As well, this "new" poll is launched in an effort to quiet swimmers who felt they did not have a voice in the decisions made in masters swimming last year.
Communication out to coaches who will then speak to their swimmers is the only solution.
However we still don't even have direct communication with a large percent of masters coaches and workout group leaders.
Until that situation improves or happens, there are always going to be athletes paying their USMS dues with no voice in the decisions of the organization.
I'm not following you as to the motivation behind this poll. It seemed innocent enough to me.
The people who actually vote at Convention are the LMSC delegates. Those are the people who represent your "voice." Contact your LMSC officers if you want to be heard.
If this "poll" is going to mean anything, you need to define some terms here. We need to know if the people voting are fitness swimmers, occasional competitors, or serious competitors (or some other terms).
The biggest flaw with any poll here is what Ahelee hinted at: people on the forum are not representative of the general USMS population.
There was a previous poll that seemed to indicate that forum members tended to come from a swimming background (HS/college) then I think would be true of the bulk of the membership. (I'm going on memory here.) I would probably guess that a greater portion of forumites tend to compete than the general membership.
Trying to slice and dice poll numbers and break them down by things like proficiency level or whether or not they compete is fine. But I object strongly to the notion that you have to have competed within the last X months or Y years in order to have a vote that "counts" in this debate.
I'm not following you as to the motivation behind this poll. It seemed innocent enough to me.
The people who actually vote at Convention are the LMSC delegates. Those are the people who represent your "voice." Contact your LMSC officers if you want to be heard.
The biggest flaw with any poll here is what Ahelee hinted at: people on the forum are not representative of the general USMS population.
A very large group of SPMA swimmers recently began circulating a thread of emails which discussed "how to bring the tech-suit back for the SCY season".
It seemed to me that they had no idea about the amount of related discussion, rules committee work, or even the system of the USAS convention last year.
And my hunch was correct!
These are swimmers who are actively competing and training in masters swim clubs. Not from one single club either, but several clubs.
When Patrick McGinley brought their question forward on the LMSC monthly conference call, he was all but shut down and given all the reasons this was an old issue and not worth addressing.
Finally, he was asked to look into another LMSCs progress in writing an amendment to the current rule.
No one recognized the underlying problem, which is the membership is not getting the news!
I applaud Patrick for stepping up and representing the membership regardless of the potential yes or no answer.
We may think we are doing a pretty good job of informing our membership of issues, but we are not.
I can't speak to name all the reasons members are not aware, but some are:
too busy - have families - can barely squeek in workout time - have had negative experiences with LMSC politics - too many emails - coach doesn't communicate news - athletes in workouts complain about taking time away from the workout to hear announcements - etc...
For me, this is a big wake-up call for us to look at our ineffective old ways and move forward with some better solutions.
Too bad it is such a fight to get people to realize that "the way we have always done it" is not always the best way for our time now.
Mike,
You are corrrect. And it's likely the same people who voted last time too! Which is why I think there needs to be some definition of terms here.
If we break down the results in the way that I have suggested or some other way, I don't care.........it would give us a better idea of the trends.
If most people supporting the suits are fitness swimmers, that would tell us one thing, if most serious competitors do not support the suits, that tells us another thing. Once we get that information, we can then argue about what it all means. Kind of like democrats sending a "poll" to democrats and republicans sending a "poll" to republicans.........the "results" don't mean much.
Also, the forum is a very small sample in the larger USMS population.
Chris,
I am NOT saying that those who don't compete should not have a vote. I am saying that we should break it down to see if there are any trends.
It is not a bad idea, but I would think you would have to be careful not to discourage non-competitors from participating in your poll (maybe THEY might think that their opinion will later be discounted).
I have thought off and on about what kind of questions would be on a good poll, since possibly we might poll our LMSC if this is slated to come up at Convention. I think, in general, "less is more" in order to encourage participation in the poll. Perhaps one or all of the following questions:
1. Would you favor allowing tech suits for SCY?
-- yes
-- no
-- no opinion either way
2. Would allowing tech suits in SCY make you:
-- more likely to compete in SCY meets?
-- less likely to compete in SCY meets?
-- have no effect on your decision to compete?
3. Would allowing tech suits in SCY:
-- increase your enjoyment of the sport?
-- decrease your enjoyment of the sport?
-- have no effect on your enjoyment?
The first question is obvious. The second question addresses how allowing/banning the suits might affect participation (although I do worry about the effect on SCM or LCM meets if the suits were allowed in SCY). The 3rd question is aimed at people who would compete either way but who like (or dislike) having the suits in competition.
Any suggestions for good poll questions are welcome; I would just want it to be SHORT and sweet.
After 23 years in masters meets 6 to 10 / year plus state & one national event, I hope that I have purchased my last tech suit at too much money for results that I am close to anyhow !
One problem with the polls on this forum is that they are uni-dimensional. You can only ask the one question. If you really want to get to data that can be analyzed, you need the ability to collect both categorical data and topical data.
Also, it would be cool if you could link the responses into the characteristics data that the extended USMS registration database could provide which would help with team sizes, regional or international subsets in reviewing the response data.
(But I think the USMS Marketing teams really ought to be at these types of analysis already, anyway.) :D
