Parents Odd question!

[skschlag]

ROFL. Our state has had the same announcer for boys'' state for years. And several other meets. 8 years later and he still doesn't say my ds' name right It is a big joke now to see how many different ways he can butcher it!

 

[Iwannabemargo]

lol, it doesn't help when the parents change the name pronunciation either,

we have 2 Dana's

one is pronounced Day-na
one is pronounced Da- na (as in 70's Irish folk singer)

one is always out of luck

 

[ZJsMom]

Look through the rosters for unusual names and ask the coach for that team for pronunciation.

My DH has done it in the past, and he did awards in a loud fight announcer or SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY type voice. The kids loved it. If you can pull it off without losing your voice.

 

[tooootsie]

lol, it doesn't help when the parents change the name pronunciation either,

we have 2 Dana's

one is pronounced Day-na
one is pronounced Da- na (as in 70's Irish folk singer)

one is always out of luck

I agree.. my kids have unique names. But no weird spelling. It's cut and dry.

 

[gymisforeveryone]

Our award ceremonies are held on competition floor after the competition. The girls mach in with only leotards on and they are lined up by height inside their team. I have no idea why we do it this way! The crowd claps their hands rhythmically when they march and music stops when everyone is on the floor, standing in a row.

Usually they announce places 3, 2 and 1 first and the winners are given their medals. After that they sometimes announce the places 4-10 and the girls salute and take a step forward. After that if participation medals are given they just give them out quickly. These ceremonies don't take too long because we only have two age groups, younger and older, in each compulsory levels. Optional levels don't have age groups.

It's interesting how differently this is done in Europe and in the US even if the actual competition event is very similar.

I agree with the others - try to keep it short and quick!

 

[mom2newgymnast]

Lordy not me. My favorite award ceremonies are the ones where they line the girls up backstage, 1st through whatever, hand them medals, march them out, salute snap snap, go away. I am so sick of sitting through award ceremonies and love the ones that let us get out of the building quickly.

DD had her state meet today and they did it this way. It's the first time I've seen this style of awards at any of the meets she has been to. I didn't really like it because they all stood by the door as she was calling their names and so all you had to do was count to see what place they were in. Plus you didn't get to see their faces when they realized they had come in 1st or 2nd or whatever. However, I will say that it was generally very quick and efficient and my dd said she liked the fact that she didn't have to struggle to hear the names as they are being called out. I do see the appeal of it, but I wish they could have made it a bit more of a surprise by having them not stand right in the doorway. lol.

 

[leotardmakermum]

At a recent competition the announcer said my daughter's name with correct pronunciation. It is a name from a different culture to which we have ties, but it is not common in Australia. I commented to her later that I was surprised and pleased that he said her name right. She said, "He came around during the warm up session and asked us all how our names were pronounced." And then he must have written them down phonetically.

This was a national competition though, so perhaps above and beyond the call of duty for a small regional competition. But it made all the difference to the girls (and their parents!) who are used to having their names mispronounced.

And I made sure that I thanked him afterward.

 

[Musicmama]

My dd's name gets mispronounced by everyone because it's the less common pronunciation and both have the same spelling. I must admit that it makes me nervous about announcers pronouncing it incorrectly, but I think mispronunciations bother me more than they bother her.

 

[profmom]

LOL, one of my favorite memories from L5 was when one of DS's teammates won medals on every event, including AA, and each time the announcer stumbled over his family name, the boys would all chorus all four syllables loudly. He got it, I think, around pbars.

 

[skschlag]

Yep.. not here. And at one meet they got his last name right (!) but then called him by a completely different first name. Poor guy.

 

[Iwannabemargo]

I have lived with a "foreign" name all my life, its a very small family so when I married I kept it and inflicted it on my children too.

I have the habit now of when someone calls the name, "is Mrs, um, er..." I say " Yes "!

 

[Faith]

Watch out for irish names.

Was at a meet last week and the announcer was getting it so wrong -pronouncing phonetically. "siob-han".

Also watch out for any colloquialisms, especially if you've moved recently . What sounds perfectly normal in the west country will raise eyebrows in the east midlands...

 

[z2akids]

Definitely have the girls from the award age group stand off to the side, or sit right in front as you go through the event awards. It is incredibly time consuming to wait and let the girls pick their way back to their seats and sit back down before announcing the next event. Make sure the helpers passing out awards are not too young to understand how to do it and to do it efficiently. 2 years ago at our home meet, they had many of the L3s helping and honestly it was a disaster. Girls got wrong medals, they were lined up uncorrectly, some girls didn't get medals at all during awards, etc. It was all corrected, but it was truly upsetting for some of the girls/parents.

 

[gymnastmom05]

We have a very long and interesting last name. I'm so used to it being pronounced wrong, we just go with it if it starts out right. So, I'm not picky about the names. I actually feel sorry for the announcers when people start screaming because they've said a name wrong. Most are volunteers, never done it before and are reading off A LOT of names at a short and efficient (hopefully) pace. I am NOT a fan of doing each event for all age levels at once. I just don't like it and I feel like it always goes by so much slower. Our last meet announced 1st place first and I had never seen that before. It did seem to take away some of the suspense but it went faster for some reason. My DD liked it so I'm ok with that. We always stay for the entire awards and is part of our teams policy. That said, we did have one instance when we left as soon as her age group was done because it started snowing with sleet and we had a good distance to drive.

 

[twinmomma]

Our last meet before State a parent volunteer wandered the floor asking parents which gym they were from and if they could tell them how to pronounce all the kids names. I painstakingly went through our list and pronounced our girls' first and last names. Announcer still flubbed a bunch of our names. It happens. I don't make much of a big deal about it. I would say the best bet is first name, last initial, gym.

 

[sce]

My only advice is to speak as clearly as possible, make sure to project and show some enthusiasm when yous peak.

For awards, make sure all the girls are ready before having them salute. A nice thing some boys meets do is count to three while the kids hold the salute, so parents have time to get the photo. It was really nice, as some kids salute so quickly that the photo can be off.