My DD’s group (it’s the top group) recently had a post-LC-SZN get-together where they read aloud the most recent few threads of the Urban Mommies swimming group. My DD loved it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
🙄 Posters here greatly overestimate the uniqueness of summer swim. Generally those posters have summer only swimmers and feel the need to sh!t on winter club swim to feel better about the fact that their kid only wants to swim summer league. Even the big clubs that people denigrate as cold and impersonal have social events for each of their practice groups.

This is weirdly hostile. My kids do both. Summer is definitely filled with more fun. We swim RMSC and our practice groups has never had a social outing. Not bashing it at all, but it's just not part of that experience. We have practice, and meets. Period. We're certainly not playing laser tag and going to the punkin patch with RMSC.

I guess you get what you pay for with RMSc since it’s so much cheaper, but my NCAP swimmer does team bonding activities throughout the season. It’s been great for a largely individual sport to foster a sense of team unity. It’s also a way for the kids to have fun together since purely “fun” practices are a rarity, especially at the higher levels. For the OP, pumpkin patch/haunted house fall trip, laser tag, bowling, escape room, and sky zone type place have all been done through the years with my swimmer.

Agree. Do a fall activity like a hike. A Christmas activity and then a spring one. That should suffice.

Ski day, movie night (movie is played on the scoreboard and kids bring rafts to float on while they watch, pizza night, team hike, team lake day, ropes course, overnight lock in. We have a lot.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
🙄 Posters here greatly overestimate the uniqueness of summer swim. Generally those posters have summer only swimmers and feel the need to sh!t on winter club swim to feel better about the fact that their kid only wants to swim summer league. Even the big clubs that people denigrate as cold and impersonal have social events for each of their practice groups.

This is weirdly hostile. My kids do both. Summer is definitely filled with more fun. We swim RMSC and our practice groups has never had a social outing. Not bashing it at all, but it's just not part of that experience. We have practice, and meets. Period. We're certainly not playing laser tag and going to the punkin patch with RMSC.

+1

We’re with Machine and while they do a great job making practices fun (at all levels), we don’t do outings or anything. Nor do we feel the need, quite frankly.

Anonymous wrote:
🙄 Posters here greatly overestimate the uniqueness of summer swim. Generally those posters have summer only swimmers and feel the need to sh!t on winter club swim to feel better about the fact that their kid only wants to swim summer league. Even the big clubs that people denigrate as cold and impersonal have social events for each of their practice groups.

This is weirdly hostile. My kids do both. Summer is definitely filled with more fun. We swim RMSC and our practice groups has never had a social outing. Not bashing it at all, but it's just not part of that experience. We have practice, and meets. Period. We're certainly not playing laser tag and going to the punkin patch with RMSC.

Ours would do a pumpkin/halloween activity, a group pasta dinner before December meet, a holiday party.

Same PP. Our winter club does not do anything rec/social at all. It would be nice if they did.

Anonymous wrote:Wait... your winter clubs do social things? I thought that was only for summer swim.

🙄 Posters here greatly overestimate the uniqueness of summer swim. Generally those posters have summer only swimmers and feel the need to sh!t on winter club swim to feel better about the fact that their kid only wants to swim summer league. Even the big clubs that people denigrate as cold and impersonal have social events for each of their practice groups.

Ours has done a nature hike, cox farms (daytime for littler ones, night for 12+), ice skating, pro soccer game...

Wait... your winter clubs do social things? I thought that was only for summer swim.

October is a great month to do a team building trip to a pumpkin patch/haunted house. These have gone over well with the tweens and teens at our club.

Our team has had a couple of bowling outings which have been successful!

What age groups?

We are a small swimming team in northern Virginia. What are the fun social things your teams do? Looking for suggestions.