Parents advice on hosting first meet

[Gymmastmom9]

We are hosting our first meet. Does anyone have advice on it? What we need? Anything that adds a nice touch?
Really any advice or suggestions?

Is there a template you used to stay organized? I want to make sure we stay focused and on track with planning. I know asking parents to volunteer to help can be little difficult, but hopes if I have a good template it will be very direct and to the point on what exactly we need help with.

 

[Tmacs]

Have a binder of everything you do so you can keep records for future meets. Use sign-up genius to get volunteers. Have one person in charge of each main area- decor (themed meets are fun... relate to seasons or really anything), concessions (have easy but unique snacks), raffle baskets (get volunteers to donate/assemble and have 2-3 per session. You could have higher value ones as weekend raffles (but make sure they are easy to get to out-of-towners. Shout-outs are popular and easy to do with a shout-out card and small gift.
Having cool, unique awards make a difference too. My favorite is the plaque with a "strip" for each place/score but those are pricey and maybe not a gymnast favorite.

 

[B&M's mom]

Do you have someone who has worked at meet to set this up? It's a complicated thing. Sorry this is one long paragraph. I've worked big meets and helped set up and run a small meet. Designate someone as the meet director so there's a point person. Start with your venue, do you have the equipment or will you have to rent it? Don't forget seating for guests as that's where you make your money if you are charging admission. How much seating will you have? Where do people park? Access to the competition floor vs. seating. Arrange for judges. Make sure that you provide food for judges if required. Do they have a space to be between sessions? Scoring: make sure you have a way to properly display the scores. Also need scoring sheets and someone to tabulate the scores. We had someone prepare a spreadsheet so she could enter the scores and it would automatically tabulate them by age group.
Entries: how much? How will you get teams? Is this a approved meet by a national organization? If so, you need to follow their rules. How much are entries? What are your limits on number of teams/participants?
Day of: where do the teams warm up? Leave their stuff? Set up session times both for warm up and competition. Have some sort of program, even if it's just a sheet with the competitors listed by team. Make sure music system (girls meet) functions properly and can handle any type of music provided by coaches. Set up judges tables with pencils/pens, scoring display. Remember the parents want to see the scores so it has to large and visible. Concessions: make it easy, though hot dogs did sell really well at ours. We mainly did pre-packaged foods otherwise. Did not make a ton of money on concessions so don't over buy.
Volunteers: timers for each event except vault, someone at each event to run scores to main scoring table. Can use 1 or 2 people who circulate to do it but make sure that they understand it's more than one table they need to cover. Admissions people both for teams and visitors, concessions people, if girls meet, music persons. It also helps to have some people who can trouble shoot equipment issues and electrical issues. First Aid, someone qualified to deal with any injuries. Meet director.
Depending on type of meet, you may have to give out ribbons at certain levels for every event so you need to factor those in. Awards, need to decide how far out you give and then what type of awards you are giving out.
Extras: shout outs are nice but don't make a lot of money, if you have the bandwidth to gather raffle baskets, you need tickets, people to sell them, and then someone to get the baskets to the right people. 50/50 may be easier as you just sell the tickets, collect the money and split it right at the end of collection period.
I'm sure I'm forgetting something but that's the basics of what we did when we ran a small boys meet.

 

[Pineapple_Lump]

If I was doing a meet for the first time ever - I would be trying to find another successful meet director I could help/shadow and learn from before running it.

 

[kdb150]

USAG has a detailed guide of everything you will need to run a successful meet. Depending on the size there may be several things in there that don't apply to your meet. Good luck!

 

[Gymmastmom9]

Have a binder of everything you do so you can keep records for future meets. Use sign-up genius to get volunteers. Have one person in charge of each main area- decor (themed meets are fun... relate to seasons or really anything), concessions (have easy but unique snacks), raffle baskets (get volunteers to donate/assemble and have 2-3 per session. You could have higher value ones as weekend raffles (but make sure they are easy to get to out-of-towners. Shout-outs are popular and easy to do with a shout-out card and small gift.
Having cool, unique awards make a difference too. My favorite is the plaque with a "strip" for each place/score but those are pricey and maybe not a gymnast favorite.

thank you for these suggestions. I like the idea of a few raffles for each session. Volunteers might be tricky but I am hoping when it gets closer parents will step up more.

 

[Gymmastmom9]

Do you have someone who has worked at meet to set this up? It's a complicated thing. Sorry this is one long paragraph. I've worked big meets and helped set up and run a small meet. Designate someone as the meet director so there's a point person. Start with your venue, do you have the equipment or will you have to rent it? Don't forget seating for guests as that's where you make your money if you are charging admission. How much seating will you have? Where do people park? Access to the competition floor vs. seating. Arrange for judges. Make sure that you provide food for judges if required. Do they have a space to be between sessions? Scoring: make sure you have a way to properly display the scores. Also need scoring sheets and someone to tabulate the scores. We had someone prepare a spreadsheet so she could enter the scores and it would automatically tabulate them by age group.
Entries: how much? How will you get teams? Is this a approved meet by a national organization? If so, you need to follow their rules. How much are entries? What are your limits on number of teams/participants?
Day of: where do the teams warm up? Leave their stuff? Set up session times both for warm up and competition. Have some sort of program, even if it's just a sheet with the competitors listed by team. Make sure music system (girls meet) functions properly and can handle any type of music provided by coaches. Set up judges tables with pencils/pens, scoring display. Remember the parents want to see the scores so it has to large and visible. Concessions: make it easy, though hot dogs did sell really well at ours. We mainly did pre-packaged foods otherwise. Did not make a ton of money on concessions so don't over buy.
Volunteers: timers for each event except vault, someone at each event to run scores to main scoring table. Can use 1 or 2 people who circulate to do it but make sure that they understand it's more than one table they need to cover. Admissions people both for teams and visitors, concessions people, if girls meet, music persons. It also helps to have some people who can trouble shoot equipment issues and electrical issues. First Aid, someone qualified to deal with any injuries. Meet director.
Depending on type of meet, you may have to give out ribbons at certain levels for every event so you need to factor those in. Awards, need to decide how far out you give and then what type of awards you are giving out.
Extras: shout outs are nice but don't make a lot of money, if you have the bandwidth to gather raffle baskets, you need tickets, people to sell them, and then someone to get the baskets to the right people. 50/50 may be easier as you just sell the tickets, collect the money and split it right at the end of collection period.
I'm sure I'm forgetting something but that's the basics of what we did when we ran a small boys meet.

Thank you for all of these! I know it will be about the details that will make it good for everyone involved. gymnasts/families/judges/coaches etc I am the primary person running this. I will have people that will help when it gets closer. I am the one drafting everything up now, the meet is only a few months away.

 

[CuriousCate]

thank you for these suggestions. I like the idea of a few raffles for each session. Volunteers might be tricky but I am hoping when it gets closer parents will step up more.

Not sure how your gym feels about it, but when our gym hosted a meet, we were required to either volunteer or to donate concessions (candy, snacks, waters, etc). No one seemed to mind. They also had the upper level optionals "work" the lower level sessions.

 

[Carly]

You are going to need a lot of volunteers. Definitely line up someone to be in charge of each area, such as: volunteer coordinator, admissions, concessions, money, judges food, coaches food, awards, music, equipment, judges assistants, scoring, parking, etc. We did have gymnasts help too. I think that they had to be 13+ and there were some things that we did not let them do, like judges/coaches food and parking. A sign up genius was used to coordinate the volunteers.

Where are the profits of the meet going? Are the volunteers getting a share? I'm not sure if there are legal rules. We belonged to the parents' association. Sometimes volunteering was mandatory and the profits offset competition costs. Other times, we had profits that were added to individual volunteer accounts in the parents' association.

 

[Madden3]

I suggest get volunteering expectations sorted, you cannot just expect people to step up if meet volunteering is not already part of the culture of the gym. I would suggest, send out a save the date email with an explanation of what the expectations are: How many hours each family is expected to volunteer, whether you want gymnast volunteers as well as adults or not, and how much each family is expected to donate as far as stocking snack bar, raffle prizes, and hospitality. At our gym, they offer the option of cash donations as well as purchasing specific items which is nice for busy parents. In the US legally a non profit cannot MAKE people volunteer or donate, but you can certainly create the very strong impression that not volunteering is not an option.

 

[Gymmastmom9]

Have a binder of everything you do so you can keep records for future meets. Use sign-up genius to get volunteers. Have one person in charge of each main area- decor (themed meets are fun... relate to seasons or really anything), concessions (have easy but unique snacks), raffle baskets (get volunteers to donate/assemble and have 2-3 per session. You could have higher value ones as weekend raffles (but make sure they are easy to get to out-of-towners. Shout-outs are popular and easy to do with a shout-out card and small gift.
Having cool, unique awards make a difference too. My favorite is the plaque with a "strip" for each place/score but those are pricey and maybe not a gymnast favorite.

thank you for all this info. this is super helpful