So I have been swimming with a masters team since august and have since then paid my usms membership fee at the end of October to be able to swim in a meet we recently had. I haven't recieved my usms card in the mail yet. In two weeks and am going back home from school for a month but need to swim in a structured program and am gonna find the masters team at home and wanted to know if I could still swim with them without my membership card, is there a way to prove my membership without it?
Hmm, if people are lamenting the USS tags, then maybe it's not such a good idea? Now if you really want some pop, you can laminate the cards and hang them from your bag. That's really cool. :angel:
Paul & Peg...that is how my current USS card is set up...laminated with a luggage tag holder and its hanging on my swim bag sitting here on the floor in front of me so not sure why I'm "special".
Chris & Paul...in my opinion there should be no costs passed along to members...it would be a very simple and inexpensive process that we be a nice touch...and for the record i already do laminate mine.
Chris & Paul...in my opinion there should be no costs passed along to members...it would be a very simple and inexpensive process that we be a nice touch...and for the record i already do laminate mine.
Agreed it is simple and inexpensive. It is gracious of you to offer that a volunteer do all of this work on their own time... Can you imagine Nancy (Pacific Registrar) having to do this for 10,000 tags every year? That would be 27+ per day, or more than 1 per hour without a break for the entire year...
Thanks jroddin, my coach was supposed to have sent our registrations out so we could swim in a meet we had but I tried filling the info out on the webpage you suggested and it tells me there is no match for my name. I hope he did send those out.
Paul - I'll fully admit I've only been skimming this. I have no problem with your ideas. I simply question the implementation of some of them (like the laminated bag tag that I now realize you are just using as a hypothetical example).
Doug - if you only have 862 members for the whole year, yes, that is puny! Pacific has over 10,000 members, SPMA has 3-4k swimmers (I think). Colorado is about 2300 and Potomac Valley is over 2200. What may work for an LMSC with only 862 members is not going to be practical for an LMSC several times larger, and that was the point I was trying to make.
...what I do think is that there is tremendous potential to make USMS far more relevant to far more people with at least an attempt at a few basic brand building efforts.
The reason I ask about buisness backgrounds is that it would surprise me that someone who had one wouldn't recognize the value of basic, low cost, grass roots PR and marketing efforts. As Geek points out he at least gets a stick from USTA when he renews...the best advertising for USMS is the current membership out there everyday sporting the colors and talking the talk...so give them a little help doing that...it'll cost a heck of a lot less than a magazine ad in Shape!
It is pretty clear that membership growth is desired by the top brass in USMS. My question is a little more basic: whom are we trying to entice to join USMS?
You bring up fitness instructors. Do we want to aggressively market to (say) people who until now are in aqua-aerobics classes? What exactly are the consequences of success?
It seems to me that -- with its interest in expanding OW swimming -- USMS is very interested in enticing triathletes to cross-over into USMS. Do we want this?
(These are true questions, not a comment from me on desirability or lack thereof.)
Based on the brief interview of Rob Butcher on Gold Medal Mel, it seems that maybe Butcher is pursuing former big swimming names to get them back into competition. You've been known to do this yourself. Broadening this: are former competitive swimmers the market we should pursue most aggressively?
Or all of these things?
We set up a USMS booth at a local (big) 10k road race here in Richmond last year. We had many, many people come by and ask about USMS (it is not clear to me how many signed up). When they were asking about swimming opportunities in Richmond and I gave them all the information -- we had it all ready -- I found myself wondering if my own small workout group would become so large that it would be unmanageable. (There are now days when we have 6-7 people per lane for awhile, making anything beyond 50 repeats problematic.)
It seems to me that the answers to these questions play a pretty big role in whatever strategies we decide to use to increase brand-recognition.
It is pretty clear that membership growth is desired by the top brass in USMS. My question is a little more basic: whom are we trying to entice to join USMS?
You bring up fitness instructors. Do we want to aggressively market to (say) people who until now are in aqua-aerobics classes? What exactly are the consequences of success?
It seems to me that -- with its interest in expanding OW swimming -- USMS is very interested in enticing triathletes to cross-over into USMS. Do we want this?
(These are true questions, not a comment from me on desirability or lack thereof.)
Based on the brief interview of Rob Butcher on Gold Medal Mel, it seems that maybe Butcher is pursuing former big swimming names to get them back into competition. You've been known to do this yourself. Broadening this: are former competitive swimmers the market we should pursue most aggressively?
Or all of these things?
We set up a USMS booth at a local (big) 10k road race here in Richmond last year. We had many, many people come by and ask about USMS (it is not clear to me how many signed up). When they were asking about swimming opportunities in Richmond and I gave them all the information -- we had it all ready -- I found myself wondering if my own small workout group would become so large that it would be unmanageable. (There are now days when we have 6-7 people per lane for awhile, making anything beyond 50 repeats problematic.)
It seems to me that the answers to these questions play a pretty big role in whatever strategies we decide to use to increase brand-recognition.
Excellent post! This is the kind of basic question I've been wanting people to ask and both you and Jim have gotten to the crux of the debate...is growth good? And who should we target.
USMS has been very clear that the "fitness swimmer" is the largest percentage of our membership and arguably the hardest to detrermine what they want and/or need beyond access to a workout group.
The smaller competitive side seems to be far more vocal...but probably not to much different than the fitness swimmers when it comes to the biggest concern over gowth and that is crowded lanes...which we all may see a lot more of if the economy worsens and we see inevitable pool closures.
Here's my opinion...I think growth is good and the more people getting involved the more likely we'll have more voices screaming when we face pool closures, programs dropped as well as possible expansion of programs and building of pools.
Who should we target...everyone. And to me the most basic, fundamental step is simply getting the brand name out there any place we can...and the easiest way and most cost effective is using the 50,000+ members we already have as walking billboards...
How do we do it? As i said long ago on these forums the dog should wag the tail...the parent organization can and should leverage itself and create more value in the sponsorships it accepts. We shouldn't have every suit manufacturer as a sponosor...have one, charge more and ask that a one time20% off coupon be provided to our members who renew/or first time members or. Instead of having every on-line/catalog swimming retailer have one...and find a similar benefit to be offered to members. LMSC's can/should also find a way to share revenue and do things like offer a USMS logo t-shirt with memberships at a deeply discounted price (I figure is a meet host can provide a t-shirt with a $35 entry fee we can find a way). Every nationals host should be given USMS stickers to go into goodie bags when swimmers check-in and on and on and on.
I'm not syaing these are the best or only options...I put them out there off the top of my head and ask people to throw a few out themselves vs. get caught up in the feasibility or costs...call it a brainstorming session and see what happens.
Chris...I'm curious how many companies you've run, worked for, particpated in building, ran PR and/or marketing for...same for Roddin, Peg and anyone else who seems to think I trivilaize volunteers from USMS and don't "appreciate" what work has/is being done?
...
I love swimming...and I'm a buisnessman and very competitive...I want this organtization to be highly successful but to be honest I'm tired and fed up with being one of the only voices out here asking hard questions and trying to fight the fight and getting told to go "volunteer" and/or quit bitching.
I am not sure exactly how "why doesn't USMS give me a luggage tag" turned into "I am asking the hard questions."
The reason people seem to think that you trivialize volunteers or don't appreciate what we do, Paul, is that it is pretty much exactly how it sounds.
"Why doesn't USMS give me a luggage tag? USAS does. It would be SO EASY. PS: You suck." (Obviously I am joking a little here. But only a little.)
I have no business experience, you are right, and you have a good point about fitness instructors etc. But I do not think the answer is to add to the burden of the most overworked LMSC members, the Registrars.
Comments shouted out from the peanut gallery can be helpful, but only up to a point. The reason people get on you to volunteer is that it seems very important to you and, as you point out, you have a lot of experience to offer. (I realize that working as a coach helps "the cause" a lot too, so it isn't that I think you are a layabout.)
Other than outsourcing the work (which costs more money and I already get swimmers to complain about our $12 LMSC fee), I have yet to hear how Paul proposes the large LMSCs handle something like a bag tag. It's quite impressive for him to sit back at his computer proposing ideas for other people's time (and for ignoring comments about running volunteers into the ground)... :coffee:
A puny LMSC like Arizona can handle stuffing some envelopes and laminating tags. :banana: But once again, what about the LMSCs that are much larger? What may work for one LMSC doesn't necessarily work for another LMSC and it is rather arrogant to think otherwise.
Paul's idea is a much better one for the National Organization to consider. They would be better equipped to outsource and make it happen. Having it done at the LMSC level is simply not practical.
