lack of volunteers

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No volunteer. No swim. Easy.

That's likely how it should be.

I remember one of my kid's football games. One Mom didn't want to hold the sticks. We couldn't start until someone got their butt down to the sidelines. We waited. People finally got sick of it. Other parents told her to get off her high horse, everyone had a turn. Don't want to do it? Don't register him next year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:why does it seem so hard to get anyone to volunteer to help these days?

is it a generational parent thing that parents w younger kids just assume someone else will do it?

it takes a village but it doesn’t seem to compute as the older parents look to pass the torch

Maybe because younger parents are drowning while older generations still act confused about why no one is lining up for unpaid labor. Many of us are working demanding jobs, managing two-income households, paying insane housing costs, and trying to actually spend what little free time we have with our kids.

The old model of endless parent volunteering was built in a different era with more stay-at-home parents, lower costs, and more free bandwidth. That world is gone.
So no, it is not that younger parents think "someone else will do it." It is that we do not have the time or margin to subsidize everything with free labor while being lectured by the generations that handed us this mess.
If it "takes a village," then maybe the village should adapt, fund help, streamline expectations, or compensate people instead of guilt-tripping exhausted families.

Personally, I am happy to pay a fee to have someone do the work properly. That is how the real world works. Nothing in life is free anymore, and pretending we still live in some carefree social experiment era is disconnected from reality.

You sound insufferable. The solution is don't sign up.

[Anonymous]

I belong to a pool that has a swim team.

My kids dont swim on the team.

These swim team parents can be nuts. There are women who get very invested in being swim team mom and make it their lives and want it to be everyone else's lives as well. I hear them talking at the pool and see requests for volunteers, etc. Someone even asked ME to volunteer once, and tried to make me feel guilty about saying no!! When I don't have a kid on the team!

Here's the thing. A lot of these "MUST" volunteer activities are BS. You don't need a snack bar. You don't need snacks. If you think your kid is going to be hungry, bring snacks for them. You don't need to make damn gift bags for a swim banquet. You don't need a crafts table. Furthermore, I see parents doing jobs teenagers could do. Why aren't the teenagers out stacking and unstacking the chairs, for example?

Parents need to streamline the volunteer duties down to the absolute necessities. Don't ask people to spend their time doing stupid BS like gift bags.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I belong to a pool that has a swim team.

My kids dont swim on the team.

These swim team parents can be nuts. There are women who get very invested in being swim team mom and make it their lives and want it to be everyone else's lives as well. I hear them talking at the pool and see requests for volunteers, etc. Someone even asked ME to volunteer once, and tried to make me feel guilty about saying no!! When I don't have a kid on the team!

Here's the thing. A lot of these "MUST" volunteer activities are BS. You don't need a snack bar. You don't need snacks. If you think your kid is going to be hungry, bring snacks for them. You don't need to make damn gift bags for a swim banquet. You don't need a crafts table. Furthermore, I see parents doing jobs teenagers could do. Why aren't the teenagers out stacking and unstacking the chairs, for example?

Parents need to streamline the volunteer duties down to the absolute necessities. Don't ask people to spend their time doing stupid BS like gift bags.

A crafts table? At a meet?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not signing my kids up for swim team - so saying I don't respect an activity that somehow needs 36 parent volunteers to run a swim meet -- that's just information in case you'd like to know -- you all sound crazy needing so many volunteers.

If the system doesn't work -- change it.

That’s the thing- this isn’t unique to swim. Every year our rec sports league is begging for parents to volunteer to coach. And that’s only 2 parents needed for a dozen kids or so.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our team sends a weekly spreadsheet to the entire team that includes each family’s volunteer hour requirement, the jobs they worked, along with the hours earned for each of those jobs.

If you fail to earn your required hours then the credit card you put on file during registration is automatically charged $500. If a second summer passes with you failing to volunteer, you are charged again and you can’t register your kid to swim the following summer.

This doesn't solve the problem of it being 5pm on a Monday and not having enough timers to start the meet.

If your kid isn’t swimming Saturday meets then time at time trials. Then the person that takes your kid to the meet can volunteer. If that’s an unpaid friend, then you or your spouse can take leave to get there on time. If that’s doesn’t work, no worries! There’s no requirement to do summer swim!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not signing my kids up for swim team - so saying I don't respect an activity that somehow needs 36 parent volunteers to run a swim meet -- that's just information in case you'd like to know -- you all sound crazy needing so many volunteers.

If the system doesn't work -- change it.

You are stupid and do not understand the sport. It takes many volunteers because it is a time based sport and there are a lot of competitors and a lot of moving parts. For example: If there are not people helping line the kids up for their heats, the meet would take 3x as long due to long pauses between heats while everyone waited for kids to get to their spots. If there were only one timer per lane, some kids wouldn’t get a result if the stopwatch were to malfunction. Having two timers (one from each team) also reduces potential bias. If there weren’t runners grabbing the time cards after each event and taking them to the results table, the timers would have to do it, thus leading to a delay before the next heat.

These are just a few examples. The number of volunteers is the reason the meets aren’t even longer. If your pea brain can’t grasp that, don’t sign up for swim team. Nobody wants you there with your attitude.

Maybe the move is to purchase electronic timers. Charge the parents and tell them they no longer have to volunteer.

This is funny.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I belong to a pool that has a swim team.

My kids dont swim on the team.

These swim team parents can be nuts. There are women who get very invested in being swim team mom and make it their lives and want it to be everyone else's lives as well. I hear them talking at the pool and see requests for volunteers, etc. Someone even asked ME to volunteer once, and tried to make me feel guilty about saying no!! When I don't have a kid on the team!

Here's the thing. A lot of these "MUST" volunteer activities are BS. You don't need a snack bar. You don't need snacks. If you think your kid is going to be hungry, bring snacks for them. You don't need to make damn gift bags for a swim banquet. You don't need a crafts table. Furthermore, I see parents doing jobs teenagers could do. Why aren't the teenagers out stacking and unstacking the chairs, for example?

Parents need to streamline the volunteer duties down to the absolute necessities. Don't ask people to spend their time doing stupid BS like gift bags.

A crafts table? At a meet?

You post this every year about the moms and the chairs and the snacks. You’re an expert on something in which you don’t participate and refuse to accept reasonable explanations from the people that do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not signing my kids up for swim team - so saying I don't respect an activity that somehow needs 36 parent volunteers to run a swim meet -- that's just information in case you'd like to know -- you all sound crazy needing so many volunteers.

If the system doesn't work -- change it.

You are stupid and do not understand the sport. It takes many volunteers because it is a time based sport and there are a lot of competitors and a lot of moving parts. For example: If there are not people helping line the kids up for their heats, the meet would take 3x as long due to long pauses between heats while everyone waited for kids to get to their spots. If there were only one timer per lane, some kids wouldn’t get a result if the stopwatch were to malfunction. Having two timers (one from each team) also reduces potential bias. If there weren’t runners grabbing the time cards after each event and taking them to the results table, the timers would have to do it, thus leading to a delay before the next heat.

These are just a few examples. The number of volunteers is the reason the meets aren’t even longer. If your pea brain can’t grasp that, don’t sign up for swim team. Nobody wants you there with your attitude.

Maybe the move is to purchase electronic timers. Charge the parents and tell them they no longer have to volunteer.

This is funny.

+1 the Olympics uses electronic timing and still has volunteer timers

[Anonymous]

and yet summer swim team is treated AS IF it were the Olympics. It's suppose to be fun, a fun neighborhood activity. Precise timing is not necessary

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I belong to a pool that has a swim team.

My kids dont swim on the team.

These swim team parents can be nuts. There are women who get very invested in being swim team mom and make it their lives and want it to be everyone else's lives as well. I hear them talking at the pool and see requests for volunteers, etc. Someone even asked ME to volunteer once, and tried to make me feel guilty about saying no!! When I don't have a kid on the team!

Here's the thing. A lot of these "MUST" volunteer activities are BS. You don't need a snack bar. You don't need snacks. If you think your kid is going to be hungry, bring snacks for them. You don't need to make damn gift bags for a swim banquet. You don't need a crafts table. Furthermore, I see parents doing jobs teenagers could do. Why aren't the teenagers out stacking and unstacking the chairs, for example?

Parents need to streamline the volunteer duties down to the absolute necessities. Don't ask people to spend their time doing stupid BS like gift bags.

People are going to hate on this because you don’t have a kid on the team, but you make legitimate points that maybe people in the thick of it can’t see. There are definitely extraneous volunteer positions, outside of deck positions at meets, that you can do without. The point about the set up and take down of meets being handled by teens is a legitimate one. For the people that want to pay to outsource their volunteer requirements it would be pretty easy to recruit teens to do some roles for pay (set up and take down of meets, timing at a meet they aren’t swimming in). One of the problems is people with the mindset of “it’s always been done this way so this is what we are doing” and an unwillingness to explore other ways of doing things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because my child is the swimmer. I am not. I have many other things to do.

So who do you suggest sets up a team, manages registration, sets a budget and collects fees, hires the coaches, does the timing, judging, data entry, and on and on? Summer swim teams aren’t businesses that are asking you to volunteer your time like some other sports leagues might be. Summer swim teams are facilitated and managed by volunteers, working parents just like you. You’re resenting other volunteers for asking you to volunteer. If no one volunteered, there would be no summer swim. If you’re uncomfortable with that model, then don’t participate or come up with a different solution and take ownership of implementing it. You can’t expect the existing volunteers to implement your proposed changes if your position is that people shouldn’t have to provide all this free labor to summer swim. Why is it okay for them to provide this free labor but not you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I belong to a pool that has a swim team.

My kids dont swim on the team.

These swim team parents can be nuts. There are women who get very invested in being swim team mom and make it their lives and want it to be everyone else's lives as well. I hear them talking at the pool and see requests for volunteers, etc. Someone even asked ME to volunteer once, and tried to make me feel guilty about saying no!! When I don't have a kid on the team!

Here's the thing. A lot of these "MUST" volunteer activities are BS. You don't need a snack bar. You don't need snacks. If you think your kid is going to be hungry, bring snacks for them. You don't need to make damn gift bags for a swim banquet. You don't need a crafts table. Furthermore, I see parents doing jobs teenagers could do. Why aren't the teenagers out stacking and unstacking the chairs, for example?

Parents need to streamline the volunteer duties down to the absolute necessities. Don't ask people to spend their time doing stupid BS like gift bags.

This.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I belong to a pool that has a swim team.

My kids dont swim on the team.

These swim team parents can be nuts. There are women who get very invested in being swim team mom and make it their lives and want it to be everyone else's lives as well. I hear them talking at the pool and see requests for volunteers, etc. Someone even asked ME to volunteer once, and tried to make me feel guilty about saying no!! When I don't have a kid on the team!

Here's the thing. A lot of these "MUST" volunteer activities are BS. You don't need a snack bar. You don't need snacks. If you think your kid is going to be hungry, bring snacks for them. You don't need to make damn gift bags for a swim banquet. You don't need a crafts table. Furthermore, I see parents doing jobs teenagers could do. Why aren't the teenagers out stacking and unstacking the chairs, for example?

Parents need to streamline the volunteer duties down to the absolute necessities. Don't ask people to spend their time doing stupid BS like gift bags.

People are going to hate on this because you don’t have a kid on the team, but you make legitimate points that maybe people in the thick of it can’t see. There are definitely extraneous volunteer positions, outside of deck positions at meets, that you can do without. The point about the set up and take down of meets being handled by teens is a legitimate one. For the people that want to pay to outsource their volunteer requirements it would be pretty easy to recruit teens to do some roles for pay (set up and take down of meets, timing at a meet they aren’t swimming in). One of the problems is people with the mindset of “it’s always been done this way so this is what we are doing” and an unwillingness to explore other ways of doing things.

Sure, but the people you’re asking to change their mindsets are also volunteers themselves. People complain about the excessive volunteering while also complaining that the volunteers in charge won’t do more volunteer work to change the system. See the irony?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not signing my kids up for swim team - so saying I don't respect an activity that somehow needs 36 parent volunteers to run a swim meet -- that's just information in case you'd like to know -- you all sound crazy needing so many volunteers.

If the system doesn't work -- change it.

That’s the thing- this isn’t unique to swim. Every year our rec sports league is begging for parents to volunteer to coach. And that’s only 2 parents needed for a dozen kids or so.

DP. Yes it is. You really can’t see the difference between needing 2 volunteers to coach a rec team or be team managers in other sports and the roughly 20-25 (or more) volunteers needed at EACH swim meet?? Another difference is that your kid won’t get kicked off the rec team if you don’t volunteer to coach, yet you are fine kicking kids off the swim team if their parents don’t volunteer. Should we presume that you are volunteering for every single sport and activity your kids do since you feel so strongly about it?

PP is right that all of you sound crazy advocating for a system that clearly isn’t working any longer. There have been suggestions on this thread about how to address this and every single one got shot down essentially because “that’s just not how it is.”