WAG who determines scheduling for meets?

[CuriousCate]

Just curious how the schedule is determined. I would think they'd take age of the children into account, no?

We are heading to a meet in March about 2 1/2 hours away and they scheduled the level 3s ages 9 and under for Friday evening at 6:15pm with awards to start at 8:45pm. They divided older kids for the earlier session same day and same age kids for level 2 for Saturday morning.

Seems strange (and frustrating) that a group of such little ones will compete after school (maybe we'll skip school or leave early) and so late into the evening. My DD just turned 7 last month and is sound asleep by 8:30pm! I'm gonna guess that it won't be her best meet....

 

[kayjaybe]

I believe the meet director for the event determines the schedule. There are usually a LOT of things that go into it. Number of sessions, number of gymnasts, grouping different ages/levels to have sessions that aren't too big or small, are there event finals for higher levels (where you need to have the regular competition one day and then finals the next day), are they honoring graduating seniors at the event (likely to be higher levels and usually scheduled for last session on Saturday), booking judges that are qualified to judge the different levels, and probably a billion other things I'm not even thinking of.

While I agree with you that it probably isn't best to have younger ones competing until 8PM or later nor is it good to have teenagers competing at 8 AM, I don't think that is usually factored into the schedule.

 

[MuggleMom]

We had a meet this year where the level threes finished at 9 (then awards) we didnt get home till about 10 and luckily we lived 10 minutes away from the gym--others were not as lucky. I found it very frustrating and I think it impacted the girls they didnt perform like they normally do then my little one was exhausted the next day at school. I ended up taking her out a little early to get a break.

Now we have a meet that's 8am on Friday morning. So we have to miss school and get up earlier than normal to get ready and there on time. We have practice from 4:30-8:30 the night before. I am hoping they cancel it ---we cant get home at 9pm to have a meet at 8am the next day. Sometimes I feel like they forget that these are just little kids---sorry venting over

 

[skschlag]

It has to be tough, scheduling all of that. No one wants the early morning, no one wants the late one, but everyone can't have the noon session. It is tough, and I would have to be the one who had to do it!

 

[sce]

Meet scheduling is tough. We had a Sunday evening level 3 session once. Awards started at 10pm. It was a tough meet and tough for anyone getting up for school the next day.

 

[2gymmies]

It's only a big deal if you make it a big deal. In my opinion, if you make the kid think it's the perfect session time (even if it isn't), it will be just fine! For example, the schedule comes out and your dd is a 6 pm Friday session... yay sweetie, that's the perfect session because you are normally at practice at that time - it should be a great meet! That puts the kid in a good frame of mind... if you act like it's bad then it will most likely be bad!

 

[notthatmom]

Honestly I don't think Friday evenings are all too bad, I mean my DD has practice Friday nights anyway...and she's had to miss 1.5 days of school so far because of Friday meets. Her teacher is actually completely ok with it, in fact, the teacher always has the class celebrate and say "Good Luck Notthatkid!" Before she leaves for meets.
I really think it's more of a mental drain on the parents than on the kids...they end up being so pumped up that they usually have no idea how late it is

 

[MeetDirector]

Just curious how the schedule is determined. I would think they'd take age of the children into account, no?

No. If I tried to do that, the meet schedule would be a royal mess. Nor do I worry about the first session of the day being too early for teenagers.

I do try and schedule what I refer to as the "feature session" (typically the session with the 9's and 10's) for Sat evening. I will also look at where clubs are coming from and try and take into account their travel needs. Everything else is driven by the projected lengths of the sessions which is driven by number of entries.

I will say as a parent that if you voice your negativity about a particular activity, your dd will pick up on that; the opposite holds as well - voice positivity and they will think it is good. As you progress in this sport to the upper optional levels you will come to realize that you just have to roll with the schedule however it comes out and adjust/adapt accordingly.

Good Luck.

 

[MILgymFAM]

I understand the amount of planning that goes into meets, but- at least for t&t- I'm calling bs. Our next meet is one day, three (roughly) equal-length sessions. They have the teenage girls starting earliest, and then the littles start at lunch (teenage boys/preteen girls go last). There is no reason that I can even grasp at for them to make 15-18 year old girls start at 7:30 am (at a fairly long distance for most competitors) and littles at 11:30. Littler kids naturally get up earlier. Teens naturally fall asleep later. Science is on my side here.

 

[duyetanh]

No. If I tried to do that, the meet schedule would be a royal mess. Nor do I worry about the first session of the day being too early for teenagers.

I do try and schedule what I refer to as the "feature session" (typically the session with the 9's and 10's) for Sat evening. I will also look at where clubs are coming from and try and take into account their travel needs. Everything else is driven by the projected lengths of the sessions which is driven by number of entries.

I will say as a parent that if you voice your negativity about a particular activity, your dd will pick up on that; the opposite holds as well - voice positivity and they will think it is good. As you progress in this sport to the upper optional levels you will come to realize that you just have to roll with the schedule however it comes out and adjust/adapt accordingly.

Good Luck.

This. We had a meet once where there was a serious time change....and of course we had the first session of the meet, bahaha....I think my kid was 7 at the time and I was doing her hair technically at 3:30a.m.....you just have to go with it. And make it fun. And collapse afterwards, hah!

 

[ayyyrial]

Just gotta say I loved skipping school for meets in compulsories (when I was grade 8-10). Getting picked up in the middle of the day and eating something other for lunch was awesome (usually avoided eating lunch at school since the cafeteria was so unpleasant and crowded)!

In the upper levels I don't remember having to skip school as much, and it would have stressed me out since school was a little more challenging at that point.

 

[Deleted member 18037]

We had three meets last year where they weren't finished until after 11pm my kid was asleep w/i 15min

 

[suebee]

Dd's team does not require kids to attend any meets. Most kids attend most meets, but no one cares if you miss a meet. We have scratched meets based on schedule, and others on dd's team do as well. There are some parents who don't allow their kids to do Friday meets that require them to miss school. There are some who don't do travel meets.

My dd is a early to rise and early to bed kind of a kid. We do the first session meets, even if we have to drive far to get there and get up early to do it. But we have scratched meets when dd gets the late Friday night and late Sunday night sessions.

I'd have her do States, even if it was late, but a regular meet - eh, she doesn't even remember scratching a meet here and there over the years due to it being late, so I don't really feel bad about it.

 

[Deleted member 18037]

Dd's team does not require kids to attend any meets. Most kids attend most meets, but no one cares if you miss a meet. We have scratched meets based on schedule, and others on dd's team do as well. There are some parents who don't allow their kids to do Friday meets that require them to miss school. There are some who don't do travel meets.

My dd is a early to rise and early to bed kind of a kid. We do the first session meets, even if we have to drive far to get there and get up early to do it. But we have scratched meets when dd gets the late Friday night and late Sunday night sessions.

I'd have her do States, even if it was late, but a regular meet - eh, she doesn't even remember scratching a meet here and there over the years due to it being late, so I don't really feel bad about it.

We are not required to do all meets either. But dang once I fork over the cash, I wouldn't miss it over report time

 

[suebee]

We are not required to do all meets either. But dang once I fork over the cash, I wouldn't miss it over report time

Depending on where the meet is, a late session can mean needing a hotel room and missing the next day of work for a parent, which make it easier to just let go of the meet fee as a loss.

I suppose we've been lucky in that dd has had many more 1st session meets than late session meets. Hopefully as she gets a little older, she'll also tolerate staying up a little later too, which will make it less of an issue.

 

[Deleted member 18037]

Depending on where the meet is, a late session can mean needing a hotel room and missing the next day of work for a parent, which make it easier to just let go of the meet fee as a loss.

I suppose we've been lucky in that dd has had many more 1st session meets than late session meets. Hopefully as she gets a little older, she'll also tolerate staying up a little later too, which will make it less of an issue.

We live in the NE its very rare for us not to be able to get home or make work/school the next day. We might be a little tired but we plow through.

Usually our only travel meets are States and Regionals. No one is really going to miss that.

 

[GymDad9.9]

We live in the NE its very rare for us not to be able to get home or make work/school the next day. We might be a little tired but we plow through.

Usually our only travel meets are States and Regionals. No one is really going to miss that.

Speaking of plowing through, good luck with that snowstorm!

 

[Deleted member 18037]

Speaking of plowing through, good luck with that snowstorm!

I have wine, I'm good thanks. And I'm not scheduled to work, which is even better cause I'm one of those essential employee people


We are in the 8-12 band..................

 

[Mish]

Speaking of plowing through, good luck with that snowstorm!

So crazy; 60 degrees today, 12 inches tomorrow!

 

[bookworm]

I used to be the meet director for a big meet in our original gym and there are many things, like Meet Director says, that go into the actual schedules.....I generally didn't schedule the younger compulsory kids during the day on Friday because the parents, as a rule, wouldn't let them miss school for a meet sooooo, they ended up with the 6 pm Friday session as it was "after school". I always looked at the SAT and ACT schedules when they came out and tried not to put any of the teenagers in the Saturday am first sessions if that was a test date. I did take into account the distance a gym was travelling and tried not to have those furthest away in the last session on Sunday. The only session time really written in stone were the Levels 9 and 10 .....they were Saturday night.

Other than the above, it was a numbers and a juggling game...not trying to make anyone's life miserable but scheduling a meet isn't as easy as people think, and it is usually a hard working volunteer doing it.