Freeloading swim team parents suck

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And at our pool, everyone swims B meets, there are no B relays, and the A meet kids get a ton of extra attention at practice.

Same, and only the A kids do the relay carnivals etc.
The A swimmers get much more than the B kids at our pool.

But it’s so inexpensive…I mean, can you really be mad about 8 weeks of 5 day per week swim lessons for less than $200?

Well, you also pay in volunteer time. So it’s $200 + 30 hours. The A meet kids get a lot more then the B meet kids. That’s just a fact at our pool.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And at our pool, everyone swims B meets, there are no B relays, and the A meet kids get a ton of extra attention at practice.

Same, and only the A kids do the relay carnivals etc.
The A swimmers get much more than the B kids at our pool.

But it’s so inexpensive…I mean, can you really be mad about 8 weeks of 5 day per week swim lessons for less than $200?

Well, you also pay in volunteer time. So it’s $200 + 30 hours. The A meet kids get a lot more then the B meet kids. That’s just a fact at our pool.

It depends on the pool. Coaches focus on the kids who cannot swim well at our pool and the A meet kids are usually the year round and they get ignored.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am jealous of the moms who are friends with the volunteer head who get first crack at volunteering. They always grab the short social slots while the other parents run meets.

Talk to the organizer. At ours you can express preference but are assigned a job and the job rotates per meet except if you are certified in a specific position.

[Anonymous]

Nothing of substance to add except that as a B meet parent volunteering next week, I’m now worried that I’m going to blurt out “B meet Barlo” during the meet. Thanks for the laugh, PP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am jealous of the moms who are friends with the volunteer head who get first crack at volunteering. They always grab the short social slots while the other parents run meets.

Our reality is quite different. At ours the registration for volunteers opens up at the same time for everyone. The swim rep asks parents she knows well (a.k.a. friends or people who already volunteer a lot way beyond what's required so she knows them well) not to sign up in the beginning and fill in for the undesirable jobs that are left over. So basically we get calls or emails at the last minute every week pulling us in for whatever no one else wanted to do that week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is incorrect that A meet swimmers get twice the number of meets B meet swimmers do? It is incorrect that A meet swimmers get to attend the extra special relay meets? It is incorrect that A meet swimmers can get more attention from coaches?

This is all true at our pool.

I didn’t realize there were pools where A meet swimmers weren’t allowed to swim in B meets. Our B meets are for everybody. But very few kids get to swim in the A meets.

I just counted our swimmers in the a meet for today. We have 71 kids going.

[Anonymous]

Perhaps some of your experiences are league or pool dependent.

We don’t have A or B swimmers. Some swimmers flip between both as they may be strong at free (top 6 swimmers) and back (top 3) and may be seed 4th/5th in fly and breast (top three swim at A meets). A swimmer may not swim any event in a B meet that they swam in an A meet of that week. That said, some teams are smaller or have empty lanes at a B meet so a person who swam at the A meet can swim in the B meet as exhibition- not for points or place.

There is an A relay carnival and a B relay carnival for anyone who didn’t swim at the A relay. A relay carnival takes the fastest times. On the same scope we have a popsicle meet for our younger swimmers that may not be ready for a full meet.

The ONLY meet that doesn’t necessarily have a “B” version is divisionals which takes the top two swimmers in each event (although sometimes they move down to the third or fourth seeded bc you can only swim 3 individual events.)

The swimmers that get the most attention tend to be the newer swimmers, both on preteam and our regular team. There are more coaches working with those swimmers, in fact there is at most 3-4 swimmers/junior coach. More experienced swimmers, many that are club swimmers get minimal attention and some are encouraged to attend club practices in lieu of summer team practice.

Back to volunteering… my guess is OP is commenting on the parents sitting around the pool, doing absolutely nothing while the reps send multiple emails begging for volunteers each week. We know there are parents who struggle-there are plenty of options for every concern. OP is addressing parents who are fully capable, don’t have young children to chase around, and still do nothing. And no they aren’t helping elsewhere. At our pool, the reps send a weekly email with a list of who has volunteered, with each activity listed, along with how many points they have. There are meets my spouse and I both end up working because no one steps up. Yes, my spouse and I both work demanding jobs, and yes I have an 8 & under swimmer with special needs who we hope is being watched by older junior coaches so he doesn’t miss his event.

The fact is summer swim is an intense five weeks. It is chaotic, crazy, time consuming but it is fun so we make it work. But a reminder to other swim parents, you need to step up and volunteer to make it happen or perhaps refrain from signing up your children. This is not something you can write a check for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is incorrect that A meet swimmers get twice the number of meets B meet swimmers do? It is incorrect that A meet swimmers get to attend the extra special relay meets? It is incorrect that A meet swimmers can get more attention from coaches?

This is all true at our pool.

I didn’t realize there were pools where A meet swimmers weren’t allowed to swim in B meets. Our B meets are for everybody. But very few kids get to swim in the A meets.

I just counted our swimmers in the a meet for today. We have 71 kids going.

Our team has over 200 kids.

[Anonymous]

71 in an A meet sounds really high to me but I’m too lazy to count. We are NVSL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:71 in an A meet sounds really high to me but I’m too lazy to count. We are NVSL.

It’s accurate. Remember, a swimmer sometimes swims in one event only.

—former swim team rep. NVSL

[Anonymous]

We have 70 swimmers in today’s A meet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:71 in an A meet sounds really high to me but I’m too lazy to count. We are NVSL.

I’m the 71 number poster. It’s NVSL a top 5 division.

[Anonymous]

71 kids out of over 200 isn’t that many. Many of the kids on our team will never swim in an A meet. I agree that the A
meet kids get a lot more out of summer swim then the B meet
kids—twice as many meets, just for starters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

My bratty comment about superiority was because you people are horrible. If I knew that a family didn’t have their kid participate in a sport I was heavily involved in because they couldn’t figure out the volunteer requirement, I would feel terrible. I would NEVER want a kid to be excluded because both parents work night shifts and grandma couldn’t manage being a meet timer. This whole thread is disgusting, tit for tat, judgmental martyrs.

People are giving you ways to volunteer that you can manage, but it’s clear you don’t want to and would rather name call.
You can hire someone to time for you. You can ask the rep what jobs you could do at other times - like Costco shopping, picking up concessions, planning pancake breakfasts. If you communicate with the reps in a mature manner - I’ve never seen anyone be anything other than gracious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:71 kids out of over 200 isn’t that many. Many of the kids on our team will never swim in an A meet. I agree that the A
meet kids get a lot more out of summer swim then the B meet
kids—twice as many meets, just for starters.

That’s discounting the fact that several times some kids will swim in one or more A meets. It isn’t the same exact kids every time.