registration has dropped because people have had to return to the office and can't afford someone to take the kids to practice and then camp they suddenly found lanes and time to hold a separate practice. Thie team was never interested in trying to find a solution for the multitude of kids who were interested but unable to participate because of working parents because it was inconvenient and not necessary. As soon as the numbers drop, they have a solution. But that is fine, you found a solution that works for a small percentage of parents while excluding a larger number of kids and feeling self-righteous. Good for you. |
The weather and water are quite cold, it’s not enjoyable. |
There are many solutions and they work for many parents. You wanting to remain rigid about getting to camp on time or not using a summer nanny is your issue. |
...and this is large source of tension that you don't see any other rec sports - that tension between pool memberships and the pool's voluntary rec swm team. As members of the pool, I'm entitled to X,Y, and Z consideration. Every pool/swim team has a balance to strike and from what I know of at few pools, there can be quite the tension among stakeholders (non swim pool members, swim team families, pool board, etc. etc.) |
But swim team membership generally correlates to general membership. When a team is large it cannot eat the pool resources from general membership. Pool membership holds the cards. When the team is smaller and membership declines then you can likely suck up lanes from the general membership during pool hours. |
^this. The general membership already complains about swim team usage of the pool. Evening practices would add more friction. In addition, there is an extra cost with the additional practices and no one (especially in these uncertain times) ever wants swim team fees to increase |
They work for some parents. You might not be aware of the number of families who are interested and could not make it work but it is a decent sized group. Believe it or not, people have times that they have to work at and not everyone can afford a summer nanny. I don't think it is rigid to suggest that kids who go to camp are allowed to practice in the early morning group, which existed, but were denied because it was too hard to work with multiple age groups. Plenty of teams do just that, the ones who work to include folks, but a good number don't. More importantly, I think an easy solution was to allow kids who were at the pool during team parties to hang out with their friends and participate in the pep rally even if they were not on the team. Being told that you have to move and you cannot participate is unnecessary. In the end, that is what angers parents like me. I get that our schedule didn't work but when you take over the pool regularly on Friday nights and you tell kids who can't participate that they are unwelcome then you are hurting people. It is stupid and unnecessary not to mention rude. If you can't include everyone in your pep rally, take it someplace else and stop taking over the pool. |
Our pool proposed switching the older and younger and there were enough SAHMs who don't do camp that informal vote failed. |