Reply to Team parent strategies for non-responsive parents

Forum Index » Sports General Discussion

Reply to "Team parent strategies for non-responsive parents"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]I only have a baby, so I'm totally out of this loop: Please excuse this naive question.

Is it made clear to every parent who signs a kid up for Little League that they are expected to volunteer? I could absolutely see myself signing my son up for Little League down the road, paying whatever fees are involved, and assuming that volunteering was completely optional, and that it would be no problem for me to not volunteer at all. And then, after not opting to volunteer, if I got a schedule of "volunteer" assignments (um, that's not volunteering?) and was told to just switch the day if it didn't work, I'd be frustrated and confused. To me, that's not volunteering - that's like a co-op.

Perhaps this IS made clear, that all parents are expected/required to do at least some minimal level of work, in which case, I rescind this whole comment. But I am a pretty busy person (as is, um, everyone) and I'm very careful to protect my downtime. So if this was expected, it would make me WAY less likely to sign my kid up for Little League. And if it's not made clear, I would really not appreciate the bait and switch.

Perhaps it's a role model thing - growing up, my parents were very "all or nothing" volunteers. They hosted girl scouts, or they did nothing. They were coach of the soccer team, or they did nothing. They were always quick to donate to stuff, but they generally did not volunteer for all these little jobs, a lot of which seem somewhat unnecessary (umm, five volunteers a game?? The team only has, what, 10-15 kids?) And I could see myself in the same role.

So, maybe I'm way off base here, as I have no direct experience with this, but it seems to me that the answer is to go back to the coach and say, "unfortunately, we only have three parents who have expressed any interest in volunteering, and they aren't available every game, so it looks like we'll only have 1 volunteer per game. What are the most important jobs that we need to fill? Perhaps one person could do field setup and score keeping each week, and that'll have to be enough." And then when you get his/her okay on that plan, you can send another email out to the team parents just saying "hey, because we are short on volunteers this season, we'll only be able to have field setup and score keeping during games and will not be able to do X, Y and Z. If you are interested in helping out so we can do more, let me know, there's definitely still time!" And then call it a day. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics