Anonymous wrote:I'm not signing my kids up for swim team - so saying I don't respect an activity that somehow needs 36 parent volunteers to run a swim meet -- that's just information in case you'd like to know -- you all sound crazy needing so many volunteers.

If the system doesn't work -- change it.

Anonymous wrote:There seems to be a lot of people invested in the status quo rather than finding solutions to address the lack of volunteers.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our team sends a weekly spreadsheet to the entire team that includes each family’s volunteer hour requirement, the jobs they worked, along with the hours earned for each of those jobs.

If you fail to earn your required hours then the credit card you put on file during registration is automatically charged $500. If a second summer passes with you failing to volunteer, you are charged again and you can’t register your kid to swim the following summer.

This is brilliant. And really, probably close to what it costs to actually hire someone to fulfill the commitment. If I have a choice between volunteering 20 hours and paying $250, I’m paying $250 every time. But no one is going to work that job for $12.50/hr, let alone what you’d need to pay as an employer to actually arrive at a total cost of $12.50/hr.

Anonymous wrote:Our team sends a weekly spreadsheet to the entire team that includes each family’s volunteer hour requirement, the jobs they worked, along with the hours earned for each of those jobs.

If you fail to earn your required hours then the credit card you put on file during registration is automatically charged $500. If a second summer passes with you failing to volunteer, you are charged again and you can’t register your kid to swim the following summer.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People should hire a teenager to do their volunteer commitments if they don’t want to. I know a bunch of teenagers that would jump on timing a meet for babysitter type pay.

But really, it’s sad that people are so disengaged. We saw it in other sports too, we were always coaching rec teams.

If parents are willing to pay the fine instead of volunteering, why can't the teams do this? My kids have never done swim team and never will but if the pool was willing to pay them $15-20 an hour to work the snack bar or time the races, they would gladly do it.

The pools don’t run swim teams or meets. Volunteers do. Further, there is no money in summer swim team budgets to pay volunteers. A single meet requires 18 timers, several officials, multiple marshals, and an entire data/tables staff. At $20/hour pp, the cost would be in the thousands per meet.
Summer swim is volunteer-run. If you want to participate, you help. If you absolutely can’t, then sure, a family could choose to pay someone to volunteer on its behalf. But to suggest a pool or team could simply pay people for these roles is extremely unrealistic.

The first person is asking a fair question, and the second response actually highlights why the model needs to change.
If a single meet requires dozens of critical roles and cannot function without a huge unpaid labor force, then parents are not "volunteering" in the casual sense, they are staffing the operation. That is real labor.

The idea that there is "no money" is also a choice, not a law of nature. Budgets can be adjusted. Fees can be structured with volunteer credits, opt-out fees, sponsorships, paid core staff, or hybrid models where some roles are compensated and others remain volunteer. Many youth activities already do exactly that.

What has changed is family life. In many households, both parents work, schedules are packed, and free time is limited. Time has become more valuable than it was for prior generations. Paying a fee instead of giving hours is a rational tradeoff for many families.

And let's be honest, timing races, snack bars, data entry, marshaling kids, and meet logistics are operational jobs. Pretending those jobs must only be done for free because "that's how summer swim works" is outdated thinking.
If the program is valuable, then labor should be valued too.

I think most people understand that and that's why the fees to swim are relatively low. If people think money is tight now, they won't be able to afford swimming fees when all the operational labor expenses are included. In my experience swim clubs are upfront about the expectations of parents to make it happen. Why are people agreeing then reneging on their obligation? Stop signing up if making it happen isn't possible for your busy schedule. Cut the freeloading kids if their parents don't step up.

DP. It's terrible to punish kids for the acts of their parents. That mentality flies in the face of what youth sports is supposed to be about. Not every family can contribute in the same way. Some can contribute money but not time, some time but not money, some have difficulty contributing in either way. Why is swim so special, so differently situated, that it requires parents to literally run the meets when nearly every other sport has managed to handle games/meets/tournaments? It's really not. And even if it's true that "this is the way it's always been," it doesn't mean it needs to stay that way for all eternity. There is a documented problem occurring: fewer parents are willing or able to volunteer for various reasons. So why not figure out a better way?

My mom was a single working mom as a kid. We were poor. Was I “punished” because I didn’t even have swim lessons let alone on a swim team? Was I “punished” because she couldn’t afford after school activities or summer camps so my brother and I were latch key kids? Probably moreso than the average privileged DMV swim team kid. I spent time in creeks and at the library, I didn’t have a bad childhood despite being “punished” for being poor.

I’m sorry, but I don’t feel sorry for the privileged kids whose parents can’t make everything work. They aren’t entitled to every activity just because they want it. Parents do what they can to make things work and if they can’t volunteer for summer swim, then they’re not making it work. They can find another activity for their child. At our pool the heaviest volunteers are working parents. It’s an exhausting and intense 2 months, but we adjust for our kids. And if you can’t, that’s fine, but your kid isn’t entitled to be a part of it if you know the volunteer load beforehand and still sign them up knowing you won’t contribute.

What an inapt analogy. Sorry you were poor, but that doesn't mean that kids whose parents are busy shouldn't be able to participate in an activity that they want to and can pay for. Not every parent has capacity for more time, and preventing kids from swimming due to a requirement that parents give time for free (rather than paying someone to do a job) is absurd.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There seems to be a lot of people invested in the status quo rather than finding solutions to address the lack of volunteers.

The solution is the moochers stop signing up. Problem solved.

Anonymous wrote:There seems to be a lot of people invested in the status quo rather than finding solutions to address the lack of volunteers.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People should hire a teenager to do their volunteer commitments if they don’t want to. I know a bunch of teenagers that would jump on timing a meet for babysitter type pay.

But really, it’s sad that people are so disengaged. We saw it in other sports too, we were always coaching rec teams.

If parents are willing to pay the fine instead of volunteering, why can't the teams do this? My kids have never done swim team and never will but if the pool was willing to pay them $15-20 an hour to work the snack bar or time the races, they would gladly do it.

The pools don’t run swim teams or meets. Volunteers do. Further, there is no money in summer swim team budgets to pay volunteers. A single meet requires 18 timers, several officials, multiple marshals, and an entire data/tables staff. At $20/hour pp, the cost would be in the thousands per meet.
Summer swim is volunteer-run. If you want to participate, you help. If you absolutely can’t, then sure, a family could choose to pay someone to volunteer on its behalf. But to suggest a pool or team could simply pay people for these roles is extremely unrealistic.

The first person is asking a fair question, and the second response actually highlights why the model needs to change.
If a single meet requires dozens of critical roles and cannot function without a huge unpaid labor force, then parents are not "volunteering" in the casual sense, they are staffing the operation. That is real labor.

The idea that there is "no money" is also a choice, not a law of nature. Budgets can be adjusted. Fees can be structured with volunteer credits, opt-out fees, sponsorships, paid core staff, or hybrid models where some roles are compensated and others remain volunteer. Many youth activities already do exactly that.

What has changed is family life. In many households, both parents work, schedules are packed, and free time is limited. Time has become more valuable than it was for prior generations. Paying a fee instead of giving hours is a rational tradeoff for many families.

And let's be honest, timing races, snack bars, data entry, marshaling kids, and meet logistics are operational jobs. Pretending those jobs must only be done for free because "that's how summer swim works" is outdated thinking.
If the program is valuable, then labor should be valued too.

I think most people understand that and that's why the fees to swim are relatively low. If people think money is tight now, they won't be able to afford swimming fees when all the operational labor expenses are included. In my experience swim clubs are upfront about the expectations of parents to make it happen. Why are people agreeing then reneging on their obligation? Stop signing up if making it happen isn't possible for your busy schedule. Cut the freeloading kids if their parents don't step up.

DP. It's terrible to punish kids for the acts of their parents. That mentality flies in the face of what youth sports is supposed to be about. Not every family can contribute in the same way. Some can contribute money but not time, some time but not money, some have difficulty contributing in either way. Why is swim so special, so differently situated, that it requires parents to literally run the meets when nearly every other sport has managed to handle games/meets/tournaments? It's really not. And even if it's true that "this is the way it's always been," it doesn't mean it needs to stay that way for all eternity. There is a documented problem occurring: fewer parents are willing or able to volunteer for various reasons. So why not figure out a better way?

My mom was a single working mom as a kid. We were poor. Was I “punished” because I didn’t even have swim lessons let alone on a swim team? Was I “punished” because she couldn’t afford after school activities or summer camps so my brother and I were latch key kids? Probably moreso than the average privileged DMV swim team kid. I spent time in creeks and at the library, I didn’t have a bad childhood despite being “punished” for being poor.

I’m sorry, but I don’t feel sorry for the privileged kids whose parents can’t make everything work. They aren’t entitled to every activity just because they want it. Parents do what they can to make things work and if they can’t volunteer for summer swim, then they’re not making it work. They can find another activity for their child. At our pool the heaviest volunteers are working parents. It’s an exhausting and intense 2 months, but we adjust for our kids. And if you can’t, that’s fine, but your kid isn’t entitled to be a part of it if you know the volunteer load beforehand and still sign them up knowing you won’t contribute.

What an inapt analogy. Sorry you were poor, but that doesn't mean that kids whose parents are busy shouldn't be able to participate in an activity that they want to and can pay for. Not every parent has capacity for more time, and preventing kids from swimming due to a requirement that parents give time for free (rather than paying someone to do a job) is absurd.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People should hire a teenager to do their volunteer commitments if they don’t want to. I know a bunch of teenagers that would jump on timing a meet for babysitter type pay.

But really, it’s sad that people are so disengaged. We saw it in other sports too, we were always coaching rec teams.

If parents are willing to pay the fine instead of volunteering, why can't the teams do this? My kids have never done swim team and never will but if the pool was willing to pay them $15-20 an hour to work the snack bar or time the races, they would gladly do it.

The pools don’t run swim teams or meets. Volunteers do. Further, there is no money in summer swim team budgets to pay volunteers. A single meet requires 18 timers, several officials, multiple marshals, and an entire data/tables staff. At $20/hour pp, the cost would be in the thousands per meet.
Summer swim is volunteer-run. If you want to participate, you help. If you absolutely can’t, then sure, a family could choose to pay someone to volunteer on its behalf. But to suggest a pool or team could simply pay people for these roles is extremely unrealistic.

The first person is asking a fair question, and the second response actually highlights why the model needs to change.
If a single meet requires dozens of critical roles and cannot function without a huge unpaid labor force, then parents are not "volunteering" in the casual sense, they are staffing the operation. That is real labor.

The idea that there is "no money" is also a choice, not a law of nature. Budgets can be adjusted. Fees can be structured with volunteer credits, opt-out fees, sponsorships, paid core staff, or hybrid models where some roles are compensated and others remain volunteer. Many youth activities already do exactly that.

What has changed is family life. In many households, both parents work, schedules are packed, and free time is limited. Time has become more valuable than it was for prior generations. Paying a fee instead of giving hours is a rational tradeoff for many families.

And let's be honest, timing races, snack bars, data entry, marshaling kids, and meet logistics are operational jobs. Pretending those jobs must only be done for free because "that's how summer swim works" is outdated thinking.
If the program is valuable, then labor should be valued too.

I think most people understand that and that's why the fees to swim are relatively low. If people think money is tight now, they won't be able to afford swimming fees when all the operational labor expenses are included. In my experience swim clubs are upfront about the expectations of parents to make it happen. Why are people agreeing then reneging on their obligation? Stop signing up if making it happen isn't possible for your busy schedule. Cut the freeloading kids if their parents don't step up.

DP. It's terrible to punish kids for the acts of their parents. That mentality flies in the face of what youth sports is supposed to be about. Not every family can contribute in the same way. Some can contribute money but not time, some time but not money, some have difficulty contributing in either way. Why is swim so special, so differently situated, that it requires parents to literally run the meets when nearly every other sport has managed to handle games/meets/tournaments? It's really not. And even if it's true that "this is the way it's always been," it doesn't mean it needs to stay that way for all eternity. There is a documented problem occurring: fewer parents are willing or able to volunteer for various reasons. So why not figure out a better way?

My mom was a single working mom as a kid. We were poor. Was I “punished” because I didn’t even have swim lessons let alone on a swim team? Was I “punished” because she couldn’t afford after school activities or summer camps so my brother and I were latch key kids? Probably moreso than the average privileged DMV swim team kid. I spent time in creeks and at the library, I didn’t have a bad childhood despite being “punished” for being poor.

I’m sorry, but I don’t feel sorry for the privileged kids whose parents can’t make everything work. They aren’t entitled to every activity just because they want it. Parents do what they can to make things work and if they can’t volunteer for summer swim, then they’re not making it work. They can find another activity for their child. At our pool the heaviest volunteers are working parents. It’s an exhausting and intense 2 months, but we adjust for our kids. And if you can’t, that’s fine, but your kid isn’t entitled to be a part of it if you know the volunteer load beforehand and still sign them up knowing you won’t contribute.

What an inapt analogy. Sorry you were poor, but that doesn't mean that kids whose parents are busy shouldn't be able to participate in an activity that they want to and can pay for. Not every parent has capacity for more time, and preventing kids from swimming due to a requirement that parents give time for free (rather than paying someone to do a job) is absurd.

Anonymous wrote:I don't have respect for an activity that requires 36 parent volunteers to run a swim meet.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People should hire a teenager to do their volunteer commitments if they don’t want to. I know a bunch of teenagers that would jump on timing a meet for babysitter type pay.

But really, it’s sad that people are so disengaged. We saw it in other sports too, we were always coaching rec teams.

If parents are willing to pay the fine instead of volunteering, why can't the teams do this? My kids have never done swim team and never will but if the pool was willing to pay them $15-20 an hour to work the snack bar or time the races, they would gladly do it.

The pools don’t run swim teams or meets. Volunteers do. Further, there is no money in summer swim team budgets to pay volunteers. A single meet requires 18 timers, several officials, multiple marshals, and an entire data/tables staff. At $20/hour pp, the cost would be in the thousands per meet.
Summer swim is volunteer-run. If you want to participate, you help. If you absolutely can’t, then sure, a family could choose to pay someone to volunteer on its behalf. But to suggest a pool or team could simply pay people for these roles is extremely unrealistic.

The first person is asking a fair question, and the second response actually highlights why the model needs to change.
If a single meet requires dozens of critical roles and cannot function without a huge unpaid labor force, then parents are not "volunteering" in the casual sense, they are staffing the operation. That is real labor.

The idea that there is "no money" is also a choice, not a law of nature. Budgets can be adjusted. Fees can be structured with volunteer credits, opt-out fees, sponsorships, paid core staff, or hybrid models where some roles are compensated and others remain volunteer. Many youth activities already do exactly that.

What has changed is family life. In many households, both parents work, schedules are packed, and free time is limited. Time has become more valuable than it was for prior generations. Paying a fee instead of giving hours is a rational tradeoff for many families.

And let's be honest, timing races, snack bars, data entry, marshaling kids, and meet logistics are operational jobs. Pretending those jobs must only be done for free because "that's how summer swim works" is outdated thinking.
If the program is valuable, then labor should be valued too.

I think most people understand that and that's why the fees to swim are relatively low. If people think money is tight now, they won't be able to afford swimming fees when all the operational labor expenses are included. In my experience swim clubs are upfront about the expectations of parents to make it happen. Why are people agreeing then reneging on their obligation? Stop signing up if making it happen isn't possible for your busy schedule. Cut the freeloading kids if their parents don't step up.

DP. It's terrible to punish kids for the acts of their parents. That mentality flies in the face of what youth sports is supposed to be about. Not every family can contribute in the same way. Some can contribute money but not time, some time but not money, some have difficulty contributing in either way. Why is swim so special, so differently situated, that it requires parents to literally run the meets when nearly every other sport has managed to handle games/meets/tournaments? It's really not. And even if it's true that "this is the way it's always been," it doesn't mean it needs to stay that way for all eternity. There is a documented problem occurring: fewer parents are willing or able to volunteer for various reasons. So why not figure out a better way?

My mom was a single working mom as a kid. We were poor. Was I “punished” because I didn’t even have swim lessons let alone on a swim team? Was I “punished” because she couldn’t afford after school activities or summer camps so my brother and I were latch key kids? Probably moreso than the average privileged DMV swim team kid. I spent time in creeks and at the library, I didn’t have a bad childhood despite being “punished” for being poor.

I’m sorry, but I don’t feel sorry for the privileged kids whose parents can’t make everything work. They aren’t entitled to every activity just because they want it. Parents do what they can to make things work and if they can’t volunteer for summer swim, then they’re not making it work. They can find another activity for their child. At our pool the heaviest volunteers are working parents. It’s an exhausting and intense 2 months, but we adjust for our kids. And if you can’t, that’s fine, but your kid isn’t entitled to be a part of it if you know the volunteer load beforehand and still sign them up knowing you won’t contribute.