WAG Meets - the good, bad and ugly

[cbifoja]

True.most of the ones I am complaining about are run by booster clubs.

That's crazy. I've never seen unreasonable prices at a booster club concession stand. I can at least understand paying $4 for a frickin bottle of water at a convention type meet but doing so at a smaller meet would drive me insane.

I usually love concessions....I like seeing the variety they have but man, if they asked for $3 for a bottle of water, I would pretty much have to pass.

 

[beachgirl]

I like the t-shirts. At least it's something that can be used rather than a bag of candy or a plastic crown. My only complaint is awards. We've never been to a meet that has been more than 50%, but I could see how listening to every girl called would be annoying and embarrassing for those at the bottom. I like when they read the scores with the awards, but we have been to some where it sounds like the person announcing the awards has no sense for scores or math, example 10th place 9.75 when it's supposed to be 9.075 ( a pretty big difference in gymnastics). She left out the 0's in every score. There were a lot of confused people.

 

[Vivianflips]

Yeah, I should include temperature. We had a meet this winter that was so hot the gymnasts were melting.

Oh, and seating. Pick venues that have decent seating. We attended one where I swear the fire Marshall would have shut it down outer he had shown up.

Honestly, I always pack food and drink, so I don't have much experience with cost of concessions.

And, if I could do something about the parents, I would market it and be wealthy beyond belief.

I'm with you on seating! I went to a small meet at a gym in my hometown (which is in a rural area to mention) and it was packed! Way over the allowed number of persons in the building! Not to mention the bleachers that have wobbled badly for a long time!

 

[kayjaybe]

I run concessions for our team and wow, we could be WAY more profitable selling a bottle of water for $3! (We sell all drinks for $1, except coffee which is 50-cents).

I'm often surprised at the concessions stands we see at meets vs what we do. We have tons of homemade food - pasta salad, fruit salad, homemade soups. Those sell like crazy! Of course, we have the usual hot dogs, chips, candy & soda, too.

 

[2G1B]

Maybe because you ARE so new to competition, the announcing first place irritates you but I promise that you will get over it! LOL

Best meets are the ones where the line the girls up backstage, march them out with their medals already around their necks, quick name announce, salutey tootey, and get the heck off the stage.

We did our state meet like that and it was wonderful to not have to sit through 7 age groups for each events, plus all around. Screw that! Just give my kid her hardware and let us out to go eat!

I actually hate, hate, hate this way. My kids tend to be more 3rd place or lower kids; but never fails that they win 1st at meets that do this and I don't get to see the excitement when they find out.

And I don't mind the t-shirt coupons if they cover the cost of the basic shirt.

 

[lovemygymnast]

My biggest complaint is the running over time. And I don't mean, 30 minutes to an hour. Truly I can handle that! We went to one meet where our girls were already scheduled to warm up at 6:00, so they were 1 1/2 hours behind. We got out there at 10:30. Now, for older kids maybe that's not a huge issue but mine is 7, 8 o'clock is bedtime and we live 2 hours away from the venue and it was Sunday night before a school morning. Worse run meet I've ever been to.

Price of admission is sometimes ridiculous too but I've not had issues with cost of concessions, more of a lack of choices.

 

[SurpriseGymMom]

*seating- hate bleachers. I'm not 20 anymore and bleachers are soooo uncomfortable and crowded.
* T-shirt coupons- don't mind them at all if it covers a freebie tee OR money off a more expensive item. DD loves having meet tees!
* Awards- in favor of anything that speeds up the process, lol!! DD usually doesn't place, and I don't mind when placements don't go out all the way. I do like the "group" for the ones not placing IF they need to give them medals or something.
* Really, really dislike splitting a team up into separate flights. It has happened to us several meets this year, and I hate trying to focus on two different events at the same time. We like being able to see and cheer on all our team members!!

 

[my4buffaloes]

Being a veteran parent to gymnastics meets I think that many of the things you listed are just not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of gymnastics. You will find that from meet to meet, state to state and region to region things are going to be done differently. And there are reasons why they are done the way they are. Being a new parent you might not understand those reasons yet, but over time you will come to. The way they do things will sometimes benefit your child and sometimes not. You might not see the value in things right now but that doesn't mean there is no value in it.

Plus once you are on the flip side and get into helping run meets things will make a lot more sense. And you will realize that meets are typically run by parent volunteers who are doing the best they can. They can't please everyone and there is no ONE way to do it right. It is a lot easier to enjoy the ride if you let things roll off you, rather than frustrate you.

 

[rgmom]

T-shirt coupons?? I have never seen one......ever!! Where do they typically hand them out? I am quite sure we have purchased t-shirts or sweatshirts at every single meet where they are offered and have never seen a coupon for a free shirt! LOL
That would sure help when you are buying 2 of everything!!

 

[thefellowsmom]

I agree that if the coupon covers the cost of the tshirt I love the free tshirt coupon. Dd also always loves a Leo. We have also enjoyed water bottles, drawstring bags and insulated lunch boxes. Something useful is nice.

We went to a meet this year that did awards by event instead of age group. So vault jr a jr b jr c etc then floor jr a jr b etc. it was actually really nice. Everyone was paying attention the whole time and there was much more genuine cheering happening. My dd is always in the youngest age group and it is tough to sit through like an hour of awards especially when they give out too many places. For optionals I promise five places is plenty. There is nothing more heartbreaking then watching that poor thirteen year old level eight have to stand up there in twelfth place the entire time. She knows she had a bad day and does not need to be humiliated too.

I also feel bad for the oldest age group that has to sit through the whole ceremony and by the time they get to them everyone has either left or is bored and falling asleep. We always stay to the end and cheer for all the girls.

Just saying this meet did event by event and only out five places and it was fast and actually pretty exciting. Very well done.

I second the equipment check. We had a bar upside down as well that our coach caught at a meet and we were not the first rotation through. Yikes!

 

[bookworm]

Those are all GREAT points, well said. I definitely second the comment about announcing 1st place first, not exciting at all. I'll add that it's no fun when they don't say the score either.

Meets we are at have announced first place first because as one announcer put it , "the winner should be standing on the podium the longest and recognized for her achievement" vs the first place person just barely getting up there as announcer says "everyone salute" and they're all running off the podium...

 

[skschlag]

Meets we are at have announced first place first because as one announcer put it , "the winner should be standing on the podium the longest and recognized for her achievement" vs the first place person just barely getting up there as announcer says "everyone salute" and they're all running off the podium...

I have liked that too. And in all honesty, by the time you count from 10th to 1st, everyone knows who it is and tht kid is already half waay to the podium. IF you do it first....it is a huge surprise!

 

[ladybird]

[QUOTE="bookworm, post: 388233, member: 5539"]Meets we are at have announced first place first because as one announcer put it , "the winner should be standing on the podium the longest and recognized for her achievement" vs the first place person just barely getting up there as announcer says "everyone salute" and they're all running off the podium...[/QUOTE]

Yes to this! Most meets we have been to this year have live scoring so you already know who has won. So there really is no surprise unless you put in earplugs as the other parents go on and on about it. I loved it when my dd placed first in something and got to stand there the whole time!

Regarding venue choices and how horrible the seating is, here is my 2 cents. For the last several years I was heavily involved in the choice of a venue for a large meet that our gym hosts. A lot of the times there weren't a lot of choices for the particular weekend that we needed. We are often competing with other sports that are in the same season for the same limited venues. Our solution for that for ourselves, for any meet really, is to by portable stadium seats and take lots of breaks and walk around. If they have comfortable built in stadium seats at the venue then it's just a huge bonus!

 

[Natasha]

Meets we are at have announced first place first because as one announcer put it , "the winner should be standing on the podium the longest and recognized for her achievement" vs the first place person just barely getting up there as announcer says "everyone salute" and they're all running off the podium...

Yep. The reverse is also helpful. Our state requires to recognize AA all places…it is much better for the ones in last place to just go up an salute and come down than to have to stand there as all the athletes who placed better than you are called up. I much prefer to watch the 1st place girl beaming and enjoying the limelight than the 15th place squirming or trying to hold back tears.

 

[mobeans]

Wow I couldn't agree with you more on all points!

 

[raenndrops]

I am sure it was a ton of work, but a couple of meets had places and scores on stickers on the back of the awards. Great idea if you can pull it off.

The little gymmies love to help with awards, but gyms should set age limits. One meet had little 6ish year olds passing out the medals. Girls were getting 2 while others were skipped entirely. It was a mess and more than one parent was complaining in the audience.

If you must place all the way out, have the girls just step behind the podium. Awards take forever when they all go back to sit down and then are called right back up.

When you have teams too big for one rotation, it is nice when they start on the same equipment, just different flights. That way, two kids from the same gym are very unlikely to be competing at the same time. We like to cheer for our whole team and hate it when we can't watch them ask because one is vaulting while another is on bars (our whatever).

At our gym, we pride ourselves on having the best run awards of all the meets we have been to... as in from the time the last girl's score is flashed, we want to be handing out awards within 20 minutes (would be 15 minutes, but there are always girls still buying food from concessions, so we wait). We DO put stickers on the backs with the gymnast name, meet, level, event, score, and place. My brother was saying how efficient another gym was running awards (although they split the girls from a session into 2 rooms based on level [5+ and Xcel] or age [L3 & L4]). They were getting awards started 20 minutes after the last girl. When YG was done, I noticed that the stickers on the back were blank - just lines to write the event and score. Not so impressed once we realized that.
We have a 14 year old age requirement to help pass out awards. We don't like those meets that allow little ones to help for the reasons you listed.
I agree completely. Many of our meets place top 12 (and USUALLY, they make sure the age groups don't exceed 12). At the beginning of the season, some of the gyms were making the kids sit back down. It took so much longer. At our home meet, we told the girls to just stay up there and step back until after the AA.
When we have "flights," we do this... but in some meets, there are only enough girls to do one flight per event. In these cases, our team has been on 2 events at the same time. And even if they are in 2 flights on the same event, the first flight sometimes starts competing the next event before the 2nd flight is finished. This happened at our championship meet. The Head judge said that they had to compete vault by LEVEL instead of by team. Our L6 and L7 were finished with vault and bars before our Platinum was done with vault.

 

[Natasha]

As far as how many places out for awards, each state sets their own rules about placement awards, and if you can give ribbons or medals and placement or achievement. If your meet is a sanctioned meet, you have to follow the state guidelines…So it often is not the choice of the meet director or host gym.
I can almost guarantee that as your kid progresses through the levels and gets older you won't really care much about how awards are done, just that they get done and you can get out of there to eat!
As far as what rotations and flights kids are in and breaking up teams, this is is a very complicated process and their are many reasons why it is done the way it is none of which have anything to do with the spectators . I do agree as a spectator, it is hard watching kids on 2 different events in the same team, but if you have large team it is unavoidable.

 

[Deleted member 18037]

All I can think is are you new here. (as in to gymnasitics).

First year in I might of been right there with you.

Going on 4 yrs. There are no mandatory momentos.

They will eventually get to a point where what maybe out to 4th/6th???. If someone is here for the medals, they wont be in gymnastics as long.

Space hmmm cause gyms have the space of an NCAA college. Yeah sometimes seating is an issue. And you know what, I find I wander to where the kids are. Folks take my seat when their kids are on floor, I take their seat when my kid is on beam.

Really if all this annoys, try soccer. You want to talk about weather, at least in gym, I don't deal with rain.

And I find 4 yrs in given how many different people and personalities involved, add in children, that things get done at all sometimes. Bravo.

Really you could not pay me to do a meet.

 

[ZJsMom]

I understand that most meets are put on by booster clubs and it's a hard task, so generally I can roll with whatever happens. BUT at Regionals, for the love of pete, be sure you're right when you announce who's qualified for Nationals. I've been to two Regionals at this point where mistakes were made. Who gets what ribbon or medal at an invitational is really no big deal, qualifying to Nationals IS.

 

[bookworm]

I understand that most meets are put on by booster clubs and it's a hard task, so generally I can roll with whatever happens. BUT at Regionals, for the love of pete, be sure you're right when you announce who's qualified for Nationals. I've been to two Regionals at this point where mistakes were made. Who gets what ribbon or medal at an invitational is really no big deal, qualifying to Nationals IS.

How would a mistake like that happen twice? It's not that difficult to read off the top 7 names....