PVS Champa not letting parents in

[Anonymous]

The last two nights the workers at the Champs meet wouldn’t let parents into watch until AFTER the meet started. Tonight they kept the parents out for the entirety of the 800 free race. This is ridiculous. I was a timer and we had enough timers. We had enough timers 5 minutes before the meet started. There has to be a better way to get timers.

[Anonymous]

NCAP brought in college students from Marymount to time finals at NCI, which was awesome. They absolutely need to come up with a solution to this. Because it was BS that people that timed for prelims couldn’t get in and were treated just like the parents who never volunteer. What is my incentive to volunteer, I’ll just wait it out like everyone else then. Part of it is also the session set up. It started with the 800 free and it wasn’t parent timed. You’re going to be hard pressed to find someone that wants to time someone else’s kid swimming the 800. On the flip side, for the last events tonight, the 200 breast, those parents were not necessarily there when doors opened or the meet started.

[Anonymous]

I also think that a lot of people would be willing to pay admission fees if those fees were going toward paying high school or college students to time finals sessions.

[Anonymous]

The staff were downright hostile tonight, to the point where I'd advocate taking these and similar meets someplace else. If there was a timer shortage, the call should have been pushed out via club communications. Instead there were just staff shouting to clear the space and go outdoors.

[Anonymous]

They did the same for the 1500 at open champs last Sunday. The race was 10 minutes in before they opened the door.

[Anonymous]

They should seriously consider having 1/2 meet shifts with a 10 min break to switch out timers. If my kid is the third event I’m not willing to time the entire meet but I would time 1/2 the session and parents with kids in late events could still arrive later in the meet and time.

[Anonymous]

The staff was incredibly rude. It seems to be a power trip for them. They forced everyone into the vestibule on Thursday night. It was way too hot for that. I agree with the idea of charging a small fee to pay college kids to time.

[Anonymous]

These posts are confusing. There weren't enough timers so they didn't let anyone IN? But the races went on and were all timed?

[Anonymous]

The same thing happened last weekend at Open Champs. They were so desperate for timers that a bunch of us said we can time for the first few events but then have to leave and that worked ok. Originally there was supposed to be a spectator fee and they eliminated that, maybe it would have helped. Not sure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These posts are confusing. There weren't enough timers so they didn't let anyone IN? But the races went on and were all timed?

Correct. They were kicking people out of the building saying there weren't enough volunteers to start the meet. Meanwhile, the meet had started. When that was pointed out to them last week, they said they just go by what they're told on the walkies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They should seriously consider having 1/2 meet shifts with a 10 min break to switch out timers. If my kid is the third event I’m not willing to time the entire meet but I would time 1/2 the session and parents with kids in late events could still arrive later in the meet and time.

+1M!!!

I’ve thought this so many times. I’d happily time half the meet and get an up close view of my kid swimming. But normally she is only swimming half of it and I don’t want to hang around the entire time once she is already done. So so stupid to not allow for this.

[Anonymous]

For the first Mach LC meet back in May/June they had split sessions for timers. The transition between timers seemed smooth to me. I worked the second session.

For the LC meets where everything is longer I like splitting the timer sessions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NCAP brought in college students from Marymount to time finals at NCI, which was awesome. They absolutely need to come up with a solution to this. Because it was BS that people that timed for prelims couldn’t get in and were treated just like the parents who never volunteer. What is my incentive to volunteer, I’ll just wait it out like everyone else then. Part of it is also the session set up. It started with the 800 free and it wasn’t parent timed. You’re going to be hard pressed to find someone that wants to time someone else’s kid swimming the 800. On the flip side, for the last events tonight, the 200 breast, those parents were not necessarily there when doors opened or the meet started.

The fastest heat of the distance event is never parent timed at finals.

The host team needs to require their parents to time one or two sessions whether they have a swimmer or not. When host teams have taken this approach, they haven’t run into these issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The staff was incredibly rude. It seems to be a power trip for them. They forced everyone into the vestibule on Thursday night. It was way too hot for that. I agree with the idea of charging a small fee to pay college kids to time.

They kicked the open meet parents out of the building.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NCAP brought in college students from Marymount to time finals at NCI, which was awesome. They absolutely need to come up with a solution to this. Because it was BS that people that timed for prelims couldn’t get in and were treated just like the parents who never volunteer. What is my incentive to volunteer, I’ll just wait it out like everyone else then. Part of it is also the session set up. It started with the 800 free and it wasn’t parent timed. You’re going to be hard pressed to find someone that wants to time someone else’s kid swimming the 800. On the flip side, for the last events tonight, the 200 breast, those parents were not necessarily there when doors opened or the meet started.

The fastest heat of the distance event is never parent timed at finals.

The host team needs to require their parents to time one or two sessions whether they have a swimmer or not. When host teams have taken this approach, they haven’t run into these issues.

No parent is driving to IMD to time if their kid isn’t racing…unreasonable and unrealistic to expect this