Anonymous wrote:Time to start hiring people volunteering is not possible with us millennials working triple jobs

Do you actually work 3 jobs? What are they?

The rate at which women participate in the workforce has fallen off since 1999.

Time to start hiring people volunteering is not possible with us millennials working triple jobs

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have 3 shrimpers and a baby and a husband that works in another state so I truly cannot volunteer at meets but I guarantee you I donate more money than any other family.

you can’t get a sitter or a friend to watch your baby a couple of Sat mornings?

Our stuff is all weeknights. Never on a Sat.

Are you saying that your team doesn't have A meets on Saturday, or just that your kids don't swim at them? If your team doesn't have A meets on Saturdays then you probably aren't local.

You can volunteer at a meet your kids don't swim at. It's really common for parents to do that.

One thing that works for my team is to sign up to help clean up after home meets. You can almost always find one of the teenagers on the team who is willing to baby sit since they are there anyway. You pay them for an hour, get some volunteer time, in, and then you can just stay at the pool with your kids.

Similarly, some working parents have the flexibility to get to an evening B meet, or a Friday social event, help set up, and then go pick up their kids from daycare, or have the nanny bring them.

I'm not saying that these work for everyone, but it's the kind of strategy that does work for many families.

Anonymous wrote:I have 3 shrimpers and a baby and a husband that works in another state so I truly cannot volunteer at meets but I guarantee you I donate more money than any other family.

I have been there. When I got pregnant with my fourth, the plan was for me to SAH, but by the time the baby was born, things happened that he had to do some additional training 900 miles away while I stayed at home, took care of the kids, and financially supported my family.

It was only one year, but it was a hard year. Anytime I had free time, I slept.

I feel for you. Kids will get older and more independent! Take care!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have 3 shrimpers and a baby and a husband that works in another state so I truly cannot volunteer at meets but I guarantee you I donate more money than any other family.

you can’t get a sitter or a friend to watch your baby a couple of Sat mornings?

Our stuff is all weeknights. Never on a Sat.

The same question applies

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have 3 shrimpers and a baby and a husband that works in another state so I truly cannot volunteer at meets but I guarantee you I donate more money than any other family.

And how does this help run a meet exactly? Are some of the timers going to get paid and some not? Maybe the lucky recipient is the poor clerk of course herding everyone's kids.

I'm sorry but if the person who volunteered with my SO last week can do it - think of people who literally have the most important jobs in this town, you can do it. Or I don't know - since you have the funds...pay a babysitter so you can go to the meet and volunteer.

Our team can use the money and the volunteering, so if you're donating it helps.

But if you're a family that has more money than time, you can also use that money in other ways. You can buy things rather than make things for pot luck. Plenty of families get their contribution delivered by UberEats direction to the pool. You can hire a babysitter on a Saturday morning when your kids aren't swimming to come and help out with an A meet. While you're there you might meet the parent who runs the volunteers who will let you know about a baby friendly job. For example, you might find out that the person who does the Costco run has her youngest going off to college, and they're happy to reassign that job to you, or your housekeeper.

Anonymous wrote:I’m a single working mom and I have 2 swimmers. The team wanted 6 spots filled, per swimmer, per family. That would have been 12 spots. We aren’t even able to make all the meets, so that isn’t going to happen. I don’t remember what might happen if I can’t do all the slots. Also we’re new and I didn’t realize everyone signed up for their slots right away, and by the time I went in a day later, most were taken. So far I’ve been able to fill 4.
If I end up having to pay, then I’ll pay.

So, I'm the person who asked for stories. Thank you for this story!

My team has families like this. They're trying to volunteer, they're just new. They apologize for not filling enough shifts. They are generally helpful. If they see someone lugging things across the parking lot and they bring kids over to help carry. The notice when the mom running concessions has a three year old doing the potty dance next to her, and ask if she wants them to take over for a while. They don't come to a potluck breakfast or potluck dinner empty handed, they bring SOMETHING even if it's a few bunches of bananas or the napkins. They say "Thank you" and make their kids say "Thank you".

No one cares that they didn't quite make their total number of shifts. We know they'll do better when they know how things work, and their kids are a little older. They aren't the ones we all get annoyed with. At least at my team, you wouldn't get kicked off.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have 3 shrimpers and a baby and a husband that works in another state so I truly cannot volunteer at meets but I guarantee you I donate more money than any other family.

That would be fine at our pool. It is volunteer or pay. You have two choices.

Our Little League has the same rule, I might add. This is hardly unique to swimming.

NP here and curious how this works- paying to not volunteer. If everyone paid instead of volunteering, would that mean your pool would hire people to time and all the other tasks involved with running a meet?

Our Little League also allowed you to pay instead of volunteering, but the volunteer needs were about staffing the concession stand and tryouts and pre/post-season field maintenance. Each team was responsible for running the scoreboard and lining the fields for each game and that was where families really either stepped up or didn’t. These duties were decoupled from the volunteer fee.

Yes our LL is exactly the same as yours.

I think if everyone paid, our team rep would give us a talk about how some people needed to volunteer. We have a giant, well run team.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have 3 shrimpers and a baby and a husband that works in another state so I truly cannot volunteer at meets but I guarantee you I donate more money than any other family.

you can’t get a sitter or a friend to watch your baby a couple of Sat mornings?

Our stuff is all weeknights. Never on a Sat.

Dad could come home weekends and help.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have 3 shrimpers and a baby and a husband that works in another state so I truly cannot volunteer at meets but I guarantee you I donate more money than any other family.

give me a break. You're not more special than anyone else. do you not attend the meets? Are you dropping three kids off to swim at a meet and they have no supervision or parental support? it is not hard: hire a teen and pay what the going rate is. $18-$20 an hour for 4 hours on Saturday mornings or Monday nights or whenever. this is not a hard problem to solve.

Please don’t guarantee you donate more than others. It has nothing to do with chipping in and you don’t even know if you’re right.

Let's be real, the kids probably have babysitters all week. Sometimes donating money helps the team more depending on the team. They are probably either dropping the 1-2 kids off and letting it be the team's problem or all kids go and she sits there and hangs out. No one wants to watch 2-3 kids for $20 an hour.

Anonymous wrote:I don't know how smaller teams (division 17) manage to hold a home meet without majority of parents volunteering since home meet requires 30+ jobs.

Probably because they don't have many entitled parents like the mid-level and upper division teams.

Volunteering isn't an option. Our team just signs up the parents to volunteer. You can state your preferences but you WILL be volunteering. It all works fine.

Anonymous wrote:I have 3 shrimpers and a baby and a husband that works in another state so I truly cannot volunteer at meets but I guarantee you I donate more money than any other family.

give me a break. You're not more special than anyone else. do you not attend the meets? Are you dropping three kids off to swim at a meet and they have no supervision or parental support? it is not hard: hire a teen and pay what the going rate is. $18-$20 an hour for 4 hours on Saturday mornings or Monday nights or whenever. this is not a hard problem to solve.

Please don’t guarantee you donate more than others. It has nothing to do with chipping in and you don’t even know if you’re right.

I’m a single working mom and I have 2 swimmers. The team wanted 6 spots filled, per swimmer, per family. That would have been 12 spots. We aren’t even able to make all the meets, so that isn’t going to happen. I don’t remember what might happen if I can’t do all the slots. Also we’re new and I didn’t realize everyone signed up for their slots right away, and by the time I went in a day later, most were taken. So far I’ve been able to fill 4.
If I end up having to pay, then I’ll pay.

Anonymous wrote:According to Merriam-Webster, “shrimpers” is a plural noun meaning youth swimmers whose parents do not (will not) volunteer to support summer swim team or summer swim meets.

😀

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have 3 shrimpers and a baby and a husband that works in another state so I truly cannot volunteer at meets but I guarantee you I donate more money than any other family.

Team rep. I can see where finding a sitter for four or five hours on a Saturday morning would be hard for you. We have families on our team in similar circumstances. Those families volunteer to do the mid-week run to Costco to buy stuff for concessions. One mom is our treasurer, she can write checks in the evenings when kids are asleep. Another puts in the time to do the end of year slide show which is really meaningful to our seniors.

Unless your team needs the money, find a way to contribute some time even if it isn't on deck.
I do love the misspelled shrimpers, though.

Except it’s not misspelled…