WCM really needs your help

Thanks Heather. I really appreciate it. :angel: OK, here's the scoop as I know it. The City of WC pays most of Kerry's salary, and half of the asst. coaches salaries (which aren't very big- I think all 3 of them don't even make up 1 FT coach). Kerry is a FT employee w/benefits. Our team, through our dues, which are about $250/year (I think- it's no more than $300 for sure), pays the rest of Kerry's salary, and half of the asst. coaches. These funds have been eliminated by the city. We will most certainly have to pick up the difference as a team. Our concern is that Kerry has 30 years in with the City and full medical. We can't pick that up. Furthermore the city is asking us to use the Aquabear model where we rent the pool for x$/month. The Aquabears do not make the city money with this pool fee ($24,000/yr), and they don't make the city money at all. On the other hand, WCM, in addition to our dues, pays a splash fee $4.50, every time we swim. We bring in over $150,000 to the city every year! That more than pays for our coaches. Our board is looking at several options: 1) save our current situation- this pool is in a perfect central location (that's why we all swim in the same pool!) 2) moving to a new location, so no more WC anything (fine with us)- there aren't any other pools centrally located- probably lose people (not the goal of USMS) 3) trying to raise funds to build our own facility- that would take corporate sponsorship and that's a whole other can of worms. I am all for #3. I think that we could do it. It would probably take 5 years but I think we could. We could have as many meets as we wanted, etc... Anyway, please e-mail and let our city council know what an amazing team Kerry has created. Believe me we've been singing his praises, but they expect that from his swimmers. They'd be hard pressed not to listen to other swimmers from across the country, or even the border (hint hint): mayor@walnut-creek.org Please, it will take you 3 minutes max, and if takes longer than that, I'll buy you a beer. :chug: I sent in an email in support of the WCM program, and you don't owe me a beer, but thanks for the offer. :) We are facing a challenge with the budget cuts in our city as well, here at Mountain View Masters. Our program is structured pretty differently, in that we pay our coaching staff from our membership fees and pay pool rental time to the city. Like you, we are the only cash cow of all pool users and the city's proposal to us would put us under. However, we had good team turnout at a recent city council meeting and I think there is a lot of positive room for our team to negotiate a viable solution and partly this is based on confusion at the city level about what they are charging us compared to what other expenses we and other comparable teams have. I wonder, after looking at your list of solutions, whether a fourth alternative, trying to negotiate for a flat-rate hourly pool rental, eliminating the splash fee, and taking on the cost of your coaching salaries via your membership dues would not work? That is basically how we have been operating all this time. I do not know what the out of pocket cost to your swimmers would be, but the splash fee seems like a pretty hefty costs while your membership dues are very low (I pay about double what you do to belong to MVM). I realize this does not solve the problem of your head coach's full medical and 30years with the city issue, but perhaps there can be a solution found for that one issue and this otherwise could be a better longterm solution for WCM? Building another pool, going corporate, moving, etc. seem like all would be destructive to your awesome team. But maybe I'm biased by liking how our team is run? Really hope something works out for you guys!

Thanks Heather. I really appreciate it. :angel: OK, here's the scoop as I know it. The City of WC pays most of Kerry's salary, and half of the asst. coaches salaries (which aren't very big- I think all 3 of them don't even make up 1 FT coach). Kerry is a FT employee w/benefits. Our team, through our dues, which are about $250/year (I think- it's no more than $300 for sure), pays the rest of Kerry's salary, and half of the asst. coaches. These funds have been eliminated by the city. We will most certainly have to pick up the difference as a team. Our concern is that Kerry has 30 years in with the City and full medical. We can't pick that up. Furthermore the city is asking us to use the Aquabear model where we rent the pool for x$/month. The Aquabears do not make the city money with this pool fee ($24,000/yr), and they don't make the city money at all. On the other hand, WCM, in addition to our dues, pays a splash fee $4.50, every time we swim. We bring in over $150,000 to the city every year! That more than pays for our coaches. Our board is looking at several options: 1) save our current situation- this pool is in a perfect central location (that's why we all swim in the same pool!) 2) moving to a new location, so no more WC anything (fine with us)- there aren't any other pools centrally located- probably lose people (not the goal of USMS) 3) trying to raise funds to build our own facility- that would take corporate sponsorship and that's a whole other can of worms. I am all for #3. I think that we could do it. It would probably take 5 years but I think we could. We could have as many meets as we wanted, etc... Anyway, please e-mail and let our city council know what an amazing team Kerry has created. Believe me we've been singing his praises, but they expect that from his swimmers. They'd be hard pressed not to listen to other swimmers from across the country, or even the border (hint hint): mayor@walnut-creek.org Please, it will take you 3 minutes max, and if takes longer than that, I'll buy you a beer. :chug: I sent in an email in support of the WCM program, and you don't owe me a beer, but thanks for the offer. :) We are facing a challenge with the budget cuts in our city as well, here at Mountain View Masters. Our program is structured pretty differently, in that we pay our coaching staff from our membership fees and pay pool rental time to the city. Like you, we are the only cash cow of all pool users and the city's proposal to us would put us under. However, we had good team turnout at a recent city council meeting and I think there is a lot of positive room for our team to negotiate a viable solution and partly this is based on confusion at the city level about what they are charging us compared to what other expenses we and other comparable teams have. I wonder, after looking at your list of solutions, whether a fourth alternative, trying to negotiate for a flat-rate hourly pool rental, eliminating the splash fee, and taking on the cost of your coaching salaries via your membership dues would not work? That is basically how we have been operating all this time. I do not know what the out of pocket cost to your swimmers would be, but the splash fee seems like a pretty hefty costs while your membership dues are very low (I pay about double what you do to belong to MVM). I realize this does not solve the problem of your head coach's full medical and 30years with the city issue, but perhaps there can be a solution found for that one issue and this otherwise could be a better longterm solution for WCM? Building another pool, going corporate, moving, etc. seem like all would be destructive to your awesome team. But maybe I'm biased by liking how our team is run? Really hope something works out for you guys!