Parents States Rant

[Deleted member 18037]

I am ok with not knowing the day/sessions till a week or so out. What I don't like is when they switch your day/session two days before the meet, like happened to us this week. Totally threw off basically everything with my family and required a lot of scrambling. It's just not really ok.

That would make me nuts too. Once you give me a report time that should be that.

 

[MILgymFAM]

That would make me nuts too. Once you give me a report time that should be that.

Yup. My hubby planned a work trip around this meet. We were scheduled for Sunday evening, so he booked his flight home for Friday afternoon. Wednesday they switched us to Friday evening. I had to get a babysitter to do my YDDs gym practice and my hubby missed the meet and had to take the train home from the airport. And we didn't get done until almost 11pm, and my kids had agreed to help someone at 8 this morning. They did not want to wake up!

 

[z2akids]

That would make me nuts too. Once you give me a report time that should be that.

That makes me crazy.

We have a meet next weekend. We have the schedule, but at the end of the schedule, the gym States that they deserve the right to start 1/2 hour early. Really?!? So everyone has to get there extra early and try to find seats if the previous session is still ongoing? So potentially disruptive.

 

[blueredzone]

Our meet is about 2 weeks away and still don't have the schedule. The last meet to qualify was last weekend. We have to travel and I just booked the hotel for both nights. But the problem being everyone else is doing that too. So no rooms are available anymore. Also we are trying to do a team dinner and it's hard to book a private room when you don't know the date. Just frustrating.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

I am ok with not knowing the day/sessions till a week or so out. What I don't like is when they switch your day/session two days before the meet, like happened to us this week. Totally threw off basically everything with my family and required a lot of scrambling. It's just not really ok.

when there are scratches due to illness and injuries it screws up how many kids were supposed to be in each group at each event.

 

[raenndrops]

when there are scratches due to illness and injuries it screws up how many kids were supposed to be in each group at each event.

so you just adjust the flights... not change a group to 2 days earlier.

Example (and cautionary tale begins now):

We recently had a meet that had a lot of scratches... they adjusted the meet times a little (then, the day before, due to impending bad weather and worry about the judges making it, they moved each session BACK 4 hours). HC let everyone know and asked them to text if they wouldn't be coming because of the change.

Even though it was the night before, it may as well have been considered "day of" scratches.
The weather was as bad as expected. They could have EASILY combined the last 2 sessions and still been good, but they didn't.

In session there were several scratches, so they reworked the flights. Our team was split into 2 groups because 1/2 the girls were on our team.
Our team ended up with 7 scratches in Session 2 and 11 scratches in Session 3... and we weren't the only ones (a total of 20 "day of" scratches in Session 2 and 16 "day of" scratches for session 3)... and prior to all of that, there had been enough scratches that the last sessions were only supposed to have a combined 76 L3-L5 gymnasts. It ended up being 22 L3 and 18 L4-L5.

They could have combined (daylight hours would have been better to drive home in anyways)... split the L3 into 2 groups of 11 and the L4/5 into 2 groups of 9. Start L3 on Floor and Vault and the L4/5 on Bars and Beam or vice versa (for vault simplicity).

The meet would have gotten over quicker AND the drive home would have been safer... Doing a 500º spin on an Interstate Highway in the dark from the far left lane over to the shoulder is NOT what I call a fun time... but we didn't hit anyone or anything and were able to get righted around in 10 minutes (had to wait for the traffic in all lanes to clear). I took the "wait time" to text HC and let her know because we had a 1/2 hour head start on her. She told me Tuesday that I probably saved her life... she was GOING to go that way... and we heard after we had gotten home there were a lot of accidents later that evening.

 

[MILgymFAM]

when there are scratches due to illness and injuries it screws up how many kids were supposed to be in each group at each event.

Except we were told that they made the switch because the original time had too many kids. Then our new session was jam packed. I mean we were there for six hours. To top it all off, they had already made the programs and athletes lists for parents, so our kids weren't on there at all.

 

[raenndrops]

Except we were told that they made the switch because the original time had too many kids. Then our new session was jam packed. I mean we were there for six hours. To top it all off, they had already made the programs and athletes lists for parents, so our kids weren't on there at all.

It sounds like they planned with the expectation that there would be scratches... We have dealt with THAT before!