Recruiting

Originally posted by knelson If only it were so easy, though. For example here in the Puget Sound region we've recently faced closures of city or county run pools. It certainly isn't due to lack of swimmers. We have Olympic gold medalists, many large and successful USA Swimming clubs, a Pac Ten University with both men's and women's swimming teams, etc. yet it's still difficult to keep the pools open we already have--let alone think about building new facilities. And they're closing... why? Let me guess, pool operators don' know how to attract profitable groups tso they can maintain the pool and make living out of doing it. So, to remedy that, wouldn' it help to have more coaches and people interested in organizing the groups of swimmers whose fees will pay to keep the pool open??? I mean, let's go with little common sense here, you wouldn't be building new pools in the areas where there are not enough swimmers to support them, or where pools are closing. You'd look to revive existing facilities first. But, you're puzzling me, on one hand you're saying there's no shortage of swimmers, but on the other hand, you're telling me the pools cant seem to stay afloat. Do we again have a number of swimmers expecting it should all be free, or subsidized by the government? If there's no shortage of swimmers, why are pools closing? Something here doesn't add up. One of the 'marketing' targets that USMS has in mind are the pool operators, and showing them how it would benefit their pool (financially) to have a Masters group hosted there, which in turn just may mean that the pool can stay open, and would mean more lane space for YOU.

Originally posted by knelson If only it were so easy, though. For example here in the Puget Sound region we've recently faced closures of city or county run pools. It certainly isn't due to lack of swimmers. We have Olympic gold medalists, many large and successful USA Swimming clubs, a Pac Ten University with both men's and women's swimming teams, etc. yet it's still difficult to keep the pools open we already have--let alone think about building new facilities. And they're closing... why? Let me guess, pool operators don' know how to attract profitable groups tso they can maintain the pool and make living out of doing it. So, to remedy that, wouldn' it help to have more coaches and people interested in organizing the groups of swimmers whose fees will pay to keep the pool open??? I mean, let's go with little common sense here, you wouldn't be building new pools in the areas where there are not enough swimmers to support them, or where pools are closing. You'd look to revive existing facilities first. But, you're puzzling me, on one hand you're saying there's no shortage of swimmers, but on the other hand, you're telling me the pools cant seem to stay afloat. Do we again have a number of swimmers expecting it should all be free, or subsidized by the government? If there's no shortage of swimmers, why are pools closing? Something here doesn't add up. One of the 'marketing' targets that USMS has in mind are the pool operators, and showing them how it would benefit their pool (financially) to have a Masters group hosted there, which in turn just may mean that the pool can stay open, and would mean more lane space for YOU.