For truly "in house" meets (as in taking place in your actual gym versus being hosted by your gym) , we are not required to work but volunteers are welcome...if you do volunteer, there is no reward per se in terms of profits etc. Our parent association sells drinks and some food but again, we are not required to contribute to this either.
For the meet hosted by our gym, if you are a member of the parents association,you are required to work 7 shifts (i.e. meet sessions) PER GYMNAST (if you have 2 daughters, then it's 14 shifts!) and a set up or a break down of the event AND you are reqiured to contribute $30 in either food or money towards the concessions and judges and coaches food and here is the kicker ...the parents association does NOT get the profits from meet, the gym does!! And after working our 7 shifts, if our daughter competes in a different session, we have to pay the admission fee of 12 bucks!! So usually after one year in the parent org, people usually wake to the realization that they are being taken for a ride and they don't join again...There is no requirement to join the parents association so with a scenario like this , why would you? The parents association gets to keep the profits from the concessions (big whoop and it usually only amounts to 3-4000 to be split by all in the assoc) but the gym keeps everything else!!
Sounds like where our parents' association is headed. That is why many of our parents are quite upset. In the past, our gym gave the association 50%. The association provided all the manpower, food for concessions and judges, supplies, goody bags, raffles, decorations. Basically, everything. The one meet we host is a big one, with 800 to 1,200 gymnasts. So most members of the association are at the meet all weekend. We are asked to contribute money towards the raffles, bring in food and are assigned supplies (cups, plates, etc.). Some dedicated parents provide many hundreds of dollars worth of supplies. The minimum contribution per gymnast is between $50-$100. Because our gym cannot hold such a meet and our equipment is not up to par with competition standards, we do rent a place and all the equipment. Two weeks ago, our gym announced that they are no longer are splitting the profits with the association but will give the association all proceeds from the concession stand. Reading all the posts, I am finding that this is customary and quite commonplace. Unfortunately, the representation of the association to its members in the last few years was that the meet is the association's biggest fundraiser. So, most newer members were eager and willing to put in as much as they can because they thought the meet was the associations. With this new announcement, came a lot of resentment. I also initially resented the gym taking the 50% profit away, but from the looks of things, they were actually quite generous. Our meet is coming up in a few weeks, and I don't know how we are going to pull it off. We don't know how many parents are actually volunteer. The gym makes no requirements to volunteer but requests each parent volunteer to work 2 sessions. I think the gym should make this a requirement as part of the team. However, even if everyone in our team volunteers, I think we still have a huge problem, because we have lost half our team and with the number of people we have left, I am not so sure we will have enough manpower. By the way, another big reason parents are resentful is because the association was never handed the 50% profit promised from last year. In addition, parents believe they are not seeing the "return" on their membership as initially promised by the association. Our higher level gymnasts and/or gymnasts that have been with the gym for a while. So, we are left with new, misinformed, inexperienced and upset parents. There just seems to be no structure, follow through, adequate leadership in our association and gym. The future of our association is sketchy.
Thanks for everyone's posts. I will try to get the word around, that the gym is truly not as bad as they've been perceived.
