Parents What does your gym expect of you?

[Ingymmom]

GLM, I agree on the pricing, our coaches & gym owner did not come to a complete agreement on the fall hours just yet, and that is the general amount listed for the fall... I am hoping to have my daughters hours adjusted some - they are asking for quite a bit more then what they originally said - hopefully that will also lower the monthly tuition some - we'll see

congrats to your dd on making her move... it sounds like it is so much more positive for her - we are lucky that our coaches are very hands on (the head coach is def a spotter - even for the higher levels) - good luck at the new gym

 

[Blackie6]

Just attended my first parent meeting so I am not sure if I quite understand it all yet but here goes.....

We do not have a Parents Booster Club, but more of a parent association. Parents are always encourages to attend the meeting for opinions and input, but the owner is the one who makes the decisions. Aparently in the past there was a booster club that tried to take control/dictate rules in the gym and it was getting ugly so they did away with it. We as parents have the option (not mandatory) of working meets to accumulate (sp?) money (around $40.00 per meet session) that will go into a team account. Each gymnast/family will have one. If there are openings for parents at a meet (not enough volunteers) you may be able to work more than one session & get more money into your account. This $$ can't be used for tuition though, just coaches fees, leos, other extras. This is the part I am a little confused on. Once the coach decides on what meets we will be attending they will determine the coaches fees, meet fees, ect... and come up with a year total that can be paid in installments. However, if add'l fees come-up that we not figured into the original total we still may end up owing money. This does not include comp leos, warm-ups, gym bad or tuition. As one mother posted on here August seems to be a very expensive month for gym parents. I am chewing my nails now trying to figure out how to come-up with this amount of money short notice since I did not think my DD (6) was going to even compete until next year. She just joined the team about 6 month ago & I didn't think she was ready. I know I wasn't, LOL! But, in all fairness, I like our gym, even though it all seems expensive I know there are others out there that are a little more pricier than ours. I just didn't know I would need all this money now. I know for next year and won't plan an August vacation.

 

[gym law mom]

Blackie. Welcome to team gym---open up the checkbook and start writing. Don't know when your season starts, but the coaches should have a pretty good idea by late August if not sooner as to which meets you'll go to. Meet fees can be in the $40-$60 range per girl. Alot depends on level, geographical area and how big the meet is(bigger ones tend to cost more). I've seen some meets where L4 is cheaper than L5 etc.

Coaches fees are really tough to "lock in" in advance since the coaches get reimbursed for mileage and food. It can happen that the coaches have to stay overnight due to weather or having a team in a late session on 1 day and the early one the next. Our gym pays the coaches extra if they coach on a Sunday. So, don't be shocked if at the end of the meet season, you get a additional bill(hopefully they won't, but..........).

In a way its nice they have enough volunteers so you don't have to work meets. On the downside, it is a way to put a little $ in your dd's account to offset some expenses. How many meets do you host/year? You might want to suggest that they rotate the volunteers so that everyone gets a chance to make a little money and its not the same parents getting $ every time. If you have the chance, do volunteer for a session(compulsory meet would be the best). I found I learned alot just sitting and listening to the judge's comments-------not that they're right all the time!!!!!

Do ask the team coach if it is an option this year to buy someone's used leo/warm ups. Many gyms keep the leos/warm ups for 2-3 years then change style. If the leo is not being changed this year, you may find someone who has outgrown theirs, left the team etc. and is willing to sell it. No reason to go buying brand new stuff when your dd may only wear it this year. I sold both my daughter's comp leo and warm ups for 50% of what I paid---no way was a child medium going to fit her ever again.

 

[Blackie6]

ROTFLMAO Gym Law mom about opening up my checkbook!!
Thanks for your explaination about the additional fees. I sort of figured it was something like that & understand how an exact fee can't determined. We were told L4 doesn't have to travel more than 2 hours away for a meet and that for the most part he is trying to keep expenses low. Buying a used leo is not an option because our gym did not have a competing L4 team last year and since they change comp leos with next year getting the new leos they are doing a special order for L4 & L5 which is a different leo than last season. I do like the fact that I can work a meet & it is not mandatory. Our gym does about 10-12 meets per year between USAG & JOGA. I don't mind helping out and you are right it would help me to learn more about gymnastics. I am afraid I don't even know the names of 1/2 the things my DD does right now. Not sure if I would even want to hear a judges comment though, LOL

 

[LemonLime]

No booster. Parents are asked to help with take down and set up of meet. No fees other than meet fees (which includes very small coaches fee) and an annual magazine ad sale for the meet program which is under $400.

 

[gracefulone]

I do YMCA gym. Before we got our own gym, parents had to setup/take down equipment. now that that's over, its a lot easier. Attend parent meetings, volunteer at home meet. Meet fees, monthly rates(vary depending on number of practices per week-no less than two). We are now getting new warm-ups and since I moved up, I have to get a new leo. Lucky me, I'm making over $700 this month working three weeks of different camps, so I could pay for everything by myself-not that I have to, but it's nice knowing I could. The warm-ups are very nice, but fairly inexpensive-$90. I think the leos are about $80/90. My old one was only $65, but I thought it was the best one we ever bought. I think I've decided on music-it will be free! My coach is going to help me with the routine, and I'm thinking about asking a friend who is part of a national-champion dance team to come help me out She's really sweet, so she'd prob. do it.

 

[Megley]

GLM, I'm glad to hear you are switching gyms. I know your daughter has been through the wringer this year at your old gym and I read the spotting thread here on Chalkbucket. I hope that the change helps with her fear of the bh series on beam. As for "volunteering," I probably would have done it anyway and I hear it is interesting to sit near the judges and hear their comments so maybe I will volunteer for palm pilot duty.

Yes, we are from Virginia Beach, too. Our gym goes to the Gymstrada meet every February! Maybe we'll see you there...

Oh, no doubt I will see you! Are you all at Excalibur or Ocean Tumblers? Those are the only other two local gyms I can think of. You have a Level 4 girl competing this year, right? I am sure we will see each other at meets then! We will have to figure out a way to say hi to each other.

Meg

 

[Ltlewonder]

Suddenly feeling very lucky!

I don't know how some of you do it! I guess we're pretty in-line here with most of what I've read, but some of the gyms seem outrageous!

I pay $140/month for my level 3 dd. She is in the gym 5 hours a week. The parents at our gym are required to pay the USAG fees, and a NC head tax, $35 registration fee (that is $97 due by Aug 1), and comp leo & warm-ups ($140). We can purchase a used leo/warmup, if available for 50% of cost, which goes to the sellers account and can be used for meet fees etc.
The way our gym does the meets is $100 per meet, except the season ending meet is $125, cause the meet fee per girl is higher! This helps her cover the coaches' travel and expenses and the gymnast's meet fees. If the total runs more than that, she just takes the hit. If she makes some money, that's fine too. Most of the time, by season end, our owner says the gym comes out just about even when all totalled up.
She elected 5 meets for our level 3 & 4 girls to compete in this fall @ $100 each and the season ending meet @ $125. Our meet totals will be $625 total that can be paid in a lump sum on August 1st, or broken out into 4 equal payments of $156.25 due the first of each month Aug - Nov. Our younger girls don't travel more than 2 hours away, so travel related expenses are slim to none, except gas of course.

Our gym isn't real big, so we haven't sponsored any meets that I know of, but I've only been there since Aug. 2006.
But the expenses seem reasonable, our gym owner/coach is AWESOME (and an NCAA sanctioned women's college gymnastics judge) and my dd LOVES it there. Her only wish is that she could be there MORE!! Guess that will come as she moves up! ptimist:

 

[pammyh1]

Up here, we have the usual expenses (meet fees, comp. leos, etc.) but on top of that, we have a points system (the lower levels have less points). The parents can either buy out their points or work them off (working meets, housing out of town gymnasts, helping with fund raisers, putting together goody bags, etc.). Our booster club is great and like all organization, there are some parents who have more time and energy. Some parents really appreciate the ability to buy out their points and some really appreciate the ability to work them off. We have 15 points (Level 5 - 10) and they are worth 1 hour each or $20.00 a point.

We spend lots of money on travel. We have to fly to all meets that are not local, so those bills really add up. It would be nice to be able to drive to meets!!

Does your booster have a website or do you have anything you can send me about your point system? I am the president of our booster club this year and we have made some changes. We came up with a point system that the parents are required to do for the meets we host at our gym. I would like to have something to compare to. We worked on it for about 2 or 3 months. We were tired of having only a handful of us work the meets. This past season our booster was able to pay all of the girls state meet fees and then they didn't even help us. We were very disappointed. So, anyway, I would love to have something to compare to.

Thanks
Pam

 

[Mac]

We were tired of having only a handful of us work the meets.

It's going to be this way every year unless you legislate that everyone has a quota of volunteer hours and clear-cut responsibilities. The excuses for avoiding work will be as varied and endless as there are people, but the outcome will be the same, which is that a few work and the rest go along for the ride. And then you get tired and resentful.

Find a booster club model that works for you and implement it completely. It needs the head coach's and owner's support. One way to find them is to look around your state/region at other successful gyms and snoop around their web site. That doesn't always work--I know successful gyms with booster clubs that are a mess--but in general, the long-lasting programs have lasted long for a reason, and most are willing to share information.

 

[gym law mom]

Ok folks--new gym and new(well maybe) expectations. This gym was bought by 2 coaches who then brought in a 3rd coach/owner---all in their late 20s to mid 30s. They seem to have sorted through what they liked about other gyms and what they didn't.

Booster club--up to you to join. If you want to fine, if you don't fine. Must be a member of the booster club to do bingo. Funny how many of their booster club poilicies traveled across town when 1 parent left with his daughter to train at our old gym.
Volunteer hours: 25 for compulsory, 30 for optional. Big difference here is you get hours for setting up/tearing down for meets and any time worked during the meets. Wow---what a concept!!!!!! Since this gym hosts 1 large compulsory meet and 1 medium sized optional meet, we'll be able to get many hours that way. They also have parent meetings 1x/month and you get an hour of volunteer time for going.

As for bingo. The dad that runs it all is low key and they have their session on Fri night which means you don't have to drag yourself around half awake at work. As parents of an optional gymnast we have to do 3 sessions/month. What do we get? Her practice leo is paid for, USAG fee paid for, team fee($250/yr) is paid for plus all meet/travel and coaching fees. Since she will be traveling out of state to 2-3 meets, this is the only reasonable way to afford that. The only thing we have to pay for is her meet leo($105). The booster club buys the warm ups and then you check them out at the beginning of the comp season with a $25 deposit. If they're returned and don't need cleaning then you get the $25 back.

Overall, the parents are much more sane about the whole thing. The booster club even has 1 parent who is the "welcome parent" and meets with you and one of the owners to discuss the booster club etc. At our old gym, all anyone said, was "you owe-----."

 

[mariposa]

Just bumping this up because I just found out what DDs gym requires of her and found all of this interesting (and mind boggling, LOL).

We just had our "new parents" meeting and intro to what to expect while our DDs are on team. I am thankful that my DDs devo coach had been very open with us regarding all the costs, etc. It made the information much less shocking.

Parents are required to join the booster club. There is a $150 one time entry fee into the booster club. They do fundraisers, but we only have 3 mandatory fundraisers. 2 are working at the 2 meets the gym hosts a year, approx 12-13 hours for each one. The other is getting ads for the yearbook ($100 worth, or you fork that out and get your kid an ad, LOL). The rest of the various fundraisers they do are all optional.

Leo/warm-up suit/bag cost about $300 (if you buy new). The booster pays approx 10% of meets fees and you (or the funds you raise) pay the rest. USAG fees each year are also your responsibility.

Meetings are mandatory and held monthly. If you miss more than 3, you get fined. They seem to get out the minutes pretty fast and also seem very organized and helpful.

Still very overwhelming. With L4 tuition and all the approx fees, I figure if I do NO fundraising, I will be paying $300/month for everything, not including gas. I tried to bribe DD with a vacation to Disney World for a week, but she still wants to do team. LOL.

 

[Gymnasticsgirl521]

I know we have block fees that pay for the coaches expenses that is 200 every quarter. We have to vol so many hours, and of course there are meet fees, uniform fees etc. So we are pretty much in the same boat. I don't have it 100% spelled out just yet. We have been fundraising for our personal accounts for the past 6 months. We have about 200.00 already waiting for everything to kick in.

 

[Gymmonkeymomma]

I guess I'll add my 2 cents

I have a Level 5 and one training Level 8. We compete both USAG and USAIGC.

Tuition - $7030 a year for 2 girls, paid over 10 months (we don't pay July & Aug).
Parents Association - there is a $50 initial one-time membership fee. Monthly meetings, attendance is optional but recommended.
Each August 1-Sept 1 we put $500/gymnast into a personal account which is used for meet entry fees, USAIGC and USAG membership fees, coaching expenses.
There are mandatory fundraisers (participate or pay a 'buy out') and voluntary ones that go toward your personal fees.
We get statements on a 'regular' basis. When money runs low, we have to put in more. Last year, I put in about $2000 for both girls, in addition to fundraising. This year, I am up to $700 each.
We have yet to host a meet ourselves, although we did have one at our gym where we worked concession/raffles and made a little profit.
Leotards/warmups are purchased usually every 2 yrs, however, this year we are just buying new leos ($127 each).

 

[Panda-girl's Mom]

At our gym it was overwhelming at first when my daughter got on the team. Everybody is required to chair or co-chair a fundraiser or you get a $500.00 fine. So in the long run it worked out because their were so many fundraisers going on during the season and everybody who partcipated got a percentage towards our daughters fees. Our ad book we even got 100% of it back towards the fees, most of the sale stuff was like 20%. the parents association was very helpful in finding all the new parents fundraisers for them to help run many of us paired up with seasoned parents. We all had to work at the state meet our gym ran the whole weekend I mean from Friday at 4:00pm until Sunday night clean up, this was tough but everybody worked together to run a sucessful meet. The money they raised from last years meet paid for all the girls new competition leotards this year. All of these things have helped with the cost of gymnastics. So I only had to put out around $400 to $500 extra for meet fees, our fees our broken up in 5-7 payments during competiton season with my daughter being in level four, the fees increase as the levels do. One of the reasons I was glad for my daughter to return to the this gym is that the parent group is so organized and well run. The other nice thing is that if we fundraise above or paid ahead on our fees the extra money goes towards summer classes

 

[Billy]

Wow. We're very lucky with how things work at our gym. The annual competition fees are about $1200 and cover 6 meets plus state, competition leo and warm ups, Crocs and gym bag. We can either pay the $1200 over three payments (July, Sept and Oct) or we can work some of it off. One of the moms has set us up with a security company at Road Atlanta to work security for various races. They "pay" hourly and the money is sent directly to the gym (no paycheck= no taxes, etc). In fact, DH is working at the races today and will make about $100 toward her fees. They will have four races available for us to work (two spring and two fall) and they are usually Wednesday-Saturday so there's plenty of days available. We'll also be doing a fundraiser through Coke and one through Dominos Pizza. The races and the fundraisers are completely optional but they provide enough opportunity that we'll probably be able to raise almost all of DD's competition fees for the coming year. I love that all of this is available to us but that nothing is required. It's the best of both worlds.

 

[Monkeygirlsmom]

Our gym is 30$ for the booster club fee each year!! (per family)
and the fundraisers are up to us to do if we want!! (a lot of the times there is money that would go in each of th efamilys accounts so it is beneficial to us to do the fundrasers!! that money we can use on anything gymnastics related!!
Camp, leos, spiritwear, hotel fees for meets, meets, tuiton, comp leos anything!!
some fundraiesers benefit just the club!!
we are required to help at the spring show and I think qualifier! (tho they are leniant when it comes to certian issues!!
I think we have a good booster club!! and gym!!
Im lucky!!!