OEVT question for Event Directors

Hi Nicole! In New England we only offer OEVT memberships for sanctioned open water events, not pool meets. We revisit this policy every year or two but have not changed it since implementing the policy nearly a decade ago if I recall correctly. Speaking for myself, I'm indifferent about offering OEVT memberships at mini meets but oppose offering OEVTs at zone or LMSC championships or other large team-oriented meets at great venues, which IMO should be an exclusive membership benefit. For example, if we offered OEVT memberships for our annual 700-swimmer NELMSC SCY Championship at Harvard or 500-swimmer CCS-USMS meet at Boston University, dozens of swimmers might opt for OEVT who otherwise would've purchased a standard membership so they could participate in that marquee event potentially taking spots away from longtime full members. Of course, these events very popular and often sell out. If revenue and balancing the meet budget is an issue, then you must of course take that into consideration out of necessity. In the Northeast, it is becoming increasingly difficult and expensive to secure pools for big meets, almost prohibitively so.

Thanks so much Doug! I agree with your position on any larger meet 100%. 

Hi Nicole! Southern Pacific LMSC also only offers OEVT membership for our sanctioned open water events. We do not offer OEVT for sanctioned pool meets, except for one or two that are annual fundraising types of meets. And then the host has to get approval to offer OEVT registration from our LMSC Executive Committee.

OEVT participants do not represent a club, they are not able to swim in "legal" relays, and they are not eligible for official times, top ten, or other awards. So, any pool results need to have these participants removed from the backup. For open water, the host can download a spreadsheet with the OEVT entry information from Club Assistant to forward to USMS as required. We then invoice the host for the total fees for the OEVT participants, since USMS "invoices" the LMSC for the total OEVT membership fee amount per event.

We have not found that OEVT individuals join USMS. In fact some are previous USMS members who only want to participate in the open water swim or the fundraiser meet.

Thank you, Robin. I knew everything about what they can and cannot do. I was curious about whether you find that they join and whether the people who process this find it onerous. 

In the Gulf, we have too many people who do not participate in any event. We are looking at this from every angle.

The national office would have more data than an LMSC board about the percentage of OEVT members who ultimately join USMS. I doubt many if any LMSCs track or have the means to track that data. I have asked Membership Services about this over the years, during both the Hughes and Butcher administrations, and now as then the answer I've received is hardly any OEVT members join USMS within a few months of a OEVT purchase. I don't know the percentage but feel free to ask Membership Services directly. I'd be surprised if it's more than 3%.

Hi Nicole, we have found that our OEVT participants do NOT join USMS (open water and pool meet participants).

For pool meets, the meet admin has extra work to do to remove the OEVT swimmers and their times from MM and the backup. This is onerous and has to be done before the results are final.

For open water races, the info is requested by USMS about month after the event, so it is hard to get the host to report the number of participants (not number who registered) and provide the OEVT details. Our Open Water Chair and I (as Sanction Chair) have to remind the host how to do this. We have tried to be proactive and get the info earlier, but it doesn't always work and we have to remind the host multiple times regarding what they need to provide.

Note that OEVT registration was not offered when we hosted the USMS OWNC Festival and one of our open water hosts doesn't offer OEVT registration for their events due to capacity limits at their venue. So we do get some new members due to this.

Separately, Our LMSC Annual Meeting is always in November and it usually includes a stroke & turn clinic. And our big LMSC SCM Championship Meet in Long Beach is always in December. We have found that participants do join USMS in order to attend these events and their membership carries over to the following year.

FOMO works better than OEVT in motivating people to join USMS, especially November-March.