PVS Champa not letting parents in

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a parent on deck Friday, I can attest it was the biggest single cluster that I have ever witnessed at a Champs event and PVS should be embarrassed by how it all went down. I witnessed one particular PVS official literally in glee saying how she proudly wasn’t letting any parents on the deck and was gloating how she was going to kick all parents out of the building. It was appalling. That particular official also started power tripping on deck with 800 parents, telling them they couldn’t leave and attempted to force them to time the whole session. I got her name and will be reporting her to the league. No official should act with that kind of complete contempt for parents who volunteer with timing constantly. The meet host was also way in over his head I’m in how to run a successful champs meet and it showed. Parents pay an exorbitant amount to these teams, volunteer around the clock, and work their tails off to get their kids to practices at all hours of the day. To rob them from watching their kids swim a finals champs race is downright wrong and PVS needs to find a better way.

How much are PVS officials paid?

They aren’t. I’m not working this meet, but as a PVS official I can assure you that we don’t get paid. We invest a lot of our time and money to help run PVS meets properly. Much of the equipment I’ve needed to properly pursue upper level certifications I have had to purchase out of my own pocket.

[Anonymous]

There was an official not working the finals session on Friday who was also kept out of the seating area despite the fact that they are working multiple other sessions of the meet. The way Friday was handled was appalling.

[Anonymous]

My understanding is that at Junior/Senior champs last week volunteers who had their bands were allowed entry into the seating area during finals even if they were still looking for timers. They need to institute something like this at all these large meets because otherwise you are punishing people who step up and volunteer along with those that don’t. The expectation isn’t that you have to volunteer at every session. They are short timers tomorrow for the 13-14 prelim session and after Friday I really just have no desire to do anything further to help out at this meet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My understanding is that at Junior/Senior champs last week volunteers who had their bands were allowed entry into the seating area during finals even if they were still looking for timers. They need to institute something like this at all these large meets because otherwise you are punishing people who step up and volunteer along with those that don’t. The expectation isn’t that you have to volunteer at every session. They are short timers tomorrow for the 13-14 prelim session and after Friday I really just have no desire to do anything further to help out at this meet.

No, that is not accurate. No one was allowed in at all for Jr/Sr champs finals and they were clearing the building making people wait outside in the heat. No exceptions for anyone who already had volunteered multiple sessions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My understanding is that at Junior/Senior champs last week volunteers who had their bands were allowed entry into the seating area during finals even if they were still looking for timers. They need to institute something like this at all these large meets because otherwise you are punishing people who step up and volunteer along with those that don’t. The expectation isn’t that you have to volunteer at every session. They are short timers tomorrow for the 13-14 prelim session and after Friday I really just have no desire to do anything further to help out at this meet.

I timed last weekend at Jr/Sr Champs. We had to return our “volunteer” badges at the end of the session. And we were not allowed into the spectator area of any session until they found enough timers. They kept us outside of the building in the heat. Not sure if coaches were timing or not at the beginning of sessions.

The “event” staff were hostile and rude last weekend too.

[Anonymous]

^PP again. And good luck the rest of the weekend, tempers/attitudes seemed to flare more and more as the weekend went on.

[Anonymous]

Yep this was my experience as well. Probably the worst I’ve had at UMD.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My understanding is that at Junior/Senior champs last week volunteers who had their bands were allowed entry into the seating area during finals even if they were still looking for timers. They need to institute something like this at all these large meets because otherwise you are punishing people who step up and volunteer along with those that don’t. The expectation isn’t that you have to volunteer at every session. They are short timers tomorrow for the 13-14 prelim session and after Friday I really just have no desire to do anything further to help out at this meet.

I timed last weekend at Jr/Sr Champs. We had to return our “volunteer” badges at the end of the session. And we were not allowed into the spectator area of any session until they found enough timers. They kept us outside of the building in the heat. Not sure if coaches were timing or not at the beginning of sessions.

The “event” staff were hostile and rude last weekend too.

[Anonymous]

Only a handful of larger PVS teams have a proven track record of hosting these Champs meet. It absolutely begins and ends with the host team and TOLL and Henry T. absolutely dropped the ball on Friday night. Hopefully PVS is taking note.

[Anonymous]

This is such a bizarre/arcane way of doing things!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Only a handful of larger PVS teams have a proven track record of hosting these Champs meet. It absolutely begins and ends with the host team and TOLL and Henry T. absolutely dropped the ball on Friday night. Hopefully PVS is taking note.

Last week's fiasco was OCCS, and the same thing happened at spring champs scy, which was NCAP.

[Anonymous]

The root cause is an insufficient number of parents willing to pull their weight. For every parent that had already timed a session and just wanted to spectate last night, there were probably at least two more that hadn’t, for no good reason (some have valid reasons). You can blame the host team, PVS, and/or UMD processes all you want, but that doesn’t change the number of volunteers required to run a swim meet. If all families felt the sense of accountability that some families feel, then they wouldn’t need to resort to these tactics. I’m really over the parents that show up at these multi-day meets and don’t volunteer a single session if they’re physically able to. You’re the problem. Why do you expect other families to do this on your behalf?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Only a handful of larger PVS teams have a proven track record of hosting these Champs meet. It absolutely begins and ends with the host team and TOLL and Henry T. absolutely dropped the ball on Friday night. Hopefully PVS is taking note.

Last week's fiasco was OCCS, and the same thing happened at spring champs scy, which was NCAP.

Agree-what sets this past Friday apart was the total chaos on deck caused by certain PVS officials going rogue and the host team clueless about how to handle the situation. One particular PVS official put the whole fiasco into motion in my opinion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a parent on deck Friday, I can attest it was the biggest single cluster that I have ever witnessed at a Champs event and PVS should be embarrassed by how it all went down. I witnessed one particular PVS official literally in glee saying how she proudly wasn’t letting any parents on the deck and was gloating how she was going to kick all parents out of the building. It was appalling. That particular official also started power tripping on deck with 800 parents, telling them they couldn’t leave and attempted to force them to time the whole session. I got her name and will be reporting her to the league. No official should act with that kind of complete contempt for parents who volunteer with timing constantly. The meet host was also way in over his head I’m in how to run a successful champs meet and it showed. Parents pay an exorbitant amount to these teams, volunteer around the clock, and work their tails off to get their kids to practices at all hours of the day. To rob them from watching their kids swim a finals champs race is downright wrong and PVS needs to find a better way.

WOW! This post here makes me sad for all our swimmers.

I too am a parent that pays “an exorbitant amount” to the teams, work my “tail off” to get my kids to practice at all hours of the day, and “volunteers around the clock.”

As an official for PVS who has volunteered my time for 100 PVS sessions this season alone, it’s disheartening to see this. Do I think that everyone should have to do what we as officials voluntarily do, not at all!

Many times official’s don’t have kids swimming in meets that we work at, or if we do, our swimmers wait and sit around so that we can help swimmer’s NOT OUR OWN get to swim.

When you say “rob them from watching their kid swim a finals champs” I have often thought, it’s really sad how hard the swimmers have worked to make it to finals for PVS to not be able to get 18 out of “800” parents to step up to help these kids swim. They’ve worked hard all season. They’ve warmed up. They’re ready to go, waiting behind the blocks, nervous and we can’t get 18 parents down to time. And if you have to stay to the end, well that’s awesome because you’ve helped other athletes accomplish something too and you’ve taught your swimmer that staying and cheering on teammates, or timing or sometimes having to sacrifice a little is a good thing for our community.

So instead of yelling at PVS, coaches, host teams, officials, how about you turn and yell at the multitude of parents who never volunteer instead and blame them the next time the swimmers, your children are standing behind the blocks while the rest of the deck is ready to go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The root cause is an insufficient number of parents willing to pull their weight. For every parent that had already timed a session and just wanted to spectate last night, there were probably at least two more that hadn’t, for no good reason (some have valid reasons). You can blame the host team, PVS, and/or UMD processes all you want, but that doesn’t change the number of volunteers required to run a swim meet. If all families felt the sense of accountability that some families feel, then they wouldn’t need to resort to these tactics. I’m really over the parents that show up at these multi-day meets and don’t volunteer a single session if they’re physically able to. You’re the problem. Why do you expect other families to do this on your behalf?

The problem is there were many parents on deck who had already timed previous sessions on Thursday and Friday and were treated very badly by a certain PVS official during the 800. Those parents are mostly your true champion volunteers and there was complete disregard for them Friday night.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a parent on deck Friday, I can attest it was the biggest single cluster that I have ever witnessed at a Champs event and PVS should be embarrassed by how it all went down. I witnessed one particular PVS official literally in glee saying how she proudly wasn’t letting any parents on the deck and was gloating how she was going to kick all parents out of the building. It was appalling. That particular official also started power tripping on deck with 800 parents, telling them they couldn’t leave and attempted to force them to time the whole session. I got her name and will be reporting her to the league. No official should act with that kind of complete contempt for parents who volunteer with timing constantly. The meet host was also way in over his head I’m in how to run a successful champs meet and it showed. Parents pay an exorbitant amount to these teams, volunteer around the clock, and work their tails off to get their kids to practices at all hours of the day. To rob them from watching their kids swim a finals champs race is downright wrong and PVS needs to find a better way.

You do realize those officials are volunteers themselves and are working non-stop during these marathon meets? When they’ve been on deck for hours on end, I’m sure they grow weary of parents chilling in the bleachers while they’re busting their a****. If I were them, and my volunteer shift kept getting extended because their parent peers wouldn’t step up, I’d probably act with “contempt” also.
In this sport, it’s not realistic that your timing shift will end when your kid is done swimming. It certainly doesn’t for the officials. (I’m not an official, but I’m aware enough to recognize that they are incredibly hard-working and the reason meets happen at all.)