Mock meets?

[flipandtwist]

I want to bring up the idea of a mock meet to the head coach, but I was wondering how other gyms handle it.
Do you guys hire a judge/s? Does the judge give them strictly scores, or a little bit of feedback? Do the gymnasts split the cost of what hiring the judge costs? How much money do they pay?
Do the gymnasts wear their competition leotard, or a different one?
How many girls do you have "competing" at the same time?
Do you charge at all for the people coming to watch?
Tell me any and all information about how you all organize your mock meets.

 

[kandkfunk]

We usually do a mock meet for the Compulsories at the end of August and a separate one for the Optionals in November. The girls all wear their competition leos and the newby parents get to practice meet hair. There is generally a small fee charged to pay for the judge. Usually around $10 per gymnast. We are a small enough team that we can get away with bringing in only 1 judge. Everyone competes on the same event and then rotates together. It usually takes about four hours to get through 20 or so girls with 1 judge. Our coaches ask that the judge provide scores and also comments on things to work on and what the girls did well. For the optionals, she also provides the start value of each routine and offers suggestions if there are composition or missing element errors. We are not charged a fee to watch.

 

[gymmomtoo]

Real judges, competition leos, fee per gymnast, but none for spectators and judges give scores and general feedback

 

[GymMom67]

We have one this weekend. This is my DD's second year competing and we did not have one last year, so this is our first one. One of our coaches is a judge, so she will be the judge for the event, and she is the only one. She mostly coaches optional girls. Each girl had to pay $10 to enter, and they will wear competition leos and hair. I'm really glad they're doing it, as they will know more what they need to concentrate on in the last couple of weeks before our district qualifiers start.

 

[Vincati]

Real judges, competition leos, fee per gymnast, but none for spectators and judges give scores and general feedback

We do this as well. Optionals go first and the compulsories often come early and watch. Then levels 2,3,4 and 5 go around in a rotation.

 

[Gymfinn7]

We've done mock meets a few ways. We've done it where we just compete in our practice Leo's and our coach judges our routines. We don't win anything.
Another way we've done it is were we split the team in two; they each have a team name, a captain, and a practice Leo of their choice that everyone wears (if they have it, if not something close). Then every person from each team competes their routines, and since our head coach was close friends with a judge she came by and judged us.
Then another time we actually wore our competition Leo's, and we got ribbons.

 

[Gymfinn7]

The only time we ever charged was when we wore our competition Leo's and got ribbons but it was pretty cheap.

 

[gymnasticswim4]

The rec team's only meets are in-house. Three of our coaches are judges, so they judge, giving us scores and feedback. We have our own competition leo. Our gym is small,and the classes are really cheap, so they use donations whenever they can, so they make us pay $20 or so.

 

[coyote]

We typically do a mock meet in November for both compulsories and optionals. The gym hires 2 judges and the girls receives scores as well as written feedback. We pay $10-$20 to cover the cost of the judges. There is a donation of canned goods for entry to watch the mock meet in support of our local food bank.

 

[Canadian_gym_mom]

Our only mock meet, there were 2 judges (one is one of the invitational coaches and the other the do of a coach), they gave scores and feedback. They "competed"in their training suits and there was no cost to athletes or spectators and no awards either.

It was an opportunity for them to show their routines and get told by real judges the same thing the coaches have been saying.

 

[shelovestoflip]

My daughter's gym has judges come just before the beginning of meet season. They wear their competition leos, meet hair etc. The parent's association pays for this (we host a yearly meet so that is one of the things the money raised pays for).

They have 2 judges and they judge routines but also give the girls feedback at the end of the night. Parents are not allowed in the gym for this (or ever!) though it is a night that most parents actually go into the gym to pickup instead of waiting in a car line outside!!

They have 3 separate nights...Compulsories, Optionals and PrepOp.

The girls definitely like it...especially the feedback from the judges.

 

[raenndrops]

We have done mock meets in the past. Always competition leotards (if they had them). Our team WAS small enough at one time that one Level 7/8 rated judge could do all of the judging and still be finished in 2 hours or less... we would divide the team into 2 groups. One group would warm up an event while the other group competed a different event. Then the judge would move to the second group while the first warmed up for the next event. The judge gives scores AND feedback.
We were charged $10 each to participate. Entry to all of our meets (except Nationals) is free.

There are also times we will have a mock meet aka "Last Chance Qualifier Meet" to try to get more girls qualified for Nationals. In these meets, we have some girls who are actually trying to qualify and others are just trying to get more experience / feedback... these gymnasts are the only ones who get feedback in this situation. The judges feel that it would be inappropriate to give feedback when they are giving a counting score.