Reply to Are all teams so hard for teens to get volunteer hours?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Oh yeah and some of the paid coaches at our pool aren’t year round swimmers, but like PP said they’ve been plugged in for years and their parents pretty much run the pool.

I just wish I’d learned this up front instead of getting our hopes up. [/quote]

With all due respect, this is how life works in general right?  The people who show up and give their time are going to be plugged in and have built the community to get the perks and benefits.  You don't show up at the 11th hour and have that happen.  There are things for the kids that are 100 percent merit-based, but no a community and volunteer-driven activity is not going to be it.[/quote]

Obviously it’s fully reasonable and good to expect volunteering and commitment during participation, and we have been doing our part since we were able to join. But no, I don’t think having to be plugged into something for years, in this case more due to parents’ decisions, resources, and connections is “how life works in general”, and where that might be true in some places, I don’t see that as positive in this day and age that is supposed to be more inclusive.  That is why this is all new to me.

[/quote]
I mean swimming is all run by parent volunteers, who do you think has a responsibility to make it "inclusive" for you? We are a do the bare minimum volunteer family, but I don't begrudge the more connected parents whose kids have an "in".  Those parents spend a TON of time making swim team happen - you can hardly expect them to invest all that time in order to give your kids the prime opportunities? [/quote]

[b]Maybe what I begrudge is the pretense that it is anything different. [/b]It is not my kids’ fault that we didn’t have the resources to make this happen when they were younger. But I can’t think of any other activity we ever joined where we saw kids effectively shut out from meaningful volunteer opportunities their peers were able to participate in. Perhaps that’s partly the nature of the activity but it feels toxic here on the outside.[/quote]
I don’t understand what “pretense” you mean? Was this represented to you differently when you joined? [/quote]

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