Anonymous
Post 11/20/2024 21:01     Subject: Why don’t Potomac Marlins staff their own meets?
We swim in the Maryland LSC and we don’t typically volunteer at meets hosted by other clubs. For example we recently attended the NBAC Fastival and they never asked other any teams to volunteer for roles like timers or marshals.
Anonymous
Post 11/20/2024 20:48     Subject: Re:Why don’t Potomac Marlins staff their own meets?
Only marlins swimmers require a volunteer from each attending family. Sounds like your coach copied and pasted something or just got the info wrong.
Anonymous
Post 11/20/2024 20:32     Subject: Re:Why don’t Potomac Marlins staff their own meets?
Anonymous wrote:We just attended the Marlins meet at UMD and they were desperate for volunteers to time - so much so that one of our coaches had to text parents in the stands to BEG them to come down and time on Saturday. Do they not have a Volunteer Coordinator for their own team that is responsible for filling volunteer positions? I understand asking other teams to fill some spots, but it seems like they rely on other teams to fill ALL of their spots. Aren't there like 700 swimmers in their club?


Are you new to club swimming?

This happens at almost every meet run by pretty much any club.

And yes, other clubs who swim at a meet are expected to fill a lot of the volunteer rolls. That is the norm.
Anonymous
Post 11/20/2024 18:47     Subject: Re:Why don’t Potomac Marlins staff their own meets?
Anonymous wrote:I’ve been involved in the swimming community for 20 years and I’ve never not attended a swim meet as a swimmer whether hosted by my team or not that didn’t require parents from several teams to volunteer. Volunteer lists are dictated by how many swimmers a team has in the meet. Swimming is a sport that requires lots of volunteers timing, running, we also need officials and Marshalls for safety. For the winter classic specifically many Marlin parents work several sessions at the meet, as is required of them to do and there are still positions that need to be filled. Again for the winter classic you are running 10 sessions in 2 pools at once.

Parents also sign up to volunteer and bail. Doesn’t help! Swimming is a community and it requires volunteers to function at the highest level even, so I think it’s reasonable to ask parents to time one session out of 10 for their swimmer to be able to participate in a meet.

Well said!!
Anonymous
Post 11/20/2024 18:44     Subject: Re:Why don’t Potomac Marlins staff their own meets?
I’ve been involved in the swimming community for 20 years and I’ve never not attended a swim meet as a swimmer whether hosted by my team or not that didn’t require parents from several teams to volunteer. Volunteer lists are dictated by how many swimmers a team has in the meet. Swimming is a sport that requires lots of volunteers timing, running, we also need officials and Marshalls for safety. For the winter classic specifically many Marlin parents work several sessions at the meet, as is required of them to do and there are still positions that need to be filled. Again for the winter classic you are running 10 sessions in 2 pools at once.

Parents also sign up to volunteer and bail. Doesn’t help! Swimming is a community and it requires volunteers to function at the highest level even, so I think it’s reasonable to ask parents to time one session out of 10 for their swimmer to be able to participate in a meet.
Anonymous
Post 11/20/2024 17:19     Subject: Re:Why don’t Potomac Marlins staff their own meets?
I think some parents who signed up to work that meet just bailed. I was timing and in the timer briefing, the starters called out names of people who were not there.

Anonymous wrote:We just attended the Marlins meet at UMD and they were desperate for volunteers to time - so much so that one of our coaches had to text parents in the stands to BEG them to come down and time on Saturday. Do they not have a Volunteer Coordinator for their own team that is responsible for filling volunteer positions? I understand asking other teams to fill some spots, but it seems like they rely on other teams to fill ALL of their spots. Aren't there like 700 swimmers in their club?
Anonymous
Post 11/20/2024 17:17     Subject: Why don’t Potomac Marlins staff their own meets?
I’m a Marlins parent and I can tell you for the Winter Classic they have told us we need to volunteer for at least one session that weekend. For what it’s worth the sign up has not yet been sent out to us, I found it on the website today so I signed up but many parents don’t seek out information. I guarantee you will see a lot of Marlins parents working that meet.
Anonymous
Post 11/20/2024 13:32     Subject: Why don’t Potomac Marlins staff their own meets?
Anonymous wrote:Hmmm I’ve never attended a meet where this isn’t the case, Marlins or not. I’ve attended many meets over the year, hosted by different clubs, and some in different LSCs. They’ve all had the expectation that parents from other teams are volunteering at scale.


+1

I have never attended a meet where the host team provided all volunteers. Providing all volunteers would be tough for even the big clubs, I definitely can't imagine a smaller club doing this.
Anonymous
Post 11/20/2024 12:58     Subject: Why don’t Potomac Marlins staff their own meets?
Anonymous wrote:Every meet needs volunteers from all clubs attending the meet. The host team usually has extra volunteer slots for things like hospitality, food prep/pick-up, etc. in terms of timers, the best way to manage this is to designate how many timers per club are needed based on how many swimmers they have participating and then when the meet is short timers the onus is on the club that is short timers to get it together or their coaches have to time. My swimmer is with a large NCAP site and we usually have more volunteer slots than other sites/clubs and our parents are awesome about filling the slots, but it is annoying when they come begging us to fill slots when we have already filled ours and another club hasn’t met their much smaller quota. And usually that club is not a small club either.


+1
Anonymous
Post 11/20/2024 12:39     Subject: Why don’t Potomac Marlins staff their own meets?
Every meet needs volunteers from all clubs attending the meet. The host team usually has extra volunteer slots for things like hospitality, food prep/pick-up, etc. in terms of timers, the best way to manage this is to designate how many timers per club are needed based on how many swimmers they have participating and then when the meet is short timers the onus is on the club that is short timers to get it together or their coaches have to time. My swimmer is with a large NCAP site and we usually have more volunteer slots than other sites/clubs and our parents are awesome about filling the slots, but it is annoying when they come begging us to fill slots when we have already filled ours and another club hasn’t met their much smaller quota. And usually that club is not a small club either.
Anonymous
Post 11/20/2024 12:18     Subject: Why don’t Potomac Marlins staff their own meets?
Anonymous wrote:Hmmm I’ve never attended a meet where this isn’t the case, Marlins or not. I’ve attended many meets over the year, hosted by different clubs, and some in different LSCs. They’ve all had the expectation that parents from other teams are volunteering at scale.


This.
Anonymous
Post 11/20/2024 12:15     Subject: Why don’t Potomac Marlins staff their own meets?
Many meets these days are asking for volunteers in the stands at the 11th hour. If my swimmer is in a meet, regardless of who's hosting, I feel an obligation to do my part. I'm not saying you don't, but I don't necessarily think the host should be providing the most # of volunteers. It should be proportionate to number of swimmers a team sends. If the host team has way more swimmers, then yeah, they should be making sure their families are filling the most spots.
Anonymous
Post 11/20/2024 12:04     Subject: Re:Why don’t Potomac Marlins staff their own meets?
We just attended the Marlins meet at UMD and they were desperate for volunteers to time - so much so that one of our coaches had to text parents in the stands to BEG them to come down and time on Saturday. Do they not have a Volunteer Coordinator for their own team that is responsible for filling volunteer positions? I understand asking other teams to fill some spots, but it seems like they rely on other teams to fill ALL of their spots. Aren't there like 700 swimmers in their club?
Anonymous
Post 11/20/2024 12:00     Subject: Why don’t Potomac Marlins staff their own meets?
Hmmm I’ve never attended a meet where this isn’t the case, Marlins or not. I’ve attended many meets over the year, hosted by different clubs, and some in different LSCs. They’ve all had the expectation that parents from other teams are volunteering at scale.
Anonymous
Post 11/20/2024 11:52     Subject: Why don’t Potomac Marlins staff their own meets?
Our team is attending the Sport Fair Winter Classic and we just got another “sign up” link to volunteer with a directive that they want every swimmer attending to volunteer for one spot. This is the only club that ever does this… why? Don’t the Marlins have parents who are capable of volunteering at their own meets? They seem very disorganized.