Freeloading swim team parents suck

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I volunteer and coach three other teams in another sport where the parents to jack all to help out, so go ahead and judge me if I don't volunteer to help out the swim team. Eat glass while you're judging me, while you're at it.

Way to spread yourself too thin thin. No one wants to pick up your slack when you do that. It’s not all about you and your kids.

Take another bit of glass.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don't have time to read through 19 pages of this nonsense but I judge the volunteer nazis like OP who deliberately try to make people feel bad. Same person who gets into a tizzy when the volunteers' shirt isn't 100% white cotton or if someone makes a mistake when filling out those unnecessary ribbons. SMD, OP.

Riddle me this, how is a single parent with one kid swimming and two others who aren't because they aren't old enough or don't want to but aren't old enough to be at home by themselves supposed to volunteer for 5 effing swim meets, plus all of the other stupid events such as needing volunteers for tie-dying shirts, or for pancake breakfasts or for the rootbeer floats. It's so much bullshine.

Perhaps at registration allow folks to opt out from volunteering for an additionl $50-$100. Then you could hire the additional help needed to do the meets.

For B meets, why not just one or two timers? It's not important at all and if little Johnny is going to swim in 8 meets he doesn't need 24 different time samples for each stroke to figure out if he's good enough for all stars or whatever else.

All of this has been covered in this thread you didn’t read.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I volunteer and coach three other teams in another sport where the parents to jack all to help out, so go ahead and judge me if I don't volunteer to help out the swim team. Eat glass while you're judging me, while you're at it.

Way to spread yourself too thin thin. No one wants to pick up your slack when you do that. It’s not all about you and your kids.

Take another bit of glass.

PP here, I also forgot to mention I still had to volunteer one year even when my kids did zero meets. Enjoy pinning your pancake breakfast volunteer participation ribbon to your white shirt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't have time to read through 19 pages of this nonsense but I judge the volunteer nazis like OP who deliberately try to make people feel bad. Same person who gets into a tizzy when the volunteers' shirt isn't 100% white cotton or if someone makes a mistake when filling out those unnecessary ribbons. SMD, OP.

Riddle me this, how is a single parent with one kid swimming and two others who aren't because they aren't old enough or don't want to but aren't old enough to be at home by themselves supposed to volunteer for 5 effing swim meets, plus all of the other stupid events such as needing volunteers for tie-dying shirts, or for pancake breakfasts or for the rootbeer floats. It's so much bullshine.

Perhaps at registration allow folks to opt out from volunteering for an additionl $50-$100. Then you could hire the additional help needed to do the meets.

For B meets, why not just one or two timers? It's not important at all and if little Johnny is going to swim in 8 meets he doesn't need 24 different time samples for each stroke to figure out if he's good enough for all stars or whatever else.

That’s a really easy riddle. You don’t sign your kid up for swim team if you can’t fulfill your volunteer duties. Swim team is optional, remember?

Someone way upthread said exactly this about themselves- their kids do not swim because they can't or won't fulfill their volunteer duties...and she/he got jumped on for that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I volunteer and coach three other teams in another sport where the parents to jack all to help out, so go ahead and judge me if I don't volunteer to help out the swim team. Eat glass while you're judging me, while you're at it.

Would it be helpful to you if parents volunteered on those other teams? Why do you think they don’t volunteer? Are you unhappy that they do jack to help out so there is more work for you?

Hmmm.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I volunteer and coach three other teams in another sport where the parents to jack all to help out, so go ahead and judge me if I don't volunteer to help out the swim team. Eat glass while you're judging me, while you're at it.

Would it be helpful to you if parents volunteered on those other teams? Why do you think they don’t volunteer? Are you unhappy that they do jack to help out so there is more work for you?

Hmmm.

I don't want their help on those teams. I just need them to time the swim meets.

[Anonymous]

Martyrs, get your martyrs here.

[Anonymous]

I think teams need to have more visibility with volunteering both in terms of all the types of jobs and how many volunteer hours it takes to run swim team and the social events, as well as, visibility on who is volunteering. Track hours and make it visible.

I think it is easy to look at who it openly volunteering in visible positions and wonder why so and so never volunteers, when in reality some folks might be doing lot behind the scenes that you don't see (social chair, website management, awards night). Not saying there aren't free loaders, there certainly are but there are also a lot of jobs.

I know on our volunteer sign up you only see spots for marshals, timers and clerk of course. You don't see the spots that require special training (Starter, Ref, RTO, stroke and turn) or the spots that the same people automatically do every week (data entry, awards, head timer, announcer, runner).

I also think work/jobs are a huge excuse. Lots of parents work and still volunteer. We have many duel income families on our team where both parents volunteer a ton. My husband works stroke and turn at every meet and I often volunteer to time. And just because another parent may not work a full-time job doesn't mean it is their duty to give your kid a great summer swim experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think teams need to have more visibility with volunteering both in terms of all the types of jobs and how many volunteer hours it takes to run swim team and the social events, as well as, visibility on who is volunteering. Track hours and make it visible.

I think it is easy to look at who it openly volunteering in visible positions and wonder why so and so never volunteers, when in reality some folks might be doing lot behind the scenes that you don't see (social chair, website management, awards night). Not saying there aren't free loaders, there certainly are but there are also a lot of jobs.

I know on our volunteer sign up you only see spots for marshals, timers and clerk of course. You don't see the spots that require special training (Starter, Ref, RTO, stroke and turn) or the spots that the same people automatically do every week (data entry, awards, head timer, announcer, runner).

I also think work/jobs are a huge excuse. Lots of parents work and still volunteer. We have many duel income families on our team where both parents volunteer a ton. My husband works stroke and turn at every meet and I often volunteer to time. And just because another parent may not work a full-time job doesn't mean it is their duty to give your kid a great summer swim experience.

They would much rather hire summer teens to do those job, that’s the point. Just because your family has excess leisure time, many working parents don’t. I’ll bet most of those “working parents” you are citing have one spouse part time, which is a totally different thing. Or their youngest kid is 12.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't have time to read through 19 pages of this nonsense but I judge the volunteer nazis like OP who deliberately try to make people feel bad. Same person who gets into a tizzy when the volunteers' shirt isn't 100% white cotton or if someone makes a mistake when filling out those unnecessary ribbons. SMD, OP.

Riddle me this, how is a single parent with one kid swimming and two others who aren't because they aren't old enough or don't want to but aren't old enough to be at home by themselves supposed to volunteer for 5 effing swim meets, plus all of the other stupid events such as needing volunteers for tie-dying shirts, or for pancake breakfasts or for the rootbeer floats. It's so much bullshine.

Perhaps at registration allow folks to opt out from volunteering for an additionl $50-$100. Then you could hire the additional help needed to do the meets.

For B meets, why not just one or two timers? It's not important at all and if little Johnny is going to swim in 8 meets he doesn't need 24 different time samples for each stroke to figure out if he's good enough for all stars or whatever else.

That’s a really easy riddle. You don’t sign your kid up for swim team if you can’t fulfill your volunteer duties. Swim team is optional, remember?

Someone way upthread said exactly this about themselves- their kids do not swim because they can't or won't fulfill their volunteer duties...and she/he got jumped on for that.

Not quite.
She got jumped on because of her bratty comment on superiority. In fact I believe one poster even said she did the right thing by not signing up if she didn’t want to volunteer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think teams need to have more visibility with volunteering both in terms of all the types of jobs and how many volunteer hours it takes to run swim team and the social events, as well as, visibility on who is volunteering. Track hours and make it visible.

I think it is easy to look at who it openly volunteering in visible positions and wonder why so and so never volunteers, when in reality some folks might be doing lot behind the scenes that you don't see (social chair, website management, awards night). Not saying there aren't free loaders, there certainly are but there are also a lot of jobs.

I know on our volunteer sign up you only see spots for marshals, timers and clerk of course. You don't see the spots that require special training (Starter, Ref, RTO, stroke and turn) or the spots that the same people automatically do every week (data entry, awards, head timer, announcer, runner).

I also think work/jobs are a huge excuse. Lots of parents work and still volunteer. We have many duel income families on our team where both parents volunteer a ton. My husband works stroke and turn at every meet and I often volunteer to time. And just because another parent may not work a full-time job doesn't mean it is their duty to give your kid a great summer swim experience.

They would much rather hire summer teens to do those job, that’s the point. Just because your family has excess leisure time, many working parents don’t. I’ll bet most of those “working parents” you are citing have one spouse part time, which is a totally different thing. Or their youngest kid is 12.

There are not minimum wage workers available for a couple hours at a time. Just hiring people isn’t quite that easy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We don’t have “pre team” but our swim team is almost 200 kids and yes, there are some 5 year olds. What a weird thing to fixate on. To make swim team, you have to be able to swim 25 m freestyle.

+1
Timed a three year old in freestyle once - she was amazing. There are definitely some five year olds who are legal.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I don't really understand the focus on timers. Timing swim meets was one of the more enjoyable things I did to support my child's sports. You get to sit down, chat with other parents and every few minutes stand up and push a button. Plus you get to see excited kids pop out of the pool. I actually only timed a few meets a year because I normally worked the hated Clerk of the Course. I even enjoyed that because the vast majority of the kids were a lot of fun.

I'm glad it was enjoyable for you. When I started timing, I had a 5 year old swimmer, a toddler who loved nothing more than to run headfirst towards the pool, and a first responder husband who worked shift work.

So, I'd go to B meet, because my kid still needed help, and then pay for childcare so I could go time other people's kids at the A meet. I would happily have taken that money and given it to someone to time for me or to be used for touch pads or something else.

This makes no sense. If your kid isn't swimming in an A Meet, you don't have to volunteer. There are also other ways to volunteer and not be on the pool deck.

Our team requires B meet parents to volunteer, so if I couldn't volunteer at a B meet, because I had two little kids with me, then I had to volunteer at A. What's hard to understand about that?

There is no reason that a 5 year old needs to be participating in a swim meet. That child should be on pre-team where there is only 1 inter squad meet. That’s your bad for putting a 5 year old on the actual swim team.

At our pool, coaches make that decision, not parents.

That’s ludicrous. Our swim team is extremely large and very welcoming of swimmers of all abilities, and there is not a single 5 year old on the team. I also find it hard to believe that the coach would force you to place a 5 year old on the team vs pre-team. My DD was ok’d to join the team when she was 7, but she didn’t want to, and they didn’t say you can’t do the pre-team anymore, you must be in the full team. Come on, no 5 year old is that special.

You do realize that other teams and other parents may do things differently than you do. You do realize this?

Most 5 year olds are not swimming a full legal stroke.

+1, find me a 5 year old that legally does the breaststroke or butterfly. Your 5 year old isn’t Katie ledecky, hate to break it to you

There are barely any rules for freestyle - just don’t touch the bottom or lane ropes.
Not sure why you’d pick the two hardest strokes. You only need to be legal in one to be in a meet.

[Anonymous]

This may be my favorite thread of all time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Superior beings,
If you don't want kids with non-volunteer parents on your swim team, then make it SUPER CLEAR that enrollment is limited to parent volunteer families only. Drop kids whose parent doesn't occupy a volunteer role in the first A or B meet.

I feel like the leagues are shaming me because I can only volunteer part-time. I can't volunteer for every B meet during the season. I can't commit to judge training, like stroke and turn. But I do what I can with the time I have available.

Teams absolutely make it super clear. And give numerous chances to back out. People know and just don’t care. Takers gonna take.

My kid wants to swim, so I sign him up. I have other kids that play other sports, I have elderly parents that I’m the caretaker for, and I have a job. So I don’t volunteer. I offer to write a check for whatever, but I’m not denying my son an opportunity to swim because his grandparents are dying or I have to work. If it comes back to bite me, as previous posters have threatened, than that’s fine with me.

What exactly are we paying for with swim team sign up fees anyway? It’s not cheap. My other son plays little league, and for the $125 sign up fee they get a uniform, paid umpires, and an end of year party budget. For swim team I buy the swimsuits, volunteers run everything, and concession sales pay for social events.

You’re one of the people OP is talking to then.
Swim team is absolutely cheap considering that pools are expensive and it’s a daily activity.
I had a deployed husband and six kids and still could find a way to volunteer. Everybody has a lot going on.