Why don’t Potomac Marlins staff their own meets?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We swim in the Maryland LSC and we don’t typically volunteer at meets hosted by other clubs. For example we recently attended the NBAC Fastival and they never asked other any teams to volunteer for roles like timers or marshals.

Maryland swimming is very different than PVS in that regards. When we were with Maryland swim, our club made us volunteer a certain amount of times per year. Many times were not at meets where my kid swam and that was annoying. We switched to a PVS club when my kid was 14 and we only timed at meets wear our kid was swimming. The persons that is the administrator of Maryland swimming also is very difficult and would make certain teams/people work the last session on Sunday at meets in Saint Mary’s which was really mean.

[Anonymous]

The Fish team provides all volunteers for the meets it hosts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our team is attending the Sport Fair Winter Classic and we just got another “sign up” link to volunteer with a directive that they want every swimmer attending to volunteer for one spot. This is the only club that ever does this… why? Don’t the Marlins have parents who are capable of volunteering at their own meets? They seem very disorganized.

Are you a small team? Our club asks for volunteers in proportion to the number of swimmers. We have attended a number of marlins meets and never seen anything like this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We swim in the Maryland LSC and we don’t typically volunteer at meets hosted by other clubs. For example we recently attended the NBAC Fastival and they never asked other any teams to volunteer for roles like timers or marshals.

This is more the normal. Marlins host a LOT of meets which I assumed was how they make more revenue for the owners. I am not sure what the fees happen to be for the swimmers but assumed they might be lower than other teams due to the volunteer requirements.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We swim in the Maryland LSC and we don’t typically volunteer at meets hosted by other clubs. For example we recently attended the NBAC Fastival and they never asked other any teams to volunteer for roles like timers or marshals.

This is more the normal. Marlins host a LOT of meets which I assumed was how they make more revenue for the owners. I am not sure what the fees happen to be for the swimmers but assumed they might be lower than other teams due to the volunteer requirements.

This is actually not the normal in PVS. We have never gone to a PVS meet that another club has hosted and not been expected to volunteer. I will say though we have attended meets hosted by a Maryland Swimming club and have not been asked to volunteer. At many PVS meets we are the largest group there and we are expected to provide more timers than any other club, including the host club. It’s just how things work in PVS. And honestly if you didn’t have clubs like the Marlins and Makos hosting less competitive December meets the kids that aren’t super fast wouldn’t have a winter champs meet to compete at, so maybe stop complaining about it. Volunteering is part of club swim, it is what it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Fish team provides all volunteers for the meets it hosts.

This is not true. I was timing at the FISH long course meet last year. Was happy to do so, but am not with Fish.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We swim in the Maryland LSC and we don’t typically volunteer at meets hosted by other clubs. For example we recently attended the NBAC Fastival and they never asked other any teams to volunteer for roles like timers or marshals.

This is more the normal. Marlins host a LOT of meets which I assumed was how they make more revenue for the owners. I am not sure what the fees happen to be for the swimmers but assumed they might be lower than other teams due to the volunteer requirements.

This is actually not the normal in PVS. We have never gone to a PVS meet that another club has hosted and not been expected to volunteer. I will say though we have attended meets hosted by a Maryland Swimming club and have not been asked to volunteer. At many PVS meets we are the largest group there and we are expected to provide more timers than any other club, including the host club. It’s just how things work in PVS. And honestly if you didn’t have clubs like the Marlins and Makos hosting less competitive December meets the kids that aren’t super fast wouldn’t have a winter champs meet to compete at, so maybe stop complaining about it. Volunteering is part of club swim, it is what it is.

This is very true. The NCAP invitational has much faster qualifying times than winter classic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We swim in the Maryland LSC and we don’t typically volunteer at meets hosted by other clubs. For example we recently attended the NBAC Fastival and they never asked other any teams to volunteer for roles like timers or marshals.

This is more the normal. Marlins host a LOT of meets which I assumed was how they make more revenue for the owners. I am not sure what the fees happen to be for the swimmers but assumed they might be lower than other teams due to the volunteer requirements.

It just isn’t. This is not normal in PVS, and many posters have said this. We’ve all said that our experience is that families are expected to volunteer at their swimmers’ meets, even if not part of the host club.

Further, as someone astutely pointed out, the Winter Classic is running two courses simultaneously. Thats a lot of volunteers!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Fish team provides all volunteers for the meets it hosts.

I’ve volunteered at a Fish meet as a non-Fish parent. Our club sent the volunteer sign-up on their behalf, as happens with every meet. I’ve timed at meets in multiple states when we travel for meets. It’s a thing. Heck, I was at a UVA meet once - the best team in the country - and they asked for timers in the stands.

[Anonymous]

Agreed...finding parents willing to time in the stands constantly at meets hosted by various PVS clubs. Certainly not limited to Marlins. I'm constantly shocked by parents who have swimmers who never volunteer a single session and just sit in the stands. Especially when we run two pool simultaneously, we're desperate for bodies. More meets should charge for the stands so that parents would be incentivized to volunteer...

[Anonymous]

Here is the rule to live by. . . . Look at the order of events. If your kid is in the last event, one parent times. I’ve been doing this for years. My DH or I time more than half the meets our kids swim at, regardless of who is hosting. Then when there is a day they are done early in a session, I feel no guilt not volunteering.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here is the rule to live by. . . . Look at the order of events. If your kid is in the last event, one parent times. I’ve been doing this for years. My DH or I time more than half the meets our kids swim at, regardless of who is hosting. Then when there is a day they are done early in a session, I feel no guilt not volunteering.

+1, this is an excellent rule to live by as a swim parent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We swim in the Maryland LSC and we don’t typically volunteer at meets hosted by other clubs. For example we recently attended the NBAC Fastival and they never asked other any teams to volunteer for roles like timers or marshals.

This is more the normal. Marlins host a LOT of meets which I assumed was how they make more revenue for the owners. I am not sure what the fees happen to be for the swimmers but assumed they might be lower than other teams due to the volunteer requirements.

This is actually not the normal in PVS. We have never gone to a PVS meet that another club has hosted and not been expected to volunteer. I will say though we have attended meets hosted by a Maryland Swimming club and have not been asked to volunteer. At many PVS meets we are the largest group there and we are expected to provide more timers than any other club, including the host club. It’s just how things work in PVS. And honestly if you didn’t have clubs like the Marlins and Makos hosting less competitive December meets the kids that aren’t super fast wouldn’t have a winter champs meet to compete at, so maybe stop complaining about it. Volunteering is part of club swim, it is what it is.

OP here … I am not in PVS and I think the issue is we simply have different volunteer practices in our LSC as we rarely, if ever, volunteer at a swim meet someone else is hosting unless it’s a champ meet in St Mary’s. So asking for volunteers from other teams is unusual.

And for the record, I have a sectionals level swimmer who is well under the NCAP qualifying times. They would rather attend that meet but our club isn’t invited. So… we are stuck going to the Winter Classic with the “slow kids” instead!

[Anonymous]

I actually want to volunteer to time. However, my young swimmer’s (8 year old) events usually finish 2 hours before the meet ends. If they would offer more flexible timing, I would volunteer more. But I can’t rationalize having my child stay more than an hour after his last event. I look for events near the end of his session, but they are usually for the 9 and ups.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hmmm I’ve never attended a meet where this isn’t the case, Marlins or not. I’ve attended many meets over the year, hosted by different clubs, and some in different LSCs. They’ve all had the expectation that parents from other teams are volunteering at scale.

+1

I have never attended a meet where the host team provided all volunteers. Providing all volunteers would be tough for even the big clubs, I definitely can't imagine a smaller club doing this.

We belong to a small club and provide all the volunteers for home meets. We sign up in advance and it makes the meet run faster. Our last club was a huge one, and we also provided all the volunteers. And these were big meets, like 600 swimmers on average. That club had a hefty volunteer deposit (I think it was $1k), so we all scurried to get our hours in. Our current club doesn’t have a deposit and the parents are pretty good at filling all the slots.