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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I belong to a pool that has a swim team.

My kids dont swim on the team.

These swim team parents can be nuts. There are women who get very invested in being swim team mom and make it their lives and want it to be everyone else's lives as well. I hear them talking at the pool and see requests for volunteers, etc. Someone even asked ME to volunteer once, and tried to make me feel guilty about saying no!! When I don't have a kid on the team!

Here's the thing. A lot of these "MUST" volunteer activities are BS. You don't need a snack bar. You don't need snacks. If you think your kid is going to be hungry, bring snacks for them. You don't need to make damn gift bags for a swim banquet. You don't need a crafts table. Furthermore, I see parents doing jobs teenagers could do. Why aren't the teenagers out stacking and unstacking the chairs, for example?

Parents need to streamline the volunteer duties down to the absolute necessities. Don't ask people to spend their time doing stupid BS like gift bags.[/quote]
People are going to hate on this because you don’t have a kid on the team, but you make legitimate points that maybe people in the thick of it can’t see. There are definitely extraneous volunteer positions, outside of deck positions at meets, that you can do without. The point about the set up and take down of meets being handled by teens is a legitimate one. For the people that want to pay to outsource their volunteer requirements it would be pretty easy to recruit teens to do some roles for pay (set up and take down of meets, timing at a meet they aren’t swimming in). One of the problems is people with the mindset of “it’s always been done this way so this is what we are doing” and an unwillingness to explore other ways of doing things. [/quote]

Our teens do set-up and take down for free, lol.  They are awesome, and very helpful.  Of course, they learned that from watching their parents pitch in and help too.

We don't have a ton of teens who aren't swimming in meets- I'm sure that's different on bigger teams, but it would mean people alternating timing while jumping back and forth to clerk of course.  Not impossible, but a logistical nightmare (and at least for A meets, everyone is trying to finish to get the pool open).  We do have teens time for B meets, but if this were a paid position, it would be expensive fast.  3 hours X $10 X 3 people X 6 lanes = $500/meet.  Not insurmountable, but is it worth it?  I'm not sure.

I think the people who don't volunteer don't realize that it's the best way to become a part of the (very welcoming) community.  That's the beauty of summer swim!  It is a community in a way that most other rec sports are not.  We spend a lot of time together in the summer- and even if I don't love all the people, it is wonderful to have that sense of connection.

I don't really care if other people think it's all crazy, (I always say summer swim is kind of like a cult) but complaining about having to volunteer while still signing up your kid is pretty obnoxious.  Either get on board, help to make things better or quit[/quote]
I didn’t mean the pool should pay the teens to do things like time at meets they aren’t swimming in or do set up and take down for meets, the parents that want to buy their way out of volunteering can sign up for one of those slots and then pay one of the teens directly to do it for them. My teen would 100% time some B meets for a little cash. Have a sign up genius slot for teens willing to fill a volunteer slot for money and let the parents who want to pay a kid to fill their volunteer slot get a teen off the list to do that for them. [/quote]

As part of the team, why does your teen need to get paid to volunteer?  They can volunteer if they want to.  To be paid, my teen gets $19 an hour as a lifeguard.  Whose going to pay that to a teen for the 3-4 hours for a meet?  You and your teen are selfish if you expect them to be paid.  That's not the point of team.  If they want to get paid, they can coach.[/quote]

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