www.usms.org/.../actionplan.pdf
I didn't go to the national meeting (too much work, not enough annual leave), but I do follow the convention via the post meeting report.
If you are interested in the future of USMS, you should read what is being proposed. USMS has come a long way since Amarillo and while you may or may not agree with all of the concepts and terms in the plan, IMHO, it is does a very good job of 1) recognizing our growth issues and 2) describing a plan for solving some of these problems.
I'm not suggesting that the plan is perfect and I'm well aware that USMS is not a democracy, but I feel that our professional staff and leaders should consider our opinions (as we are THE CUSTOMER).
Parents
Former Member
Another thought is that it might be useful to think about how the benefits are delivered and by whom.
It seems to me that for most swimmers most of the benefits of masters swimming are delivered by the clubs. The clubs provide the pool time, the coach, and they organize the meets. USMS provides mainly infrastructure to help clubs to carry out these activities: insurance, rules, officials training, records, rankings, etc.. There are some direct services such as the magazine, the website, and the fitness programs.
One way to look at this is that in some sense the clubs are the primary direct beneficiaries of USMS rather than the swimmers. The swimmers benefit most directly by having good clubs.
If you look at it that way the club development initiatives in the plan are very important. But my real point is that there will be a strong tendency for swimmers to look only at direct benefits and overlook the indirect benefits they receive from the infrastructure support provided to their clubs.
So, I think one question we have to ask is whether the people who organize clubs are getting sufficient benefit from USMS to make them feel comfortable setting a policy that all their swimmers will be USMS members?
On the flipside, are there opportunities for USMS to project its brand through the club system and directly reach the swimmers, making them more aware of the infrastructure? It seems to me that the "My USMS" has some potential here, if you can get a lot of your members signing on to get an integrated view of their swimming activities, logging their workouts, setting goals, tracking their participation in meets, tracking their participation in the long distance pool events, the check off challenge, etc., then they will not only perceive the value they get from USMS but may be more likely to participate in those various programs as they are more visible.
There is also some potential in making it visible which clubs participate in which programs, so a potential member can see that if they join Club A they will have the opportunity to do, for example, the one hour postal event. There should be a recognition system for clubs that provide their members the opportunity to participate in the various USMS programs. That would help steer members to clubs that participate in the USMS branded events and put some pressure on clubs to participate. It also means that clubs that want to be seen to offer these activities will see that it is a lot easier to offer these programs using the USMS infrastructure than cobbling together their own systems.
Another thought is that it might be useful to think about how the benefits are delivered and by whom.
It seems to me that for most swimmers most of the benefits of masters swimming are delivered by the clubs. The clubs provide the pool time, the coach, and they organize the meets. USMS provides mainly infrastructure to help clubs to carry out these activities: insurance, rules, officials training, records, rankings, etc.. There are some direct services such as the magazine, the website, and the fitness programs.
One way to look at this is that in some sense the clubs are the primary direct beneficiaries of USMS rather than the swimmers. The swimmers benefit most directly by having good clubs.
If you look at it that way the club development initiatives in the plan are very important. But my real point is that there will be a strong tendency for swimmers to look only at direct benefits and overlook the indirect benefits they receive from the infrastructure support provided to their clubs.
So, I think one question we have to ask is whether the people who organize clubs are getting sufficient benefit from USMS to make them feel comfortable setting a policy that all their swimmers will be USMS members?
On the flipside, are there opportunities for USMS to project its brand through the club system and directly reach the swimmers, making them more aware of the infrastructure? It seems to me that the "My USMS" has some potential here, if you can get a lot of your members signing on to get an integrated view of their swimming activities, logging their workouts, setting goals, tracking their participation in meets, tracking their participation in the long distance pool events, the check off challenge, etc., then they will not only perceive the value they get from USMS but may be more likely to participate in those various programs as they are more visible.
There is also some potential in making it visible which clubs participate in which programs, so a potential member can see that if they join Club A they will have the opportunity to do, for example, the one hour postal event. There should be a recognition system for clubs that provide their members the opportunity to participate in the various USMS programs. That would help steer members to clubs that participate in the USMS branded events and put some pressure on clubs to participate. It also means that clubs that want to be seen to offer these activities will see that it is a lot easier to offer these programs using the USMS infrastructure than cobbling together their own systems.
