Did Covid disrupt the parent volunteer pipeline

[Anonymous]

I think people volunteer less now, but I don't think Covid had anything to do with it. When my kids were young, we did a co-op preschool, where I was in the classroom sometimes. In ES, I was a PTA board member, ran an event every year, and managed various sports teams. Oh - and volunteered for seim team. As they got older, I did more with their outside of school activities, and at our church, but always volunteered, and always helped recruit additional volunteers terms.

Kids are in college now, but it got harder and harder to recruit volunteers as the kids got older. My parents both were lifelong volunteers, and I followed suit. I didn't see that in other friends and other families in our community. I chalked it up to more 2-parent working families, more single parent families, and more recently, to the "every man for himself" rather than the "it takes a village" attitude.

FWIW, I think giving back is important and continue to do so. I don't feel like a doormat (which is what is claimed here all the time), I feel like supporting others and helping others is what you're supposed to do for your fellow humans.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:the hiding in the cars thing is pathetic

It seems like something only a deeply burned out parent would do. One who is probably asked to do 10,000 “extra” things and the scoreboard is one too many (they probably need to take a work call or write five emails during the game). They got their kid to the game, that has to be enough.

Do you not think the person doing the asking also has work calls, five emails (some about the league!), and 10,000 extra things to do?

Volunteers don't magically have more bandwidth than everyone else. They just make room.

Magically? No. But they have time to volunteer and they have proactively decided to volunteer at that time.

The person you’re mad at not running the scoreboard? How do you know she didn’t just come from (volunteer) coaching swimming? How do you know the emails she needs to do during the game aren’t themselves volunteer work? If you choose to volunteer for soccer that’s great, you don’t get to choose it for everyone else.

OK, if you don't want to volunteer for soccer and the league is about to fold, then you can find a new soccer league I guess. These things don't magically run themselves and if nobody wants to help that's cool - it'll be pay-to-play on the pre-academy U6 team if you want to learn to dribble a soccer ball. Sorry if you can't afford that or didn't want your 5 year old at 2 practices a week. Nobody cared enough to keep rec going.

Ok, so you guilt the mom out of the car. She runs your scoreboard, and doesn’t do whatever she needed to do after coaching swimming. Now it’s next summer and she drops coaching swimming because she’s fried. That’s fine because at least there is soccer? Or is what she chose to use her time for as valuable as what you chose to use your time for— no summer swim team for your kid at your pool isn’t less of a tragedy than no Rec soccer.

Be real. The parents who hide outside or "on the phone" and then sneak in once the game has begun are NEVER the parent who also
runs the swim team. Its the same parents helping out with all the different sports and the same parents not helping out (some for legit reasons, some are just selfish and lazy).

It’s really insular to assume you know every activity her kid is in and that yours shares it. Ok maybe you swim at the same pool but do you do every other activity with every parent who isn’t score keeping for you?

Going into this with the presumption that nothing a parent is doing could POSSIBLY be as important as score keeping basketball is rude and entitled. Whatever they’re doing may benefit your kid— or not— but it’s not up to you to prioritize their time, especially if you’re not willing to say up front “each family needs to score keep for x games”

Everyone knows its the same parents who volunteer for multiple activities. You see the same parents helping out across multiple activities in your community. In pp's example, the same people ducking out on their swim team hours are the same people hiding in their car or pretending to be on the phone.

I don’t think “everyone knows” that at all. I think a lot of people make presumptions about other people’s time and efforts, often in an attempt to make themselves seem noble and self sacrificing. It is certainly true that there’s highly visible people repeat-volunteering in lots of areas. It’s also true that the person spending their time not score keeping at the basketball game may be doing something more consequential— and less visible— than you realize.

NP-Its not glamorous, or saving the world from terrorists, but its a drudge job that someone has to do for the activity to happen that people signed their kids up to do. Basketball is tough because its rec, so parents aren't super into the sport, and you need two parent volunteers per game. Each team has 7 kids show up. One on each team is the coach's kid and obviously, the coaches are busy coaching. That leaves 12 families from which to find 2 volunteers. But, someone chasing a toddler can't do it. Someone who doesn't speak a word of English can't do it. Two kids were dropped off with no parent in sight. etc. The pool of possible contributors get small quick.

[Anonymous]

If your attitude is that it's rude for *the volunteers running activities for your kids* to ask you to help out with execution of the activity, then don't sign your kid up for community activities like rec sports or Scouts. Those aren't activities for people like you.

Stick to pay-to-play activities run for profit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If your attitude is that it's rude for *the volunteers running activities for your kids* to ask you to help out with execution of the activity, then don't sign your kid up for community activities like rec sports or Scouts. Those aren't activities for people like you.

Stick to pay-to-play activities run for profit.

You’re still not answering why you don’t tell people explicitly at registration that this is a requirement. Perhaps you’d rather complain than solve this problem?

[Anonymous]

I think COVID did give parents a break from school and outside activities and they realized they didn't really miss some of the events and it was ok not as involved.

If any organization - PTA, sports, etc - has to beg parents and can't get any volunteers for certain events, then what happens is there is guilt, multiple emails, and finally someone saying ok i will do it this one last time. Instead the answer needs to be to drop the event and move on.

Other issues have been pointed out - asking for volunteers, getting there and standing around. If orgs want volunteers , they need to do better on understanding the actual need , and giving a concrete list of actions that the volunteer needs to do so they can show up and get started. Too often parents show up and no one knows what they even want them to do.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:90% of the child-related volunteer mental/emotional/physical labor is done by moms and the newer generation of moms are not into doing free labor that is being taken for granted and baked in to the school budgets. They no longer need or want that validation.

This is pretty true. The reason men aren't very involved in PTA is that it's very little tangible and financial reward for time spent. You have to see and value the intangible community-building aspect of it.

I was asked to step in and run a PTA craft fair fundraiser with six weeks notice. The financial return to the PTA was fairly equivalent to what the women leaders involved would have earned in hourly billings as freelance consultants, ad agency, graphic designers. We probably could have raised just as much money with a straight appeal for cash donations. I did the work because cancelling would have cost the PTA money. But I would rather have just donated. It cost me two days vacation and about a work week of personal time. Some people think craft fairs are a fun community activity. I don't. We are not doing it this year because nobody stepped up to kick it off. We will fundraise a different way or spend less. So we don't give out free snacks during exam week and tickets to the after-graduation event cost more. The world will keep turning. I do PTA so I can get in front of administrators about academic concerns.

At least you admitted it.

PP. There is absolutely nothing wrong with using PTA as a way to communicate with administrators. It costs $10 to join. The monthly meetings are open and the principals come to talk about the school and take questions. That's what I mean about "getting in front of administrators". I ask them my questions then, from the role of a member/board member.

I will further state that nobody likes complainers who contribute nothing. So I volunteer for PTA and do work so I'm not a do-nothing complainer. Because I complain a lot. I'll admit that volunteering gets me a little credibility but it's no giant conspiratorial benefit. I'd say as far as it goes is, they believe my concerns are valid. Instead of being skeptical. Most of the time they don't have the resources to act on my suggestions anyway. But at least they give more credence that there are issues.

Feel free to come to the PTA meeting and gain your own credibility by attending regularly and speaking up.

This makes me less likely to want to go to the PTA meeting where the blowhards and loudmouths get on their soapboxes about their pet issues.

PP. Examples of some of my pet issues included 1) a dysfunctional "district required" K-3 handwriting system that was scarcely taught but affecting various children's handwriting randomly (D'Nealian cursive), 2) ongoing bathroom maintenance problems including too many stalls out of commission, water on the floor, odors, etc., and 3) not having proper Spanish instruction (time or instructors) to support the fiction that the children were learning Spanish, etc. So, fine, I know many people don't want to hear about details like that. Because someone is supposed to be addressing those issues. But to me, those kind of issues really need to get fixed and if nobody notices, they get deprioritized. I'll take my opportunities where I can find them. People will make a million excuses not to take any action. I'm familiar. I'm also the only person on the PTA board who seems to care about the academic quality of the school or to have lived outside my state (not grown up as a local). Most of the board members are either doing it because "it's the right thing to do" without any clear vision (to let the school administrators know some parents care) or they want to run some of these social activities that many people here doubt are critical (exam snacks, senior all-night party, etc.).

It is sad when there is almost nobody who has a question or improvement suggestion at a school like mine that has middling SATs, middling state assessment results, and middling results at extracurriculars of all sorts. Last year we had a principal of only one year quit in October because she had an alcoholic flare-up that became detectable even to the kids. This year we have a brand new guy who is coming from a district that was in extreme financial trouble. Yet very few parents are interested in enough to question what is going on and give it a few hours of their time to monitor.

BTW, I'm not in DMV, so most likely, I'm not at your local meeting. So I won't be there to annoy you personally. Check yours out before you write it off. You should know more about the people who are in charge of a large fraction of your children's lives. A couple of hours a month is a good investment if your child's school is not meeting your expectations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:the hiding in the cars thing is pathetic

It seems like something only a deeply burned out parent would do. One who is probably asked to do 10,000 “extra” things and the scoreboard is one too many (they probably need to take a work call or write five emails during the game). They got their kid to the game, that has to be enough.

Do you not think the person doing the asking also has work calls, five emails (some about the league!), and 10,000 extra things to do?

Volunteers don't magically have more bandwidth than everyone else. They just make room.

Magically? No. But they have time to volunteer and they have proactively decided to volunteer at that time.

The person you’re mad at not running the scoreboard? How do you know she didn’t just come from (volunteer) coaching swimming? How do you know the emails she needs to do during the game aren’t themselves volunteer work? If you choose to volunteer for soccer that’s great, you don’t get to choose it for everyone else.

OK, if you don't want to volunteer for soccer and the league is about to fold, then you can find a new soccer league I guess. These things don't magically run themselves and if nobody wants to help that's cool - it'll be pay-to-play on the pre-academy U6 team if you want to learn to dribble a soccer ball. Sorry if you can't afford that or didn't want your 5 year old at 2 practices a week. Nobody cared enough to keep rec going.

Ok, so you guilt the mom out of the car. She runs your scoreboard, and doesn’t do whatever she needed to do after coaching swimming. Now it’s next summer and she drops coaching swimming because she’s fried. That’s fine because at least there is soccer? Or is what she chose to use her time for as valuable as what you chose to use your time for— no summer swim team for your kid at your pool isn’t less of a tragedy than no Rec soccer.

Be real. The parents who hide outside or "on the phone" and then sneak in once the game has begun are NEVER the parent who also
runs the swim team. Its the same parents helping out with all the different sports and the same parents not helping out (some for legit reasons, some are just selfish and lazy).

It’s really insular to assume you know every activity her kid is in and that yours shares it. Ok maybe you swim at the same pool but do you do every other activity with every parent who isn’t score keeping for you?

Going into this with the presumption that nothing a parent is doing could POSSIBLY be as important as score keeping basketball is rude and entitled. Whatever they’re doing may benefit your kid— or not— but it’s not up to you to prioritize their time, especially if you’re not willing to say up front “each family needs to score keep for x games”

Everyone knows its the same parents who volunteer for multiple activities. You see the same parents helping out across multiple activities in your community. In pp's example, the same people ducking out on their swim team hours are the same people hiding in their car or pretending to be on the phone.

Nope. My kid is in four activities: dance, swimming, tennis, and girl scouts. I volunteer for the first two and not the second two. I was a dancer growing up so that's a natural fit and volunteering for summer swim works well with my schedule. Kid is in a tennis rec league and I do nothing-- the volunteers who run it seem enthusiastic and I know nothing about tennis. I secretly dislike girl scouts and absolutely shirk volunteer duty there. Sorrynotsorry.

I volunteer some at school but am always having to beg off certain things. I want to do some things and not others. I find it annoying because no one cares that you volunteered for 8 hours for the fall festival if you don't raise your hand for the spring auction. So I do wind up being the parent avoiding eye contact during volunteer drives or dropping my kid off in the car in the morning the PTA is handing out flyers so they can't see me.

The "volunteer for everything" people assume everyone is either just like them or a slacker. No. It's that some of us have boundaries. You won't respect them so sometimes we hide from you because it's easier. I make zero apologies for this. Stop thinking you are entitled to my time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If your attitude is that it's rude for *the volunteers running activities for your kids* to ask you to help out with execution of the activity, then don't sign your kid up for community activities like rec sports or Scouts. Those aren't activities for people like you.

Stick to pay-to-play activities run for profit.

It's never rude to ask. Sometimes the answer is no. Can you live with that? If not make volunteering a requirement of the activity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:90% of the child-related volunteer mental/emotional/physical labor is done by moms and the newer generation of moms are not into doing free labor that is being taken for granted and baked in to the school budgets. They no longer need or want that validation.

This is pretty true. The reason men aren't very involved in PTA is that it's very little tangible and financial reward for time spent. You have to see and value the intangible community-building aspect of it.

I was asked to step in and run a PTA craft fair fundraiser with six weeks notice. The financial return to the PTA was fairly equivalent to what the women leaders involved would have earned in hourly billings as freelance consultants, ad agency, graphic designers. We probably could have raised just as much money with a straight appeal for cash donations. I did the work because cancelling would have cost the PTA money. But I would rather have just donated. It cost me two days vacation and about a work week of personal time. Some people think craft fairs are a fun community activity. I don't. We are not doing it this year because nobody stepped up to kick it off. We will fundraise a different way or spend less. So we don't give out free snacks during exam week and tickets to the after-graduation event cost more. The world will keep turning. I do PTA so I can get in front of administrators about academic concerns.

At least you admitted it.

PP. There is absolutely nothing wrong with using PTA as a way to communicate with administrators. It costs $10 to join. The monthly meetings are open and the principals come to talk about the school and take questions. That's what I mean about "getting in front of administrators". I ask them my questions then, from the role of a member/board member.

I will further state that nobody likes complainers who contribute nothing. So I volunteer for PTA and do work so I'm not a do-nothing complainer. Because I complain a lot. I'll admit that volunteering gets me a little credibility but it's no giant conspiratorial benefit. I'd say as far as it goes is, they believe my concerns are valid. Instead of being skeptical. Most of the time they don't have the resources to act on my suggestions anyway. But at least they give more credence that there are issues.

Feel free to come to the PTA meeting and gain your own credibility by attending regularly and speaking up.

This makes me less likely to want to go to the PTA meeting where the blowhards and loudmouths get on their soapboxes about their pet issues.

PP. Examples of some of my pet issues included 1) a dysfunctional "district required" K-3 handwriting system that was scarcely taught but affecting various children's handwriting randomly (D'Nealian cursive), 2) ongoing bathroom maintenance problems including too many stalls out of commission, water on the floor, odors, etc., and 3) not having proper Spanish instruction (time or instructors) to support the fiction that the children were learning Spanish, etc. So, fine, I know many people don't want to hear about details like that. Because someone is supposed to be addressing those issues. But to me, those kind of issues really need to get fixed and if nobody notices, they get deprioritized. I'll take my opportunities where I can find them. People will make a million excuses not to take any action. I'm familiar. I'm also the only person on the PTA board who seems to care about the academic quality of the school or to have lived outside my state (not grown up as a local). Most of the board members are either doing it because "it's the right thing to do" without any clear vision (to let the school administrators know some parents care) or they want to run some of these social activities that many people here doubt are critical (exam snacks, senior all-night party, etc.).

It is sad when there is almost nobody who has a question or improvement suggestion at a school like mine that has middling SATs, middling state assessment results, and middling results at extracurriculars of all sorts. Last year we had a principal of only one year quit in October because she had an alcoholic flare-up that became detectable even to the kids. This year we have a brand new guy who is coming from a district that was in extreme financial trouble. Yet very few parents are interested in enough to question what is going on and give it a few hours of their time to monitor.

BTW, I'm not in DMV, so most likely, I'm not at your local meeting. So I won't be there to annoy you personally. Check yours out before you write it off. You should know more about the people who are in charge of a large fraction of your children's lives. A couple of hours a month is a good investment if your child's school is not meeting your expectations.

I’ve been on the board and run many a committee. Ive done my tour of duty and I’m over it now. If you think the PTA you is the right place to gripe about your districts curriculum you’re going to turn a lot of people off. And no, the PTA has very little to do with my childrens’ lives. They run a few fundraisers and social events. We got to maybe a few of them and only support the fundraisers by writing checks that we agree with. Sometimes they want money for trees or gardens and we don’t care about that and sometimes they want new books which we will support. The PTA could disappear and i would barely notice. The teachers and admin have the biggest impact on kids lives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:the hiding in the cars thing is pathetic

It seems like something only a deeply burned out parent would do. One who is probably asked to do 10,000 “extra” things and the scoreboard is one too many (they probably need to take a work call or write five emails during the game). They got their kid to the game, that has to be enough.

Do you not think the person doing the asking also has work calls, five emails (some about the league!), and 10,000 extra things to do?

Volunteers don't magically have more bandwidth than everyone else. They just make room.

Magically? No. But they have time to volunteer and they have proactively decided to volunteer at that time.

The person you’re mad at not running the scoreboard? How do you know she didn’t just come from (volunteer) coaching swimming? How do you know the emails she needs to do during the game aren’t themselves volunteer work? If you choose to volunteer for soccer that’s great, you don’t get to choose it for everyone else.

OK, if you don't want to volunteer for soccer and the league is about to fold, then you can find a new soccer league I guess. These things don't magically run themselves and if nobody wants to help that's cool - it'll be pay-to-play on the pre-academy U6 team if you want to learn to dribble a soccer ball. Sorry if you can't afford that or didn't want your 5 year old at 2 practices a week. Nobody cared enough to keep rec going.

Ok, so you guilt the mom out of the car. She runs your scoreboard, and doesn’t do whatever she needed to do after coaching swimming. Now it’s next summer and she drops coaching swimming because she’s fried. That’s fine because at least there is soccer? Or is what she chose to use her time for as valuable as what you chose to use your time for— no summer swim team for your kid at your pool isn’t less of a tragedy than no Rec soccer.

Be real. The parents who hide outside or "on the phone" and then sneak in once the game has begun are NEVER the parent who also
runs the swim team. Its the same parents helping out with all the different sports and the same parents not helping out (some for legit reasons, some are just selfish and lazy).

It’s really insular to assume you know every activity her kid is in and that yours shares it. Ok maybe you swim at the same pool but do you do every other activity with every parent who isn’t score keeping for you?

Going into this with the presumption that nothing a parent is doing could POSSIBLY be as important as score keeping basketball is rude and entitled. Whatever they’re doing may benefit your kid— or not— but it’s not up to you to prioritize their time, especially if you’re not willing to say up front “each family needs to score keep for x games”

Everyone knows its the same parents who volunteer for multiple activities. You see the same parents helping out across multiple activities in your community. In pp's example, the same people ducking out on their swim team hours are the same people hiding in their car or pretending to be on the phone.

Nope. My kid is in four activities: dance, swimming, tennis, and girl scouts. I volunteer for the first two and not the second two. I was a dancer growing up so that's a natural fit and volunteering for summer swim works well with my schedule. Kid is in a tennis rec league and I do nothing-- the volunteers who run it seem enthusiastic and I know nothing about tennis. I secretly dislike girl scouts and absolutely shirk volunteer duty there. Sorrynotsorry.

I volunteer some at school but am always having to beg off certain things. I want to do some things and not others. I find it annoying because no one cares that you volunteered for 8 hours for the fall festival if you don't raise your hand for the spring auction. So I do wind up being the parent avoiding eye contact during volunteer drives or dropping my kid off in the car in the morning the PTA is handing out flyers so they can't see me.

The "volunteer for everything" people assume everyone is either just like them or a slacker. No. It's that some of us have boundaries. You won't respect them so sometimes we hide from you because it's easier. I make zero apologies for this. Stop thinking you are entitled to my time.

You do understand how entitled this is, right? These volunteers aren't "entitled" to your time, but your child and you are entitled to theirs.

You are right. Us volunteers should establish some boundaries and say, "sorry, Katie, we love having you in our Girl Scout Troop, but your mom won't help out, so we won't be inviting you back."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you can't run the clock or keep the book at one basketball game all season, don't sign your kid up for rec basketball. These are basic jobs someone needs to do for the game to happen, and your $85 fee does not cover hiring the jobs out.

Then *say* that at signup.

Say, parents who don’t have time to score keep or time keep at basketball games are not welcome to sign up their kids. We won’t sign them up. We aren’t doing it to upset you by not meeting your unmet expectations no, we do not have time to do unscheduled volunteer work when it best suits you.

This particular example is common sense, though. Anyone who has ever been to a basketball game knows there is a clock and fouls are tracked. Who exactly do you think will be doing these tasks for your 12 year old's game for $90 a season, if not you, the parents?

It’s really not though. Two of my kids’ activities are very explicit about the involvement required of the parents. We are expected as a family to volunteer x hours per year. It’s in the registration paperwork, crystal clear. If basketball requires this then they need to be explicit and send out signups throughout the season to make sure all games are adequately staffed. Making assumptions is what gets these leagues in trouble.

Who is creating all these signups and managing them? A volunteer who is already overloaded with all the other aspecrs of running a league.

No, the paid people who run the programs. it’s their job.

What paid people? No one is paid to run rec basketball leagues.

I didn’t say my examples were rec basketball. But if rec basketball can’t make it work by charging pennies and relying heavily on non existent volunteers then it doesn’t deserve to survive. People have more money than time and will pay for convenience of well run leagues that can hold a game without chasing people around to their cars.

And the families who can't pay or don't want a 3 day+ a week committment don't get to play basketball? Only the ones who can afford and want AAU? Fun.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From my informal poll from a support group I'm, the main reasons seem to be financial insecurity, depression, and exhaustion.

Some responses:

"I'm a hopin' and a prayin' that my bank account stays out of the negative"

"Getting out of bed and going to work takes up all of my energy."

"Some days I can't even get myself to brush my teeth."

"I'm barely working part-time, but I'm so exhausted from working that I'm literally in bed all day on my days off."

I imagine that for parents living paycheck to paycheck, time is money, and you're less likely to volunteer to do something for free. And if you can barely get yourself to work or brush your teeth, then you're not going to have the energy to volunteer for anything.

And these are parents that understand they are struggling and are trying to get help to get better.

I think kids, parents, teachers, and just people in general, are all stressed. I think there's a lot of undiagnosed severe depression and not enough support for those that are diagnosed. There's a ton of exhaustion. Definitely financial insecurity.

Too many people are at their limit. Jaded, pessimistic, defeated, frustrated and just trying to survive. Whether or not COVID is responsible or just exacerbated these issues, it's not really a surprise that no one wants to volunteer their time.

The ironic thing to me is that having purpose - and even though it's tiny maybe running the scoreboard at basketball can give you a little sense of purpose, a little piece of doing good in the world - is both a preventative against depression and a piece of a potential cure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you can't run the clock or keep the book at one basketball game all season, don't sign your kid up for rec basketball. These are basic jobs someone needs to do for the game to happen, and your $85 fee does not cover hiring the jobs out.

Then *say* that at signup.

Say, parents who don’t have time to score keep or time keep at basketball games are not welcome to sign up their kids. We won’t sign them up. We aren’t doing it to upset you by not meeting your unmet expectations no, we do not have time to do unscheduled volunteer work when it best suits you.

This particular example is common sense, though. Anyone who has ever been to a basketball game knows there is a clock and fouls are tracked. Who exactly do you think will be doing these tasks for your 12 year old's game for $90 a season, if not you, the parents?

It’s really not though. Two of my kids’ activities are very explicit about the involvement required of the parents. We are expected as a family to volunteer x hours per year. It’s in the registration paperwork, crystal clear. If basketball requires this then they need to be explicit and send out signups throughout the season to make sure all games are adequately staffed. Making assumptions is what gets these leagues in trouble.

Who is creating all these signups and managing them? A volunteer who is already overloaded with all the other aspecrs of running a league.

No, the paid people who run the programs. it’s their job.

What paid people? No one is paid to run rec basketball leagues.

I didn’t say my examples were rec basketball. But if rec basketball can’t make it work by charging pennies and relying heavily on non existent volunteers then it doesn’t deserve to survive. People have more money than time and will pay for convenience of well run leagues that can hold a game without chasing people around to their cars.

And the families who can't pay or don't want a 3 day+ a week committment don't get to play basketball? Only the ones who can afford and want AAU? Fun.

I guess not. If you’re running a charity then call it that and budget your time accordingly, but if those same parents won’t pitch in then nobody owes their kids basketball.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:the hiding in the cars thing is pathetic

It seems like something only a deeply burned out parent would do. One who is probably asked to do 10,000 “extra” things and the scoreboard is one too many (they probably need to take a work call or write five emails during the game). They got their kid to the game, that has to be enough.

Do you not think the person doing the asking also has work calls, five emails (some about the league!), and 10,000 extra things to do?

Volunteers don't magically have more bandwidth than everyone else. They just make room.

Magically? No. But they have time to volunteer and they have proactively decided to volunteer at that time.

The person you’re mad at not running the scoreboard? How do you know she didn’t just come from (volunteer) coaching swimming? How do you know the emails she needs to do during the game aren’t themselves volunteer work? If you choose to volunteer for soccer that’s great, you don’t get to choose it for everyone else.

OK, if you don't want to volunteer for soccer and the league is about to fold, then you can find a new soccer league I guess. These things don't magically run themselves and if nobody wants to help that's cool - it'll be pay-to-play on the pre-academy U6 team if you want to learn to dribble a soccer ball. Sorry if you can't afford that or didn't want your 5 year old at 2 practices a week. Nobody cared enough to keep rec going.

Ok, so you guilt the mom out of the car. She runs your scoreboard, and doesn’t do whatever she needed to do after coaching swimming. Now it’s next summer and she drops coaching swimming because she’s fried. That’s fine because at least there is soccer? Or is what she chose to use her time for as valuable as what you chose to use your time for— no summer swim team for your kid at your pool isn’t less of a tragedy than no Rec soccer.

Be real. The parents who hide outside or "on the phone" and then sneak in once the game has begun are NEVER the parent who also
runs the swim team. Its the same parents helping out with all the different sports and the same parents not helping out (some for legit reasons, some are just selfish and lazy).

It’s really insular to assume you know every activity her kid is in and that yours shares it. Ok maybe you swim at the same pool but do you do every other activity with every parent who isn’t score keeping for you?

Going into this with the presumption that nothing a parent is doing could POSSIBLY be as important as score keeping basketball is rude and entitled. Whatever they’re doing may benefit your kid— or not— but it’s not up to you to prioritize their time, especially if you’re not willing to say up front “each family needs to score keep for x games”

Everyone knows its the same parents who volunteer for multiple activities. You see the same parents helping out across multiple activities in your community. In pp's example, the same people ducking out on their swim team hours are the same people hiding in their car or pretending to be on the phone.

Nope. My kid is in four activities: dance, swimming, tennis, and girl scouts. I volunteer for the first two and not the second two. I was a dancer growing up so that's a natural fit and volunteering for summer swim works well with my schedule. Kid is in a tennis rec league and I do nothing-- the volunteers who run it seem enthusiastic and I know nothing about tennis. I secretly dislike girl scouts and absolutely shirk volunteer duty there. Sorrynotsorry.

I volunteer some at school but am always having to beg off certain things. I want to do some things and not others. I find it annoying because no one cares that you volunteered for 8 hours for the fall festival if you don't raise your hand for the spring auction. So I do wind up being the parent avoiding eye contact during volunteer drives or dropping my kid off in the car in the morning the PTA is handing out flyers so they can't see me.

The "volunteer for everything" people assume everyone is either just like them or a slacker. No. It's that some of us have boundaries. You won't respect them so sometimes we hide from you because it's easier. I make zero apologies for this. Stop thinking you are entitled to my time.

You do understand how entitled this is, right? These volunteers aren't "entitled" to your time, but your child and you are entitled to theirs.

You are right. Us volunteers should establish some boundaries and say, "sorry, Katie, we love having you in our Girl Scout Troop, but your mom won't help out, so we won't be inviting you back."

Obviously you deliver the message to the parents not Katie but why are you trying to avoid this? This is what needs to be done if people won’t pull their weight.

[Anonymous]

I thought parents were required to volunteer for Scouts.