NVSL: Any teams noticing drops in registrations?

[Anonymous]

Swimteam and summer pool are cheapest activities around if you are tightening your belt (esp. if you've already paid the membership and are just looking at summer fees). 2 income families have been dealing with summer swim team way before COVID when we were all in the office. I doubt RTO is having that big of an impact. Neighborhood demographics may be impacting swim team size just as much as the economy and RTO.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Swimteam and summer pool are cheapest activities around if you are tightening your belt (esp. if you've already paid the membership and are just looking at summer fees). 2 income families have been dealing with summer swim team way before COVID when we were all in the office. I doubt RTO is having that big of an impact. Neighborhood demographics may be impacting swim team size just as much as the economy and RTO.

It’s not about what families did 10 years ago. It’s about those families with kids age 12 and under that never had to deal with summer swim and working from the office.

And “when we were all in the office” isn’t even the same for everyone. There are many people that worked AWS (5/4/9) schedules, flexible hours (start early, leave early or start late, leave late), and had routine telework days going back 15 years. For many Feds, all of those are going away/ gone. So it’s actually far worse than before.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Swimteam and summer pool are cheapest activities around if you are tightening your belt (esp. if you've already paid the membership and are just looking at summer fees). 2 income families have been dealing with summer swim team way before COVID when we were all in the office. I doubt RTO is having that big of an impact. Neighborhood demographics may be impacting swim team size just as much as the economy and RTO.

It’s not about what families did 10 years ago. It’s about those families with kids age 12 and under that never had to deal with summer swim and working from the office.

And “when we were all in the office” isn’t even the same for everyone. There are many people that worked AWS (5/4/9) schedules, flexible hours (start early, leave early or start late, leave late), and had routine telework days going back 15 years. For many Feds, all of those are going away/ gone. So it’s actually far worse than before.

You are replying to someone that has 4 kids and was a swimteam mom for well over 20 years. You can convince yourself it is worse now, but, the reality is that for most dual income families that participate in swimteam carpools and summer babysitters (rather than camp) were the only way to make it happen.

[Anonymous]

For those of us less invested (I'm one), the added stress of RTO makes all the volunteering required for swim even more painful - especially at our low division NVSL pool with very few people and therefore very high volunteer requirements. My friends at high division pools volunteer at the snack shack for a single practice. I'm stuck with 3 meets per swimmer for the whole meet.

My kids are mediocre swimmers who like the social and food aspects of swim team. I don't mind our swim team in-crowd, but I'm not part of it.

The alternative is that my kids play a summer league of their regular sport or do something like classes. So much easier. So yeah, I'm forcing them to do that instead. I know they'll come around to the idea quickly and they'll still be moving, and I don't have to give up every Monday night and Saturday morning to figuring out if someone's backstroke flip turn was delayed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Swimteam and summer pool are cheapest activities around if you are tightening your belt (esp. if you've already paid the membership and are just looking at summer fees). 2 income families have been dealing with summer swim team way before COVID when we were all in the office. I doubt RTO is having that big of an impact. Neighborhood demographics may be impacting swim team size just as much as the economy and RTO.

It’s not about what families did 10 years ago. It’s about those families with kids age 12 and under that never had to deal with summer swim and working from the office.

And “when we were all in the office” isn’t even the same for everyone. There are many people that worked AWS (5/4/9) schedules, flexible hours (start early, leave early or start late, leave late), and had routine telework days going back 15 years. For many Feds, all of those are going away/ gone. So it’s actually far worse than before.

I do agree that some agencies are eliminating all flexibility and that is making it much harder. This summer is presenting a lot of unknowns for a lot of families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our swim team enrollment is about 50 less swimmers than last year. We’ve seen pool many families not renewing their membership across all age groups. Job uncertainty is coming into play. Many families are tightening up their spending in anticipation of job loss.

Or, issues at the pool. We are changing pools this year as we are tired of the drama, one family controls the pool and team and the coach is very basic. And, they don't have enough coaches.

I would love to change pools, there are two crazy families who have literally taken over all aspects of the swim team. Some of the most absurd behavior I’ve ever seen!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our swim team enrollment is about 50 less swimmers than last year. We’ve seen pool many families not renewing their membership across all age groups. Job uncertainty is coming into play. Many families are tightening up their spending in anticipation of job loss.

Or, issues at the pool. We are changing pools this year as we are tired of the drama, one family controls the pool and team and the coach is very basic. And, they don't have enough coaches.

I would love to change pools, there are two crazy families who have literally taken over all aspects of the swim team. Some of the most absurd behavior I’ve ever seen!

I am so curious what the crazy absurd behavior is and how families ‘take over’ a pool.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our swim team enrollment is about 50 less swimmers than last year. We’ve seen pool many families not renewing their membership across all age groups. Job uncertainty is coming into play. Many families are tightening up their spending in anticipation of job loss.

Or, issues at the pool. We are changing pools this year as we are tired of the drama, one family controls the pool and team and the coach is very basic. And, they don't have enough coaches.

I would love to change pools, there are two crazy families who have literally taken over all aspects of the swim team. Some of the most absurd behavior I’ve ever seen!

I am so curious what the crazy absurd behavior is and how families ‘take over’ a pool.

Agree. What are people doing??? So curious

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our swim team enrollment is about 50 less swimmers than last year. We’ve seen pool many families not renewing their membership across all age groups. Job uncertainty is coming into play. Many families are tightening up their spending in anticipation of job loss.

Or, issues at the pool. We are changing pools this year as we are tired of the drama, one family controls the pool and team and the coach is very basic. And, they don't have enough coaches.

I would love to change pools, there are two crazy families who have literally taken over all aspects of the swim team. Some of the most absurd behavior I’ve ever seen!

Explain. What are we talking about here? Taking over all aspects of the team? Like they are running everything and doing everything, because that seems amazing.

But then you say absurd behavior -- so reps fighting with the other team or being big babies with the NVSL (looking at you Tuckahoe) or what?

SPILL THE TEA!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know how our registrations are yet, but I have always thought our pool was not very accommodating for working parents (and I stay home). I try to help other families as much as I can, but feel like this summer is going to be really hard for a lot of families.

Practice schedules are “the way they always have been” rather than trying to allow for 10&u to get to summer camp by 9. Not to mention the crazy expectations for Monday and Wednesday afternoon meets.

I don’t know what the solution is, but maybe this is the year more teams will figure it out?

As someone who has always worked full time in the office with little flexibility and who is a swim team rep there really isn’t an easy solution. We struggled when our kids were little. We had summers where we had a sitter take kid to swim then to camp late. Then when we had 2 kids on swim we hired summer sitters.

So I get that it’s really tough for full time working parents. If we move younger kid practices earlier the SAH parents whine about having to get their kids out the door and to the pool by 7:30am and that still may be too early or even too late for working parents/kids headed to camp Afternoon practices are tricky because general pool members don’t want to lose pool space for swim team. Plus with B meets and dive meets they can’t happen every day. Kids also tend to be tired from long days at camp so they don’t get as much out of practice or even show up much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know how our registrations are yet, but I have always thought our pool was not very accommodating for working parents (and I stay home). I try to help other families as much as I can, but feel like this summer is going to be really hard for a lot of families.

Practice schedules are “the way they always have been” rather than trying to allow for 10&u to get to summer camp by 9. Not to mention the crazy expectations for Monday and Wednesday afternoon meets.

I don’t know what the solution is, but maybe this is the year more teams will figure it out?

As someone who has always worked full time in the office with little flexibility and who is a swim team rep there really isn’t an easy solution. We struggled when our kids were little. We had summers where we had a sitter take kid to swim then to camp late. Then when we had 2 kids on swim we hired summer sitters.

So I get that it’s really tough for full time working parents. If we move younger kid practices earlier the SAH parents whine about having to get their kids out the door and to the pool by 7:30am and that still may be too early or even too late for working parents/kids headed to camp Afternoon practices are tricky because general pool members don’t want to lose pool space for swim team. Plus with B meets and dive meets they can’t happen every day. Kids also tend to be tired from long days at camp so they don’t get as much out of practice or even show up much.

All of this. Unless your pool has an additional lap pool, pool space is limited. The general membership already tends to feel like swim team gets priority, with meet closures and after school practice, and they balk at additional lanes being taken up for practice when they want to be able to relax at the pool in the early evening.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know how our registrations are yet, but I have always thought our pool was not very accommodating for working parents (and I stay home). I try to help other families as much as I can, but feel like this summer is going to be really hard for a lot of families.

Practice schedules are “the way they always have been” rather than trying to allow for 10&u to get to summer camp by 9. Not to mention the crazy expectations for Monday and Wednesday afternoon meets.

I don’t know what the solution is, but maybe this is the year more teams will figure it out?

As someone who has always worked full time in the office with little flexibility and who is a swim team rep there really isn’t an easy solution. We struggled when our kids were little. We had summers where we had a sitter take kid to swim then to camp late. Then when we had 2 kids on swim we hired summer sitters.

So I get that it’s really tough for full time working parents. If we move younger kid practices earlier the SAH parents whine about having to get their kids out the door and to the pool by 7:30am and that still may be too early or even too late for working parents/kids headed to camp Afternoon practices are tricky because general pool members don’t want to lose pool space for swim team. Plus with B meets and dive meets they can’t happen every day. Kids also tend to be tired from long days at camp so they don’t get as much out of practice or even show up much.

All of this. Unless your pool has an additional lap pool, pool space is limited. The general membership already tends to feel like swim team gets priority, with meet closures and after school practice, and they balk at additional lanes being taken up for practice when they want to be able to relax at the pool in the early evening.

We're at pool with a separate lap pool and members still complain that the swim team uses the pool too much. It is a no win.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our swim team enrollment is about 50 less swimmers than last year. We’ve seen pool many families not renewing their membership across all age groups. Job uncertainty is coming into play. Many families are tightening up their spending in anticipation of job loss.

Or, issues at the pool. We are changing pools this year as we are tired of the drama, one family controls the pool and team and the coach is very basic. And, they don't have enough coaches.

I would love to change pools, there are two crazy families who have literally taken over all aspects of the swim team. Some of the most absurd behavior I’ve ever seen!

Explain. What are we talking about here? Taking over all aspects of the team? Like they are running everything and doing everything, because that seems amazing.

But then you say absurd behavior -- so reps fighting with the other team or being big babies with the NVSL (looking at you Tuckahoe) or what?

SPILL THE TEA!

LOL yes. If only two families could take over "do everything." My dream.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know how our registrations are yet, but I have always thought our pool was not very accommodating for working parents (and I stay home). I try to help other families as much as I can, but feel like this summer is going to be really hard for a lot of families.

Practice schedules are “the way they always have been” rather than trying to allow for 10&u to get to summer camp by 9. Not to mention the crazy expectations for Monday and Wednesday afternoon meets.

I don’t know what the solution is, but maybe this is the year more teams will figure it out?

As someone who has always worked full time in the office with little flexibility and who is a swim team rep there really isn’t an easy solution. We struggled when our kids were little. We had summers where we had a sitter take kid to swim then to camp late. Then when we had 2 kids on swim we hired summer sitters.

So I get that it’s really tough for full time working parents. If we move younger kid practices earlier the SAH parents whine about having to get their kids out the door and to the pool by 7:30am and that still may be too early or even too late for working parents/kids headed to camp Afternoon practices are tricky because general pool members don’t want to lose pool space for swim team. Plus with B meets and dive meets they can’t happen every day. Kids also tend to be tired from long days at camp so they don’t get as much out of practice or even show up much.

All of this. Unless your pool has an additional lap pool, pool space is limited. The general membership already tends to feel like swim team gets priority, with meet closures and after school practice, and they balk at additional lanes being taken up for practice when they want to be able to relax at the pool in the early evening.

We're at pool with a separate lap pool and members still complain that the swim team uses the pool too much. It is a no win.

I wrote the above about the challenges. We also have 2 pools and still get complaints. Lap swimmers get upset if we use the lap lanes and if we add additional lap lanes we need to close diving boards and that also gets complaints.

[Anonymous]

Yes - We are down 8-10%. Large pool with waitlist.