Colonies Zone SCY Championships - Fairfax VA

I’ve looked thru my history on the USMS data base with an eye towards individual “splashes” per entrant, which generally runs 4 to 5, in a wide variety of meets. With 91 FXCM entrants this year with only one splash, which might equal 1/5 to 1/6 of the total meet entry. My guess is that “splashes” per entrant will be closer to 4 than 5, even if accounting for this entry behavior going on to a lesser degree for previous years. Like Chris has said this could have a monetary impact on the hosting club. This could be offset by increased participation of entrants for sat/sun. Thats where the loss of participants who would normally swim fri, sat, sun and now will not be going at all, will hurt. I am one of us many “wacko” swimmers who go to these meets and stay all day all 3 days. For 4 years I swam at he NE SCY Champs at Harvard. They currently have been allowing 900 entrants. Along with going to Distance Day , I would attend the 3 day meet the following weekend. There were days that warm ups would start at 8 am and we’d be crawling out of the locker room after 8pm and be just as crazy to swim the next day. The current Distance Eve, at the Colonie Zones, works for the group that “flash mobbed” the entry.For them they get a TT/workout and the weekend is free and clear. They most likely are not like us “wackos” who enjoy the spectacle and camraderie of a big weekend of swimming. Sadly I am another who will not be attending the Colonie Zone meet this year, as planned. I have entered the South Central SCY Zones, swimming 7 events over 3 days. I hope to attend The Colonie zone meet next year, if I can get into all 3 days. jack c

Fort must have been planning on doing a split request for the 25 fly, using the rest of the 1000 as a warm-down. That would explain why she is upset that the event is already filled. :) Bahaha...

I think triathletes are much more used to quick-filling events than swimmers and they just were faster off the blocks (pun intended). hmmm most of the Triathletes that I know are too embarrassed to dive...

...Anyhow, maybe it's not too late for someone diplomatic (Jeff or Muppet) to call up the Team Z captain and see if some of the swimmers would be willing to share a lane. If so, maybe some more spots could open up for the Tom's and Betsy's and other Zones regulars whose presence will be missed by us CZ regulars! Lane sharing was "de rigueur" at Canadian Nats in Montreal... ...did you see what I did there?

I guess a bunch of "4 stroke swimmers" could sign up en masse for a triathlon and just swim then go home...see how that goes down with Tris...who didn't get to compete... I think they'd feel a bit ticked off too.

I still fail to see what the members of Team Z did that is so wrong here. Possibly most anger is for the coach(es)/organizer(s) who urged the members to sign up, not realizing or caring that with such a large group everyone else would be closed out. Yes they are USMS members but I don't think the TeamZ people will actually integrate much with the other participants since it seems most are swimming the one event on Friday and then skipping the rest of the meet. This is compounded by their apparent unwillingness to ever organize such events themselves, which would also contribute to the local masters swimming community and might have helped avoid the situation. It's a Tragedy of the Commons kind of thing, with the Team Z group taking from the community and giving little in return beyond membership and entry fees. So viewed in that context, and with the anger of the people closed out of the event, it is natural that an us versus them mentality develops. While we need to look closely at solutions for future meets, integration and communication of triathletes and non-triathletes should also be on the table. Otherwise this sort of thing turns into an question of how to exclude the "wrong people" from zones in the future, and that's not good. But I have to say, if TeamZ continues to be (essentially) only takers and not givers, then that is exactly what will happen. I view triathletes very favorably, but if this sort of thing happens at LCM zones then it will probably cost VMST a significant amount of money.

"Giving" isn't just about hosting meets, it is about contributing to the health of the masters swimming community. But as an aside, hosting an event certainly IS a good way for a large club with resources can contribute to that community: VMST, with fewer than half the numbers of FXCM, will host at least 3 pool meets and 2 OW races this year. I should point out that many of these event also make the club money, so VMST can also benefit. It is indeed sometimes better to give than to receive...! But I can't think of any time that VMST or even any other group "gobbled up" an event virtually all by its lonesome. What's more, VMST swimmers, as with swimmers in other clubs, tend to participate in races throughout the meet. I just checked for FXCM: 104 swimmers on Friday (out of 128 possible spots), 24 on Saturday, 17 on Sunday. That pattern is not the recipe for a healthy event, and the effects ripple. Look at tjrpatt for an example of how this sort of thing might change participation: because his favorite event isn't there he won't make the trip. So the effect is to reduce the number of swimmers, the average number of events each swimmer participates in -- both of which cost the host money -- and to degrade the "social capital" of the meet by not integrating well with the other swimmers, possibly turning people off from attending in future years.

So just to toot my clubs horn further: another way that VMST contributes to our LMSC's community is that it shoulders something like 33% of the cost of our paper newsletter directly (the rest is from member fees, and VMST members comprise about 35% of that revenue stream). And most of the volunteers at the LMSC level are also VMST members. Possibly FXCM does these sorts of things too, which would be welcome news.

So just to toot my clubs horn further: another way that VMST contributes to our LMSC's community is that it shoulders something like 33% of the cost of our paper newsletter directly (the rest is from member fees, and VMST members comprise about 35% of that revenue stream). And most of the volunteers at the LMSC level are also VMST members. Possibly FXCM does these sorts of things too, which would be welcome news. In our LMSC, most of the LMSC level volunteers are from some of the smaller teams. Just under half of the total volunteers are from teams with less than 60 members, and only one is from FXCM (and that member is typically the only one from FXCM that attends the three-times yearly meetings we hold). Additionally, it is these same smaller teams that usually run the events in the LMSC- the notable exception being the Albatross Open (host team has just over 200 members). Even the wildly popular Jim McDonnell Lake Swim's host team doesn't break 100 members, and it take a large chunk of their membership to run the event.

I actually didn't mean for the thread to veer off in this direction even though it is mostly my fault that it did. It doesn't help matters to turn things into a "who helps most" contest. I was just speculating as to the source of the resentment and some of the problems and how they might be addressed. Bottom line is that I don't know if it is sufficient to focus only on preventing this from happening again at future SCY zones, I think there has to be some effort at involving FXCM (and triathletes in general) with masters swimming beyond just paying dues and entry fees. And wookiee is right, it isn't just this club that does that.