I'm curious about how general membership that frequents the forums feels about this.
Former Member
On a serious note, a bit of background information (alos more backgtound is here: Bringing Back Tech Suits for SCY - U.S. Masters Swimming Discussion Forums)
Noone is preventing people from putting together a poll, wherever they want, and however they want to run it.
Where it falls into having to follow the rules, is when an LMSC is asked to pay for it financially, and by use of it's volunteering resources.
Typically, LMSC's don't have the kinds of resources it takes to run informal polls, just for the sake of statistics. They are constantly battling shorthandedness in just getting much more pressing business at hand.
Historically, there's about 10-20 volunteers that represent the core group that services, in our LMSC over 4000 swimmers, and around 70 clubs (I'd have to look up the statistics to be more exact).
Right now, people pushing for this appear to think that we actually have the poser to push the USMS into making the change to this rule. We don't. However, when we express that, as the relaity of the situation, we, the volunteeres get clobered and judged about how we're being communicative, and trying to squash people interests and on and on and on... (let's not get into that, before I start ranting again)
As I mentioned before, there was a set of emails circulating trying to get techsuit proponents rounded up to make the SPMA mkake USMS change the rule. The emails got nasty, SPMA got in trouble, even though we didn't start the emails, nor was it out mailing list that was used. The thread I linked to has been started so people who really want this can speak up, without jamming everyone else's inbox, and people getting angry asking SPMA to take them off their mailing list. Email announced the new thread.
Out of all these supposed tech-suit proponents that are being ignored - go see the thread about how many showed up.
I thought, perhaps people don't want to discuss it, and want to take a preliminary interest vote, to get a starter feel for where things stand. So, I started this thread, to start polling people. I was sincerely hoping that if there's a mass of tech suit proponents out there dying to cast an informal vote, it's easy enough to stop by here, and click yes or no, to convince us more actin should be taken, and that we should look into spending USMS mambership money in organizing an emergency poll. There's nothing preventing tose people from rounding up their friends and 'killing' this poll by a landslide pro tech suit vote... to prove a point. They can do it here just as anonymously.
Like I said, SPMA has well over 4000 members, even if just 10% shows up, that's 400 new votes - that would have left a 'business beyond usual' mark on the poll.
It did not happen. How can wse serously justify spending your guys membership fees on more polls, when people won't even come forward and use what's already there and free???
I'm open to being convinced one way or another. Wherever I look, I see more people agaist them, then for them. People for the suits keep telling us we're not asking the right group, their friends and people they know aren't being asked... well, bring them here! I can see both sides of the argument here, and my own personal opinion on the tech suit is really not that important. I'm more interested in doing whatever I can to look at things objectivelly.
Same thing is happening on the local level, there's a very small group trying to make a lot of noise, and a few people doing a lot of trashing of the SPMA volunteers. (which is being dealt with with in appropriate places) Also, there's a lot more people who also expressed their desire to leave the rules be the way they are. The small cross section of opinions in the forum here actually matches pretty darn closely what is happening on a local level.
While what's happening here is very informal, it's really not that out of whack with the rest.
why doesnt someone just buy up the remaining stock of illegal tech suits, then there will be no product for the demand. Then if the rule is changed, you could make youself a nice little profit selling the tech suits on the forum black market.
Yes, not something I would put on a public forum.
Seriously. I think Connie should take her personal feud with Ahelee off the forums. I doubt anyone else wants to hear about it.
Tech suits need to stay gone.
We are at a time where masters swimming is blossoming, and frankly, is starting to get a fair amount of respect from the swimming community at large. College swimmers less and less think of masters swimmers as wanne-be's, but see masters swimming as a legitimate future pursuit for themselves.
What we do not need is to implement a crutch just for masters swimming. It would give the rest of the swimming world a good reason to laugh at masters swimming, and I think you would see the respect level drop.
If Phelps can race successfully in a jammer, then so can you.
-Rick
Certain people expressed that, paraphrasing here 'east coasters gamed the convention vote in Chicago, because west coast clubs can't spend the money to send people for a fast weekend at a swanky convention' .... and we should bring Rob Butcher in on this, because SPMA is lying to us, and how the same four people are running the place and we can't be trusted... and OMG, the list goes on and on and on. There are dozens of nasty emails coming in daily, for some weeks now. Whomever started the tech suit effort within our LMSC, heavily impregnated it with anti establishment sentiment, (we know, we've seen all of the circulating emails, even the ones we werent supposed to see) so short of us somehow magically making the USMS overturn the tech suit ruling, we'll be wrong and the bad guys.
Wow, I guess I'm glad for my nice peaceful LMSC.
To be clear, my *personal* sentiments are the same as Swimshark's: time to move on. No one in my LMSC has asked us to push this at the national level and my *personal* hope is that it is not on the agenda b/c (a) it will be a headache and (b) I don't want to have to poll our members to try to figure out their wishes.
And I also have little truck with the anti-establishment furor. I know the Rules Committee folks were very diligent and responsible, and I'm sure your LMSC officers are also acting in good faith. The decision was made back in January, everyone knew this was coming, why the rush now?
Still...I have sympathy for the idea of "not having a voice." As much as possible you want members to be happy with how their organization is run, and to feel that their opinions matter. It is just that the timing of this whole thing was bad at many levels, and USMS didn't control any of it. We couldn't really do much at the last convention because FINA hadn't decided anything for masters, while USA-S was already acting (and accelerating their timetable, adopting the new suits before strictly necessary).
Most people forget that at Convention the Rules Committee did put together a compromise solution -- allow zippers, same coverage for men and women -- that was pooh-poohed by many tech-lovers at the time but would probably look pretty good to them right about now. I recall that the suggestion itself had to be sent very quickly (FINA dictated the timing, it was at the beginning of the Convention) which means the delegates couldn't vote on it, again looking a little suspicious.
This suggestion was forwarded to FINA, who ignored it and banned the suits in January. We followed suit (no pun intended) with an "Emergency Ruling" which probably looks suspicious to those outside the system, but is the normal way of doing things when action must be taken between Conventions.
And if NO action had been taken, then according to our own rules the FINA decision would have been adopted immediately for ALL courses, including SCY.
ANYWAY...the crux of all this is that there was never an up or down vote by the HOD at Convention. (And it wasn't a Rules year anyway.) I'm sure this is hard to understand for many, and a source of frustration.
So if it does end up on the agenda this year, at least there will be debate and a vote of some kind. I may be wrong, but my prediction is that the vote would not turn out well for the tech-lovers.
Unfortunately, it sounds like passions are now running so high out there that anything less than a reversal will probably get some people very upset. And if a reversal DID occur, then many OTHER people would be upset.
No wonder people just want this to go away.
I notice that USMS uses Constant Contact for their "Streamlines" emails. Constant Contact also does surveys. Now, despite your implication that LMSCs are poor and USMS is rich, I don't think either statement is really true, and surveying 50,000 members is not a trivial task. I have no idea if something is in the works or not.
A poll at the LMSC or national level would be nice and would be a factor in my own vote, but there are other considerations too (eg, having a different suit rule than USA-S; possible marginalization of SCM and LCM meets) that would have to be addressed in any reversal.
I really have no idea how this was turned into a East vs West thing, though. That's just weird; plenty of lovers and haters on this side of the Mississippi too.
Oh, I know the answer that will satisfy you Californians! Let's allow Local Teams to wear tech suits while Regional Teams cannot! :bolt:
Expensive? We use iContact (not Club Assistant) to manage our email communications. The cost is pretty reasonable (MUCH less than our paper newsletter costs every month), and it includes the ability to do surveys of the type you describe. As a bonus, if you wish it limits the survey to the people subscribed to the list (ie, LMSC members).
There have to be other online survey tools that are reasonably cheap. This one looks free:
http://www.kwiksurveys.com
But of course there is no need to do a poll just to suggest a rule change. I suppose the idea is to strengthen the case for tech suits, but of course there is no guarantee that it will do that. You can run the poll after the deadline, though.
People asking for the poll are insisting on the club assistant. Personally, I haven't asked why. Other people may have. At the moment, every time we, at the SPMA suggest something, the accusations fly that we are trying to twiost and game the poll, and other alusions of improprieties - like you;ve seen here, people speculating about my motivations for doing a starter interest poll here, and someone even going as far as suggesting it was being 'gamed' here too.
We asked if club assistant is willing to donate their service, and there's been no answer. We asked how much the poll would costs, and no answer, other then couple people complaining about "It won't be as much as you think". We don't know what to think to start with.
As for the cost, anyone can read SPMA minutes throughout past year. Our Chair of last 6-8 months resigned, SPMA just hired a brand new treasured because .... well, stuff has been botched, and the last recommendation was, don't spend *any* money except on bare necessities till things are resolved. Our former chair, the person who is pushing for this poll is the very same person who made this "no spending" reccomendation. again... another loong story that doesn't belong here. People are resigning, and being voted in and out to remedy all this.
I suggested a number of times that poll is not necessary for SPMA to actually try and accomodate people wanting the suit - se my advice to Glen earlier in this thread. But, for the most part that is being rejected and seen as the attempt to squash the opposition... by people who have learly demonstrated they have no idea how USMS structure and rule making process works.
Certain people expressed that, paraphrasing here 'east coasters gamed the convention vote in Chicago, because west coast clubs can't spend the money to send people for a fast weekend at a swanky convention' .... and we should bring Rob Butcher in on this, because SPMA is lying to us, and how the same four people are running the place and we can't be trusted... and OMG, the list goes on and on and on. There are dozens of nasty emails coming in daily, for some weeks now. Whomever started the tech suit effort within our LMSC, heavily impregnated it with anti establishment sentiment, (we know, we've seen all of the circulating emails, even the ones we werent supposed to see) so short of us somehow magically making the USMS overturn the tech suit ruling, we'll be wrong and the bad guys.
Sorry I keep going into this. I keep wanting to respond to the nice people here with good suggestions, instead of invalidating and ignoring them, or just rejecting the ideas, but I really don't know how to explain things in a way they will make sense, without painting the whole picture. This gets me into the territory of controversial stuff. I'm sorry about that. I feel a bit between the rock and a hard place here, I don't want anyone to feel ignored and negelected.
I probably shouldn't have started this poll either. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Give people a place and opportunity to cast their vote and be heard, while other avenues are being looked at. Instead it took the same directions as emails... accusations (just little less direct then via emails), mistrust, complaints, and very little serious action.
Personally, I am disguisted with it all, and tired of losing sleep over it for weeks now, and ready to quit volunteering for the SPMA and my team, which I've been doing since around 2001 or 2002. I'm one of those background people who is (soon to be) married to a coach, holds no title, and just does everything, because noone else has stepped up to the place and "the team needs it". Our team has between 200 and 300 people, I don't know exactly, as it's not my job to keep exact track. It is like having 200 children, and I don't mean this in a bad way, I love my teammates, every single one of them. What I am trying to say, there's always something that needs doing... and it fall on the shoulders of us, the bad guys.
Tech suits need to stay gone.
We are at a time where masters swimming is blossoming, and frankly, is starting to get a fair amount of respect from the swimming community at large. College swimmers less and less think of masters swimmers as wanne-be's, but see masters swimming as a legitimate future pursuit for themselves.
What we do not need is to implement a crutch just for masters swimming. It would give the rest of the swimming world a good reason to laugh at masters swimming, and I think you would see the respect level drop.
If Phelps can race successfully in a jammer, then so can you.
-Rick
:applaud::applaud::applaud::applaud: And right now, with some asking for a rule to be changed, when it just went in to effect, makes Masters Swimming look like a bunch of whiners to others. Let the rule stay and drop it!
...and I'm not the only long term volunteer ready to quit....
Just the only one sufficiently fed up to speak up and not care any more if I get banned from here ro all of USMS for that matter.
I've given this place too many years of my life to just shut up and take it when being trashed left and right.... Especially by people and clubs who failed or neglected to nurture the kind of support we did within our team.
Couple of weeks ago, one of our own swimmer suffered a heart attack at our swim meet, we had to CPR, brought her back to life, and off to the hospital. Unfortunately, she died couple of days later, in spite of everyone's best efforts.
Instead of being with her or her family, we had to rush home and deal with petty conflict few people created (and still are). the same people who stood on the pool deck wathing what was happening... and leaving us cellphone voicemail messages about their crapola 10 minutes later, accusing us of ignoring them and their issues, because we haven't come up to talk to them on the other side of the pool deck yet. Excuse us, we're in the middle of running a large meet, and doing CPR at the moment, someone is dying, I know some of you noticed, I just asked you to clear the path so the ambulance can drive up without running you over. We're not trying to shush you up and squash your desires.
I'm sorry about ranting, I'm soooooooooo furious about all of this, I can't even see straight any more.
