Reply to what does your summer team do to recruit officials?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This is not a problem unique to swimming.  It's the always the same small set of parents that are the Boy Scout leaders, Girl Scout leaders, soccer coaches, basketball coaches, baseball coaches, swim officials, etc, etc.[/quote]

What’s stopping you from becoming one of them? Oh right, you don’t actually want to put in the time and work, you just want to complain that they don’t bow and scrape when you show up to do your few required volunteer hours.[/quote]

We've offered multiple times and told no.  The rep asks for specific volunteers to do things and then when you offer you get ignored or told no.  They just want to complain. Our rep does the absolute minimum and it’s really frustrating as several of us are willing to help or take over.  They self elect every year and don't give anyone the option.[/quote]
Ive seen reps have to exercise discretion in who can be an official. This is a critical job and sometimes meet behavior and/or reliability may indicate someone may not be an optimal choice, at least not yet. Our team often solicits people directly for these roles vs. letting people elect to be an official. I’m not saying this applies to you, but there are some swim parents that shouldn’t be officials and they’re not entitled to be. As others have said, these are leadership positions on deck. [/quote]

PP here. Other than parents who cannot put aside partisanship, I do not agree with this.

A similar situation developed in USA swimming that eventually led to the National organization creating new standards, known as R9.

Under R9, basically it is the job of LSCs to identify officials in need of more mentoring and support and give it to them. This applies to all officials including those already certified. It is a continuing education model.

For officials who are working towards certification it is not sufficient to deem someone not ready for advancement. The evaluator must identify gaps and provide a plan of action for the student to improve.[/quote]
As written, you’re talking about retaining existing officials. I’m talking about parents that aren’t yet officials. I’ve seen parents that self-nominate as officials that flaked on other volunteer commitments, broke rules while serving as volunteers, etc. The advice that they should get certified and demand to fill officials roles or nothing else is flawed in my opinion. They are not entitled to officials roles until they’ve demonstrated that they’re reliable and willing to follow the rules. Especially in the absence of the latter, they have no business serving in a role where the primary purpose is to enforce rules.
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Maybe they are flaking out because the reps assign them undesirable bs jobs.
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