Summer swim if work in office

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they don’t offer it, you need to push your team to have later afternoon practices for pre-team/full team as an option. Carpooling, too, and you do pick up if that’s still too early. There are ways to do it, and summer swim was great fun for our kids.

This would be a nonstarter at many/most pools. They aren’t going to shut down the pool to general membership at the busiest time of day.

Why would you have to shut down the pool? Is it that tiny? We have a separate lap pool so, yes, laps are restricted on weekday afternoons. Our pool leadership are smart enough to recognize that keeping their many, many working families happy and contributing to swim team is more important than catering to the relatively small number of adults who want to swim laps in the late afternoon. They can do laps during early bird, anytime between 10am and 4pm, and then from 6 - 10pm. I swim laps myself, so I understand wanting to do so, but these adults don't get priority over everyone else, all the time.

That is awesome that you all have a separte lap pool. Most NVSL pools do not. They have one pool and some don't even have separate diving wells. Our pool used to do evening practices (we just have one pool) but stopped a few years back for a number of reasons. Our pool membership increased and in the evenings and afternoon working parents would bring their kids to play. The swim team was taking up a LOT of the pool by putting out lap lanes. Meanwhile attendance was spotty in the evening and erratic. The coaches had a hard time getting kids to focus when they would see other kids playing (their friends). Over the years we noticed that the evening practice kids did not do as well/perform as well. They were getting compressed practices, oftentimes with kids of varying levels, it was distracting to have the general membership there, etc.

The pool is not just the swim team's pool. There are a lot of demographics that use the pool. There is swim, lessons, masters, families with young kids, etc. We have a large team but having a large membership means we have 2/3 of the general membership having kids that are not on the team and want to use the pool. So it was a disservice to take that time from them (in addition to Saturday home meets and Monday nights).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they don’t offer it, you need to push your team to have later afternoon practices for pre-team/full team as an option. Carpooling, too, and you do pick up if that’s still too early. There are ways to do it, and summer swim was great fun for our kids.

This would be a nonstarter at many/most pools. They aren’t going to shut down the pool to general membership at the busiest time of day.

It’s a smaller group that needs the evening session and you can get by with using a few lanes. Our pool is big so using a few lanes a few nights a week is NBD. But it would depend on the pool size.

Evening practice times are also really good for struggling pools to increase their membership, since it does give working (in the office) parents the ability to let their kids be on a summer swim team.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they don’t offer it, you need to push your team to have later afternoon practices for pre-team/full team as an option. Carpooling, too, and you do pick up if that’s still too early. There are ways to do it, and summer swim was great fun for our kids.

This would be a nonstarter at many/most pools. They aren’t going to shut down the pool to general membership at the busiest time of day.

Why would you have to shut down the pool? Is it that tiny? We have a separate lap pool so, yes, laps are restricted on weekday afternoons. Our pool leadership are smart enough to recognize that keeping their many, many working families happy and contributing to swim team is more important than catering to the relatively small number of adults who want to swim laps in the late afternoon. They can do laps during early bird, anytime between 10am and 4pm, and then from 6 - 10pm. I swim laps myself, so I understand wanting to do so, but these adults don't get priority over everyone else, all the time.

That is awesome that you all have a separte lap pool. Most NVSL pools do not. They have one pool and some don't even have separate diving wells. Our pool used to do evening practices (we just have one pool) but stopped a few years back for a number of reasons. Our pool membership increased and in the evenings and afternoon working parents would bring their kids to play. The swim team was taking up a LOT of the pool by putting out lap lanes. Meanwhile attendance was spotty in the evening and erratic. The coaches had a hard time getting kids to focus when they would see other kids playing (their friends). Over the years we noticed that the evening practice kids did not do as well/perform as well. They were getting compressed practices, oftentimes with kids of varying levels, it was distracting to have the general membership there, etc.

The pool is not just the swim team's pool. There are a lot of demographics that use the pool. There is swim, lessons, masters, families with young kids, etc. We have a large team but having a large membership means we have 2/3 of the general membership having kids that are not on the team and want to use the pool. So it was a disservice to take that time from them (in addition to Saturday home meets and Monday nights).

Okay? Your experience isn't universal. Plenty of pools either have separate lap pools or recognize the importance of late afternoon swim practice for their overall membership. If they don't serve families, that's a major demographic they're missing. It's not about being solely the swim team's pool, it's about looking big picture.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they don’t offer it, you need to push your team to have later afternoon practices for pre-team/full team as an option. Carpooling, too, and you do pick up if that’s still too early. There are ways to do it, and summer swim was great fun for our kids.

This would be a nonstarter at many/most pools. They aren’t going to shut down the pool to general membership at the busiest time of day.

Also, teams really love it when a parent they've never met before comes in and demands that everything change to accommodate them. LOVE it!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At ours other parents who are SAH help. After practice they help get the child to wherever you have them placed while you are at work.

Don’t rely on this. Driving another kid daily is something I would only do for my kid’s closest friends. And even then, the kid has to be well behaved abd not make the drive annoying. Adding kids — even good kids — can create a bad car dynamic. Plus driving kids to camp easily adds an hour of work when you just want to be home getting lunch ready.

The tone of this post and the disregard for the imposition that this puts in SAH parents really bothered me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Summer swim is discriminatory to working parents.

Agreed. Full day camp is discriminatory to SAH parents. We should cancel both.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they don’t offer it, you need to push your team to have later afternoon practices for pre-team/full team as an option. Carpooling, too, and you do pick up if that’s still too early. There are ways to do it, and summer swim was great fun for our kids.

This would be a nonstarter at many/most pools. They aren’t going to shut down the pool to general membership at the busiest time of day.

Also, teams really love it when a parent they've never met before comes in and demands that everything change to accommodate them. LOVE it!

We’ve picked up a lot of A meet swimmers from ones who went their toes in my evening program to start. You don’t know what you’re missing. Make the interested parents do the work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they don’t offer it, you need to push your team to have later afternoon practices for pre-team/full team as an option. Carpooling, too, and you do pick up if that’s still too early. There are ways to do it, and summer swim was great fun for our kids.

This would be a nonstarter at many/most pools. They aren’t going to shut down the pool to general membership at the busiest time of day.

Also, teams really love it when a parent they've never met before comes in and demands that everything change to accommodate them. LOVE it!

We’ve picked up a lot of A meet swimmers from ones who went their toes in my evening program to start. You don’t know what you’re missing. Make the interested parents do the work.

That has nothing to do with the posts you quoted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they don’t offer it, you need to push your team to have later afternoon practices for pre-team/full team as an option. Carpooling, too, and you do pick up if that’s still too early. There are ways to do it, and summer swim was great fun for our kids.

This would be a nonstarter at many/most pools. They aren’t going to shut down the pool to general membership at the busiest time of day.

Also, teams really love it when a parent they've never met before comes in and demands that everything change to accommodate them. LOVE it!

If you think pretending working families don't exist is a winning strategy, I... don't know what to say to you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they don’t offer it, you need to push your team to have later afternoon practices for pre-team/full team as an option. Carpooling, too, and you do pick up if that’s still too early. There are ways to do it, and summer swim was great fun for our kids.

This would be a nonstarter at many/most pools. They aren’t going to shut down the pool to general membership at the busiest time of day.

Why would you have to shut down the pool? Is it that tiny? We have a separate lap pool so, yes, laps are restricted on weekday afternoons. Our pool leadership are smart enough to recognize that keeping their many, many working families happy and contributing to swim team is more important than catering to the relatively small number of adults who want to swim laps in the late afternoon. They can do laps during early bird, anytime between 10am and 4pm, and then from 6 - 10pm. I swim laps myself, so I understand wanting to do so, but these adults don't get priority over everyone else, all the time.

That is awesome that you all have a separte lap pool. Most NVSL pools do not. They have one pool and some don't even have separate diving wells. Our pool used to do evening practices (we just have one pool) but stopped a few years back for a number of reasons. Our pool membership increased and in the evenings and afternoon working parents would bring their kids to play. The swim team was taking up a LOT of the pool by putting out lap lanes. Meanwhile attendance was spotty in the evening and erratic. The coaches had a hard time getting kids to focus when they would see other kids playing (their friends). Over the years we noticed that the evening practice kids did not do as well/perform as well. They were getting compressed practices, oftentimes with kids of varying levels, it was distracting to have the general membership there, etc.

The pool is not just the swim team's pool. There are a lot of demographics that use the pool. There is swim, lessons, masters, families with young kids, etc. We have a large team but having a large membership means we have 2/3 of the general membership having kids that are not on the team and want to use the pool. So it was a disservice to take that time from them (in addition to Saturday home meets and Monday nights).

Okay? Your experience isn't universal. Plenty of pools either have separate lap pools or recognize the importance of late afternoon swim practice for their overall membership. If they don't serve families, that's a major demographic they're missing. It's not about being solely the swim team's pool, it's about looking big picture.

I think that we just got a lap pool perspective and a one pool perspective here. Am I missing something?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they don’t offer it, you need to push your team to have later afternoon practices for pre-team/full team as an option. Carpooling, too, and you do pick up if that’s still too early. There are ways to do it, and summer swim was great fun for our kids.

This would be a nonstarter at many/most pools. They aren’t going to shut down the pool to general membership at the busiest time of day.

Also, teams really love it when a parent they've never met before comes in and demands that everything change to accommodate them. LOVE it!

Happens EVERY. SINGLE. YEAR.

(We have had parents ask to have practice times changed, not to have B meets on certain dates, change the order of divisionals, etc all to meet thier own families needs)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they don’t offer it, you need to push your team to have later afternoon practices for pre-team/full team as an option. Carpooling, too, and you do pick up if that’s still too early. There are ways to do it, and summer swim was great fun for our kids.

This would be a nonstarter at many/most pools. They aren’t going to shut down the pool to general membership at the busiest time of day.

It’s a smaller group that needs the evening session and you can get by with using a few lanes. Our pool is big so using a few lanes a few nights a week is NBD. But it would depend on the pool size.

Question. Are your coaches now coaching both morning and evening? That is a lot of hours. Or do your head coaches only do morning. That would be a tremendous cost to do both.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they don’t offer it, you need to push your team to have later afternoon practices for pre-team/full team as an option. Carpooling, too, and you do pick up if that’s still too early. There are ways to do it, and summer swim was great fun for our kids.

This would be a nonstarter at many/most pools. They aren’t going to shut down the pool to general membership at the busiest time of day.

Also, teams really love it when a parent they've never met before comes in and demands that everything change to accommodate them. LOVE it!

We’ve picked up a lot of A meet swimmers from ones who went their toes in my evening program to start. You don’t know what you’re missing. Make the interested parents do the work.

When our pool dropped evening pratices we hired a sitter to take them to mornings. I cannot imagine my kids wanting to ever switch from their summer team. They are completely loyal to it. I would imagine new parents will have to weigh evening vs. morning practices and joining a pool/team.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they don’t offer it, you need to push your team to have later afternoon practices for pre-team/full team as an option. Carpooling, too, and you do pick up if that’s still too early. There are ways to do it, and summer swim was great fun for our kids.

This would be a nonstarter at many/most pools. They aren’t going to shut down the pool to general membership at the busiest time of day.

It’s a smaller group that needs the evening session and you can get by with using a few lanes. Our pool is big so using a few lanes a few nights a week is NBD. But it would depend on the pool size.

Question. Are your coaches now coaching both morning and evening? That is a lot of hours. Or do your head coaches only do morning. That would be a tremendous cost to do both.

Yeah. I can’t imagine a coach wanting to take this on. Morning and evening practice every weekday? Then weekend meets? It sounds like they would need to hire extra people and it wouldn’t be cost effective except for the largest of teams.

I think working parents need to let some stuff go. There’s so much FOMO that you’re trying to make something intended to fill unused morning pool time into an evening activity. Accept that you can’t participate in every activity that SAH can facilitate and move on. Find a camp with daily swimming. It’s the same thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they don’t offer it, you need to push your team to have later afternoon practices for pre-team/full team as an option. Carpooling, too, and you do pick up if that’s still too early. There are ways to do it, and summer swim was great fun for our kids.

This would be a nonstarter at many/most pools. They aren’t going to shut down the pool to general membership at the busiest time of day.

It’s a smaller group that needs the evening session and you can get by with using a few lanes. Our pool is big so using a few lanes a few nights a week is NBD. But it would depend on the pool size.

Question. Are your coaches now coaching both morning and evening? That is a lot of hours. Or do your head coaches only do morning. That would be a tremendous cost to do both.

I wanted to ask the same thing. Coaches would be working 4-5 hours in the morning before the pool opens and then come back and work 5 to 8 pm? We have two head coaches and six lane coaches in the morning. I can't imagine being able to afford an evening cadre as well without doubling our fees. Even as it stands now we have to do a LOT of fundraising to pay our coaches.