Question regarding coaches fees

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ThaBigCheese

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I would like input on how your gym handles coaches fees. I'm referring to the travel expenses, hotel expenses, meals, etc. Currently our booster club pays for all of these. We charge the same booster club membership fee for all levels. It has been our way of helping out the upper levels (where there is far less girls and expenses are higher.) The idea is you pay into it and then when your daughter is an optional you will see the rewards. Well, our gym owners have decided then want to get in the middle of a good thing and start handling all the coaches expenses and split it all up by levels. Those of us who have been paying in all along and our daughters are now optionals are not any too happy with this.
How do your gyms handle coaches expenses?
 
we handle it just as you state in the first 5 sentences.
 
Interesting that you brought this up, as I was was just doing a search on CB about this very issue and we had our team parent meeting last night! Our gym is small and new; this coming season will be its 2nd, but a lot of girls came with the HC/owner from her previous gym. There are currently 14 girls on the team - total! What the owner/HC & booster president suggested is that we start paying an annual fee of $300, broken up into $25/month payments (which is fine by me), which will go toward coaches fees, etc. There are only going to be 3-4 optional girls this coming season, and HC/owner doesn't want those parents to have to come up with a ton of money (which I think is very fair and I can totally see why you would be upset abt the change now that you have been patiently paying into the fund all these years!).

We also are planning a large fundraiser that we hope will bring in quite a bit of money to get the general fund stocked. If we exceed the estimated budget, they will kick money equally towards the girls' meet fees. We also have smaller fundraisers which go toward helping the girls individual accounts. There really is a lot of opportunity to have all of your meets, coaches fees, etc. paid for through fundraising. I, unfortunately, suck at fundraising, hence a portion of every paycheck gets put into my DD's gymnastics savings fund. I better get my game together! :)

HC/owner has an optional gymmie, (mine is a 7 y.o L4) and opened this gym after coaching for many years elsewhere and she defnintely knows how expensive team is. There is a lot of transperancy as far as where the money goes & we get print-outs showing what is in our accts. etc. These are rough times for most people and she wants to make it as affordable as possible so the girls are able to stay in the sport. I'm definitely still learning about all of this, but so far this sounds pretty good to me and I am happy with the plan.
 
The PTA handles the budgets for meet expenses including coach fees/out of pockets. Home meet expenses (we have 3-4 a year) are split evenly across all levels, but away meet fees are calculated by level (so the optionals pay a greater individual amount because there are less girls). The PTA pays for state meet expenses for all levels through general fundraising. We also pay for optionals who make it to regionals and nationals.
 
Our gym handles it the same way you describe as the "old" way. No way can an optional family foot the bill for regionals/nationals/westerns if they are the only one or two in their level!
 
Our old gym would charge us a flat $50 fee and then after the meet would get the receipts and if it was less we would get the difference in our accounts. If it was more, I'm not sure what they would have done. We left prior to any traveling meets.
Our new gym does not charge any coaches fees. If we have a local meet we are charged a flat $75. This covers the meet fees, team fees and any coaches fees. If we have a travel meet or state meet we are charged $95. It's awesome that way and I love it. Our gym host about 5 meets throughout the year.
I'm not sure how they handle the optional girls and travel. We aren't that far yet, but they are charged the same for the meets.
 
At DD's gym and her previous gym, you pay what you owe. It's not divided evenly amongst all levels. Prior to a meet season you get an estimated amount you owe. For lower levels it was $700, then any additional meets your DD qualifies for, you pay for seperately.

At DD's old gym if an optional gymnast made it to Nationals you paid the entire amount. It was the same for all the away meets. Very tough on families.

At DD's new gym they have a giant fundraiser that usually nets about $1200 for each girls individual account. So the optionals definitely participate in that, as do most of the lower levels.
 
At my dd's gym, as an optional gymnast (L7 and up) you pay $125 a month for coaches fees. There are no additional costs for Regionals/Easterns/Westerns/Nationals. L6 and down also pay a monthly coaches fee, but it's less than $125 - I think it might be $75 a month.
 
We don' t have a booster club so all coaches fees are tied into our meet fees. This year we paid $195 per meet. This inlcuded the meet fee plus coaches fees. All levels pay the same amount.
For Regionals, Easterns and Nationals we were on our own. We had to split the cost among those of us who girls qualified. For me it wasn't too bad because the L7/L8 regionals we close to home, the 9's and 10's had it rough this year with regionals being in LA and then MA and CA. We did some fundraising as a group throughout the year so we did have a decent amount of money set aside for this.
 
We havent had our first "true parents club meeting" yet. (May 12th). But last year (which was Kadee's first year on team..so im still new to things somewhat) they had a flat, across the board fee. Every gymnast had to pay 360.00 in coaches fees for the season. (which by reading the other replies seems like a GREAT deal). It was due prior to the comp season starting. You could pay how ever you chose. One lump sum of 360.00, split it up by the month..60 bucks a month for 6 months (this is what i chose to do). No matter how you did it..it was all due by the begining of Nov. You have from June till Nov to get it paid. I would assume tht they will do the same again this year. The amount might be different..wont know for sure until the 12th. This fee also included the USAG fees, insurence..ect. To the best of my knowledge it paid for all but, leos, warm-ups, duffles, and meet fees.
 
Regular meets through sectionals each participant is charge their share (divided by the number of girls going) When (IF) they get to nationals the Booster club covers that.
 
At our gym they do it your old way.....I can see in some ways why some parents may not like it b/c it is not likely that a whole lot of girls will get to the higher levels and they are having to pay more. I personally do not mind it b/c it will be helpful when and if my dd makes it that far. Maybe some parents at your gym were complaining about it to the owners and this is why they stepped in. This is totally not fair to those of you who have paid in all along though! Hope it gets worked out fairly for everyone.
 
We do it the first way mentioned because we feel that when the upper levels get to those big meets they are representing the whole team. Eventually everyone will get a benefit from it. Of course I sometimes hear from a new parent "but what if my daughter quits before then..." I just remind them that's their choice but this is how we do the team budget.
 
Our gyms way is the worst IMO. They pay prior to each meet, even though certain meets are required. The people running the meets have a deadline, so our gym asks for the money to be paid a couple weeks ahead of it but it never fails that people don't pay, pay past the deadline, or complain that they didn't know fees were due and they don't have the money (even though they were told months in advance of when meets were and when fees would be due.)

If it were my gym I would specify what meets your child has to attend to be a level ___ team member and those fees would be charged prior to meet season and if the child made it to Nationals or wanted to go to an invite they would have to pay well in advance.

We don't have a booster club, and for us it just gets more and more expensive as you level up as we don't divide the fees, you pay for what you go to. So if there are 2 level 7's going to regionals they would have to split the coaches costs and pay their own.
 
We have a parents association that contributes to some expenses. Our membership if is around $75 for compulsories and $125 for optionals. We have 2 to 3 fundraisers through the year (We don't have family out here and I am not comfortable going to people and asking them to support my DD's gymnastics, so we pay for all our required fundraisers). The association pays for the entire team state meet registrations fees, maybe one or two meet registration fee here and there and maybe a clinic. This year, they paid for our competition leo and warm up suit. They also contribute minimally (maybe $1,000) to the elite, if we have one, and/or TOPS. The rest of the expenses, the individual gymnast pays for. Since L4 to L7, our out of pocket ranges from $500 (L4) to almost $1,000 (L7). I will say though that the families put in as much as we put out. We are only members because we want to team players not because we truly get much out of it from a monetary standpoint.
 

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