NVSL: Any teams noticing drops in registrations?

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05/07/2025 20:43

Subject: NVSL: Any teams noticing drops in registrations?

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Anonymous

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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.

What the general membership doesn't understand is that many families wouldn't bother to join the pool if their kids weren't on the swim team. Without the swim families, many pools would not have the money to operate. As for relaxing in the early evening at the pool, do they complain about sharing the roads with commuters, waiting in line at the grocery store, etc...? Pools are open all day during the summer. Lap swimmers could get up in the morning and swim before it gets too hot.

But they can't because the pool is being used by swim and dive practice... unless they don't work and can come at

I think this also really depends on the pool. Not everyone joins for swim team. Some pools have a HUGE swim team culture where everyone is on the team and some do not. Our swim team is made up of about 180 kids, from 110 families. That is only 20-25% of the overall pool membership.

The lap swimmers I ever see are few - I can count maybe a half dozen regulars at our pool. Half of them don’t really need a dedicated lane - they could just float or walk in place elsewhere.

This is such an obnoxious perspective- I'm hoping that the clock of anonymity is making you feel free in a way that you would not actually voice. Our pool doesn't have an evening practice option- there are some families lobbying for it because of RTO. I don't think it is going to happen. I'm part of a pool with a pretty big swim team and a long multi year waitlist. The pool is doing great, the swim team may be down a few kids, but it's not a significant drop. The elderly lap swimmers that you reference are valued members of our pool. They are mostly long term members, they pay their dues, and tend to use the pool at off peak hours. The lap lanes are used in the after work hours by a variety of working members. They bring their kids to the pool after work, maybe have dinner there, and swim some laps. Why should they have to stop doing this to accommodate a few families desire for evening swim practice? The swim team already gets to close the pool Monday evenings/ Saturday mornings and dominate the pool for several weeks after school before school gets out.