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?
My :2cents::
I agree with virtually everything that Evil Smith has said.
Having built businesses, managed teams, and been responsible for fairly significant P&L's, I would like to suggest that we consider what the "mission" of USMS is. I know, it has one. But is it a viable one? Can you simultaneously meet the needs of fitness swimmers, club members who never swim meets, and the highly competitive among us? Maybe, but maybe not.
It is the default mindset for people coming out of the private sector to look at things like growth, PR, profitability, marketing, etc, etc. This is NOT typically the mindset for volunteers working in a non-profit, based on my experience.
I think the challenge for the Evil Smiths of the world is to ask the question: am I getting everything I want from USMS? If not, are my expectations unreasonable, or are there changes that could be made that would benefit me without negatively affecting the other members?
I think this is a great discussion topic, BTW.
Almost 2 months later but I finally got my USMS registration number all is good. Now I can train with a different team while I am away from my team for a month. :)
