Recruiting

Originally posted by Peter Cruise Connie- believe it or not, I've been plowing through every word. Little wonder that heat arises with some of this stuff as inevitably the philosophical/political aspects ignite passions somewhat reflective of the vehement debates usually along party lines that define acrimony. What I think everyone is trying (or should be) for the pragmatic fixes to some of the dysfunctions identified. What has come out in some of the later posts is how different the experiences are for different clubs & their swimmers depending on affiliation, historical factors, regional economy, political will- you name it, all rendering a debate very difficult because we're all reflecting our different experiences. To illustrate, here are my two main club experiences since entering masters (1984): North Vancouver was my first club & their pool time & coaching were all provided by the municipality as a recreation program: you could pay drop in, monthly, seasonally etc. Their insurance covered in-pool practise issues. If you wanted to join the master's swim club, all you paid was the registration fee to Masters B.C. After a year or so I began to realize that this was an unusual setup compared to other swimmers I met at meets & seeing as I bumped into the then administrator for recreation programming at a party, I asked about it & received this (abridged) reply, "We regard exercise among the highest strategies to avoid catastrophic loads on our health care system, both from people who are seniors now & from the baby boomers just entering ages of higher risk. We can pay now, or pay a lot more later." Nanaimo was my next & current club. We are orgaization that rents pool time period. The city has a six level scheme that it slots users into that determines both fee level & pool priority. When I first arrived, we were a 'level 2' (same as age group, synchro etc), then a new administration arrived that reclassified us as a level 6 (the lowest, same as a for-profit scuba lesson rental for example), as well, they tried to get us to swim at 11pm at night. We spent a great deal of political capital getting most of the damage reversed (age discrimination suit threatened etc., 'cause the age groupers had stayed high priority). Nasty situation, grudges nursed, etc. A new pool has eased things, but never have I experienced the sense of being valued as a user that North Vancouver projected. Lest I write a novel here, my point in detailing this has only be illustrative of two different experiences; imagine across USMS membership. I couldn't agree with you more! That's just why it bugs me when people decide that no, we don't need growth, or this is good or this is not good based on their local experiences. I strongly believe that if masters swimming had more pull or respect or recognition as a whole, among pool operators and general public, and even within swimming community, then your political battle may have been little easier! I forget where I wrote this, here in the forums or in a privatre email, one of the things that I think need to happen is some analisys of whom is doing what and how, and whith what kind of sucess rates and what their obstacles are, and how they've been solved... Basically a good SWOT analisys (after some research is done), then we can figure out how much USMS can do on the national level, how much assistance they can provice locally and to what extent. Also, I envision more than just one or two tools available for that. There might be 5 or 6 business models that are distinct. To me, once we agree on the big picture, we can do some analisys and work out the details on how to go about the big picture. There are many aspects to it. Last year I pushed that the marketing committee goes through the exercise of writing a marketing plan, partly as a tool to think in detail about all these things. What bugs me enormously is that only a 20 bullet action plan got written, and a lot of things didn't get done. Yet again, the thought process, the SWOT analisys the aligniong with the USMS objectives and supporting them, polling of the other comittees and finding ways to interact and assist in their marketing needs, lot of things that go into a comprehensive marketing plan did not happen. The whole effort boilrd down to discussing and writing out some short term action items. And even those, even with being the comitte Vice Chair (recently appointed), I can't seem to get a rundown of whom is doing what. Seems like there is a lack of understanding as to the understanding the purpose of the committee, within the committee itself. There are several people on the comittee that seem to think if it's something we can't do right now, we shouldn't even be talking about possibilities and what if's. Well, marketing and business direction (business plans) are all about possibilities and what if's and planing for things down the road. If they don't understand that, maybe they're not the best fit for marketing. Also, as soon as an idea pops up, some people start resisting it, as if it's suddenly going to become a one size fits all solution, rather then a case study... So often you wind up unable to even talk through a case study and move on to the next example.

Originally posted by Peter Cruise Connie- believe it or not, I've been plowing through every word. Little wonder that heat arises with some of this stuff as inevitably the philosophical/political aspects ignite passions somewhat reflective of the vehement debates usually along party lines that define acrimony. What I think everyone is trying (or should be) for the pragmatic fixes to some of the dysfunctions identified. What has come out in some of the later posts is how different the experiences are for different clubs & their swimmers depending on affiliation, historical factors, regional economy, political will- you name it, all rendering a debate very difficult because we're all reflecting our different experiences. To illustrate, here are my two main club experiences since entering masters (1984): North Vancouver was my first club & their pool time & coaching were all provided by the municipality as a recreation program: you could pay drop in, monthly, seasonally etc. Their insurance covered in-pool practise issues. If you wanted to join the master's swim club, all you paid was the registration fee to Masters B.C. After a year or so I began to realize that this was an unusual setup compared to other swimmers I met at meets & seeing as I bumped into the then administrator for recreation programming at a party, I asked about it & received this (abridged) reply, "We regard exercise among the highest strategies to avoid catastrophic loads on our health care system, both from people who are seniors now & from the baby boomers just entering ages of higher risk. We can pay now, or pay a lot more later." Nanaimo was my next & current club. We are orgaization that rents pool time period. The city has a six level scheme that it slots users into that determines both fee level & pool priority. When I first arrived, we were a 'level 2' (same as age group, synchro etc), then a new administration arrived that reclassified us as a level 6 (the lowest, same as a for-profit scuba lesson rental for example), as well, they tried to get us to swim at 11pm at night. We spent a great deal of political capital getting most of the damage reversed (age discrimination suit threatened etc., 'cause the age groupers had stayed high priority). Nasty situation, grudges nursed, etc. A new pool has eased things, but never have I experienced the sense of being valued as a user that North Vancouver projected. Lest I write a novel here, my point in detailing this has only be illustrative of two different experiences; imagine across USMS membership. I couldn't agree with you more! That's just why it bugs me when people decide that no, we don't need growth, or this is good or this is not good based on their local experiences. I strongly believe that if masters swimming had more pull or respect or recognition as a whole, among pool operators and general public, and even within swimming community, then your political battle may have been little easier! I forget where I wrote this, here in the forums or in a privatre email, one of the things that I think need to happen is some analisys of whom is doing what and how, and whith what kind of sucess rates and what their obstacles are, and how they've been solved... Basically a good SWOT analisys (after some research is done), then we can figure out how much USMS can do on the national level, how much assistance they can provice locally and to what extent. Also, I envision more than just one or two tools available for that. There might be 5 or 6 business models that are distinct. To me, once we agree on the big picture, we can do some analisys and work out the details on how to go about the big picture. There are many aspects to it. Last year I pushed that the marketing committee goes through the exercise of writing a marketing plan, partly as a tool to think in detail about all these things. What bugs me enormously is that only a 20 bullet action plan got written, and a lot of things didn't get done. Yet again, the thought process, the SWOT analisys the aligniong with the USMS objectives and supporting them, polling of the other comittees and finding ways to interact and assist in their marketing needs, lot of things that go into a comprehensive marketing plan did not happen. The whole effort boilrd down to discussing and writing out some short term action items. And even those, even with being the comitte Vice Chair (recently appointed), I can't seem to get a rundown of whom is doing what. Seems like there is a lack of understanding as to the understanding the purpose of the committee, within the committee itself. There are several people on the comittee that seem to think if it's something we can't do right now, we shouldn't even be talking about possibilities and what if's. Well, marketing and business direction (business plans) are all about possibilities and what if's and planing for things down the road. If they don't understand that, maybe they're not the best fit for marketing. Also, as soon as an idea pops up, some people start resisting it, as if it's suddenly going to become a one size fits all solution, rather then a case study... So often you wind up unable to even talk through a case study and move on to the next example.