Recruiting

Why would you think that? Heated debates are just fine as long as we don't stoop to personal insults flying all over the place while the topic of the debate is lost. I was worried I had gone little overboard I'm curious about your team situation. Why has your team not raised the Masters dues? Just do it, and raise the coaches salary. The coach is resisting, he is afraid that it will drive away people. He doesn't want to be the highest priced masters program in the area. Many are afraid to raise the dues because "masters everywhere else" are not paying much more. (I know, sounds like that old saying, if everyone else is going to jump off the bridge...) I mean, I love my coach to pieces - literally, but he's pretty shy when it comes to asking the fair price for his services. I'm seeing that this is not all that unusual among a number of coaches. I'm also seeing several very succesful coaches whom are actually making a good living by being coaches departing from USMS... Well, I had the pleasure to have a pretty in depth conversations with a a few of them over the last year Another question - you've mentioned monthly dues for the Masters and kids teams, but you have not mentioned the pool rental fees paid by these teams. Are they the same or different? If the two teams pay the same rate for the pool use (or a slightly different rate for non-optimal times), then the membership fee rate difference is not related to the pool use. In the case of our team, neither the kids nor the masters pay the pool rental. City of Mission Viejo owns the land and the facility, what they did is formed a foundation that is sort of a trustee of the pool, for the public. The foundation makes sure that there is money for operations, for utilities for maintenance etc. Not a penny comes from the city, and the foundation does not pay the city any money for the facility. It takes about 20K a month in utilities and maintenance to keep the facility operational, plus another amount (I don't know how much exactly that part is) to pay the coaches to run the swim training part of the program. There's no rent to pay. The money that the kids pay and the money that masters pay all goes into the same money pot. Every swimmer on the team is a member of the foundation, they vote for whom the board of directors are each term, they are welcome to many of the meetings etc... So, in effect the facility is operated by the swimmers who use it, and the money to operate it, and how it's going to be used also comes from the swimmers. I see your team situation as a local team issue. Because you swim at an independantly run pool in a very expensive part of the country, I would expect dues to be higher there. You mentioned that other nearby teams swim at college pools where expenses for the Masters team may be less. That is just a fact of life. If people want to swim at Mission Viejo and keep the pool open, they should be willing to pay for it one way or another (through taxes or direct use fees). EEExactly! If the local government is footing some of the bill, you may want to consider having a different fee structure for those that live within the area supporting the pool via taxes and those that live elsewhere. That's not an uncommon arrangement - all of the municipal pools in our area have different resident and non-resident fees for using the facilities. Well, I was trying to adress the comments of couple of people complaining that the cities are closing down the pools in their area, for the lack of funding. Well, if the cities won't keep the pool open, which is what was happening to nadadores facility several years ago, then they may have to do what nadadores did, turn it into a self supporting facility. (rather than complain about how government won't do it) I don't believe that your team and pool situation is representative of the majority of Masters programs. Our team works out at a lousy 5-lane pool in a K-12 school, at a nice new college pool, and at a municipal pool in the summer. We pay the going rate for pool rental at all three pools. There are no established USA Swimming teams paying the way for us through higher pool fees at any of these pools. I'm glad to hear that. I'm also hearing from a number of people who are seeing the similar situation to what I described, where there is a disparity. Looks like we have several fee structure and business strategy models going. That is a good thing to know when formulating how to approach potential pool operator to get them interested in a masters group. Different pools in the area charge different rates, and we have shopped around to find the best rates for decent available pool time. We can't afford the set rate for the nice new 50 meter indoor municipal pool in the area so we don't work out there. The point is that the situation is different for teams and pools all over the country. I don't believe that any one team is representative of all of USMS. I don't think I ever suggested that one pool is an example for all. I was using the example that I'm most familiar with (my own) with the knowledge that there is a fair number of incidents of similar nature. I thin it would be a worth while market research task to find out little more factual inormation thenwhat we know anecdotally how many other operating models are out there, asociated costs, sucess rates etc... This kind of information can really help us strategise various marketing efforts. Different parts of the country may need different marketing approaches, as they may have different needs. I think it would behoove us on the national level to know who needs what and why and how badly, and to what extent we can assist them. Sometimes we may be of a lot of assistance, other times not as much. Mrketing efforts may range from USMS people actually helping locally, to just motivating various LMSC's or current and potential coaches and masters program leaders to take action by providing them more information, or how to workshops. Really, other than just rambling about it here on the bulletin board, I think number of these things need a closer examination. Things I'm talking about here, I'm talking on the conceptual and 'idea' level

Why would you think that? Heated debates are just fine as long as we don't stoop to personal insults flying all over the place while the topic of the debate is lost. I was worried I had gone little overboard I'm curious about your team situation. Why has your team not raised the Masters dues? Just do it, and raise the coaches salary. The coach is resisting, he is afraid that it will drive away people. He doesn't want to be the highest priced masters program in the area. Many are afraid to raise the dues because "masters everywhere else" are not paying much more. (I know, sounds like that old saying, if everyone else is going to jump off the bridge...) I mean, I love my coach to pieces - literally, but he's pretty shy when it comes to asking the fair price for his services. I'm seeing that this is not all that unusual among a number of coaches. I'm also seeing several very succesful coaches whom are actually making a good living by being coaches departing from USMS... Well, I had the pleasure to have a pretty in depth conversations with a a few of them over the last year Another question - you've mentioned monthly dues for the Masters and kids teams, but you have not mentioned the pool rental fees paid by these teams. Are they the same or different? If the two teams pay the same rate for the pool use (or a slightly different rate for non-optimal times), then the membership fee rate difference is not related to the pool use. In the case of our team, neither the kids nor the masters pay the pool rental. City of Mission Viejo owns the land and the facility, what they did is formed a foundation that is sort of a trustee of the pool, for the public. The foundation makes sure that there is money for operations, for utilities for maintenance etc. Not a penny comes from the city, and the foundation does not pay the city any money for the facility. It takes about 20K a month in utilities and maintenance to keep the facility operational, plus another amount (I don't know how much exactly that part is) to pay the coaches to run the swim training part of the program. There's no rent to pay. The money that the kids pay and the money that masters pay all goes into the same money pot. Every swimmer on the team is a member of the foundation, they vote for whom the board of directors are each term, they are welcome to many of the meetings etc... So, in effect the facility is operated by the swimmers who use it, and the money to operate it, and how it's going to be used also comes from the swimmers. I see your team situation as a local team issue. Because you swim at an independantly run pool in a very expensive part of the country, I would expect dues to be higher there. You mentioned that other nearby teams swim at college pools where expenses for the Masters team may be less. That is just a fact of life. If people want to swim at Mission Viejo and keep the pool open, they should be willing to pay for it one way or another (through taxes or direct use fees). EEExactly! If the local government is footing some of the bill, you may want to consider having a different fee structure for those that live within the area supporting the pool via taxes and those that live elsewhere. That's not an uncommon arrangement - all of the municipal pools in our area have different resident and non-resident fees for using the facilities. Well, I was trying to adress the comments of couple of people complaining that the cities are closing down the pools in their area, for the lack of funding. Well, if the cities won't keep the pool open, which is what was happening to nadadores facility several years ago, then they may have to do what nadadores did, turn it into a self supporting facility. (rather than complain about how government won't do it) I don't believe that your team and pool situation is representative of the majority of Masters programs. Our team works out at a lousy 5-lane pool in a K-12 school, at a nice new college pool, and at a municipal pool in the summer. We pay the going rate for pool rental at all three pools. There are no established USA Swimming teams paying the way for us through higher pool fees at any of these pools. I'm glad to hear that. I'm also hearing from a number of people who are seeing the similar situation to what I described, where there is a disparity. Looks like we have several fee structure and business strategy models going. That is a good thing to know when formulating how to approach potential pool operator to get them interested in a masters group. Different pools in the area charge different rates, and we have shopped around to find the best rates for decent available pool time. We can't afford the set rate for the nice new 50 meter indoor municipal pool in the area so we don't work out there. The point is that the situation is different for teams and pools all over the country. I don't believe that any one team is representative of all of USMS. I don't think I ever suggested that one pool is an example for all. I was using the example that I'm most familiar with (my own) with the knowledge that there is a fair number of incidents of similar nature. I thin it would be a worth while market research task to find out little more factual inormation thenwhat we know anecdotally how many other operating models are out there, asociated costs, sucess rates etc... This kind of information can really help us strategise various marketing efforts. Different parts of the country may need different marketing approaches, as they may have different needs. I think it would behoove us on the national level to know who needs what and why and how badly, and to what extent we can assist them. Sometimes we may be of a lot of assistance, other times not as much. Mrketing efforts may range from USMS people actually helping locally, to just motivating various LMSC's or current and potential coaches and masters program leaders to take action by providing them more information, or how to workshops. Really, other than just rambling about it here on the bulletin board, I think number of these things need a closer examination. Things I'm talking about here, I'm talking on the conceptual and 'idea' level