Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:14:56 -- most of these tasks can be done either a few minutes before the game starts, or during the game itself. It's not a big lift. Field prep is usually some dads out raking the fields and re-chalking lines if necessary.

If the team uses teamsnap, you can have a health check filled out in there -- thus eliminating the need to have a "covid" coach. If someone needs to do the screening, that can also take place as kids arrive for warmups. So you show up 5 minutes earlier than the kids are scheduled, and sit on the bleachers and check the kids in.

(not OP)

14:56 here - sorry to hijack your thread, OP, I'm just finding this kinda fascinating (though entirely theoretically for me at this stage).

Yes, I see that a lot of these jobs are small, and not a big lift. But I also assume that "Majors" means you're not talking about five year olds. If my 11 year old is in Little League, I might not go to every single game. And when I do, I might often have other, younger kids in tow that make a volunteer task (even a small one) difficult to handle. Or I might be dropping him off for warmups and then running an errand and coming back. Or whatever. And again, for me personally, I could see a situation where I'm the Girl Scout troop leader, doing tons of work for that, and not planning on doing any volunteering for baseball, as it would just be too much.

I would absolutely expect to be ASKED. Perhaps even begged and pleaded with - and if it was a small task and my kid really loved baseball, I might even cave. But there's so much space, to me, between that and getting a "Here's your assigned volunteer times. Switch if you're busy" email which, again, if it wasn't made clear up front that pitching in was required, I would find really, really presumptuous.

Anonymous wrote:I only have a baby, so I'm totally out of this loop: Please excuse this naive question.

Is it made clear to every parent who signs a kid up for Little League that they are expected to volunteer? I could absolutely see myself signing my son up for Little League down the road, paying whatever fees are involved, and assuming that volunteering was completely optional, and that it would be no problem for me to not volunteer at all. And then, after not opting to volunteer, if I got a schedule of "volunteer" assignments (um, that's not volunteering?) and was told to just switch the day if it didn't work, I'd be frustrated and confused. To me, that's not volunteering - that's like a co-op.

Perhaps this IS made clear, that all parents are expected/required to do at least some minimal level of work, in which case, I rescind this whole comment. But I am a pretty busy person (as is, um, everyone) and I'm very careful to protect my downtime. So if this was expected, it would make me WAY less likely to sign my kid up for Little League. And if it's not made clear, I would really not appreciate the bait and switch.

Perhaps it's a role model thing - growing up, my parents were very "all or nothing" volunteers. They hosted girl scouts, or they did nothing. They were coach of the soccer team, or they did nothing. They were always quick to donate to stuff, but they generally did not volunteer for all these little jobs, a lot of which seem somewhat unnecessary (umm, five volunteers a game?? The team only has, what, 10-15 kids?) And I could see myself in the same role.

So, maybe I'm way off base here, as I have no direct experience with this, but it seems to me that the answer is to go back to the coach and say, "unfortunately, we only have three parents who have expressed any interest in volunteering, and they aren't available every game, so it looks like we'll only have 1 volunteer per game. What are the most important jobs that we need to fill? Perhaps one person could do field setup and score keeping each week, and that'll have to be enough." And then when you get his/her okay on that plan, you can send another email out to the team parents just saying "hey, because we are short on volunteers this season, we'll only be able to have field setup and score keeping during games and will not be able to do X, Y and Z. If you are interested in helping out so we can do more, let me know, there's definitely still time!" And then call it a day.

Anonymous wrote:OP here, responding to 14:56.

You raise interesting points for sure. Every Little League does things differently, but in our league, actually volunteering meaningful hours is a separate thing from helping with game day tasks. Our league charges a fairly hefty volunteer fee up front and you can either work it off (by helping at the snack stand, pre- and post-season field maintenance, league photographer, etc) and get a refund on your volunteer fee or you can do nothing and not get the fee back. There have been years when I've earned back the fee and others when I have not. No one is forcing you to volunteer a significant amount of time.

What I'm specifically mentioning is the need to have someone do particular tasks before each game- tasks that if not completed, would make the game unable to be played (for the most part). I've definitely seen some games where the coaches take on field prep- for reasons unknown- maybe no one signed up to do it or the coach didn't like the way parents did it- but it does take the coach away from warm up, plus they already are giving so much of their time. If no one lines the fields, chalks the batter's box, or keeps score/pitch count, the game can't be played.

The reason I mentioned that this is at the Majors level is because all of the parents on our team have had children in LL for years, so none of this is a surprise. In fact, the need for volunteers is less now because the kids don't need a dug out person to ensure they're not swinging bats, climbing fences, or other shenanigans.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP, if you are signing up your kid with a for-profit business, you can safely assume you won’t be asked to volunteer. But if it’s a non-profit (which things like sports typically are), then you probably will be expected to volunteer in some capacity.

'

A lot of youth clubs around here are actually for profit and it's not obvious which are which

It’s not hard to figure out what kind of org something is. For-profit companies generally don’t use volunteers because it’s really easy to run afoul of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Loudon soccer certain does and is for profit.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP, if you are signing up your kid with a for-profit business, you can safely assume you won’t be asked to volunteer. But if it’s a non-profit (which things like sports typically are), then you probably will be expected to volunteer in some capacity.

'

A lot of youth clubs around here are actually for profit and it's not obvious which are which

It’s not hard to figure out what kind of org something is. For-profit companies generally don’t use volunteers because it’s really easy to run afoul of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Anonymous wrote:OP here, responding to 14:56.

You raise interesting points for sure. Every Little League does things differently, but in our league, actually volunteering meaningful hours is a separate thing from helping with game day tasks. Our league charges a fairly hefty volunteer fee up front and you can either work it off (by helping at the snack stand, pre- and post-season field maintenance, league photographer, etc) and get a refund on your volunteer fee or you can do nothing and not get the fee back. There have been years when I've earned back the fee and others when I have not. No one is forcing you to volunteer a significant amount of time.

What I'm specifically mentioning is the need to have someone do particular tasks before each game- tasks that if not completed, would make the game unable to be played (for the most part). I've definitely seen some games where the coaches take on field prep- for reasons unknown- maybe no one signed up to do it or the coach didn't like the way parents did it- but it does take the coach away from warm up, plus they already are giving so much of their time. If no one lines the fields, chalks the batter's box, or keeps score/pitch count, the game can't be played.

The reason I mentioned that this is at the Majors level is because all of the parents on our team have had children in LL for years, so none of this is a surprise. In fact, the need for volunteers is less now because the kids don't need a dug out person to ensure they're not swinging bats, climbing fences, or other shenanigans.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP, if you are signing up your kid with a for-profit business, you can safely assume you won’t be asked to volunteer. But if it’s a non-profit (which things like sports typically are), then you probably will be expected to volunteer in some capacity.

'

A lot of youth clubs around here are actually for profit and it's not obvious which are which

Anonymous wrote:14:56 -- most of these tasks can be done either a few minutes before the game starts, or during the game itself. It's not a big lift. Field prep is usually some dads out raking the fields and re-chalking lines if necessary.

If the team uses teamsnap, you can have a health check filled out in there -- thus eliminating the need to have a "covid" coach. If someone needs to do the screening, that can also take place as kids arrive for warmups. So you show up 5 minutes earlier than the kids are scheduled, and sit on the bleachers and check the kids in.

(not OP)

Anonymous wrote:PP, if you are signing up your kid with a for-profit business, you can safely assume you won’t be asked to volunteer. But if it’s a non-profit (which things like sports typically are), then you probably will be expected to volunteer in some capacity.