Sport clubs and other associations in your country

Thanks for your feedback

Thanks for your reply. Seems pretty standard over there too then.

Next question, how was it when you were a kid? I grew up (in France) playing all sorts of sports too and I can't remember my parents having to do anything more than to drive me to training and games/competition.

What has changed? They were not paying more money for the membership. How did the clubs manage then?

Private swim team - no fundraising, but parents are expected to volunteer to be timers and officials at swim meets.

Club soccer - mandatory fundraising, but money goes to scholarships to allow all kids a chance to play soccer.  10 volunteer hours a year per family, which I get by running the team website.

School volleyball - booster club organizes fundraising for uniforms, etc. which I'm sure will require the kids to sell something.  Volunteers run the concession stand, but luckily they've done away with Frito pies and nacho cheese.

Edited by Hook'em 2015-09-21 8:16 AM

Growing up swimming all year round my Mom used to volunteer to time at meets. Most of the fundraising stuff everyone pitched in. Usually selling magazines or something like that. There wasn't as much volunteering back then or at least it seemed that way. But then again I was probably pretty oblivious to some of it. Little league is pretty heavy with the volunteer stuff. I like to coach since my kids are still little enough to not know I don't know anything! We're signing up for swimming this year so I'm curious to see what they ask for there.

That was afternoons growing up. In the morning it was organized practice for some sport and afternoon was chaos with friends.

That's a great point, I don't remember the last time I witnessed a true pick-up game being played. Everything is definitely organized and layed out, where as a kid we decided what game we were going to play on a given day and gather up in what ever yard had more equipment.

Thanks for the replies.

Seems to be the same everywhere.

I coached both girl's softball and soccer for mine. Also, HS band volunteers, ROTC volunteers, and drama club. It isn' t just sports parents that are busy. We spent less time at the HS than the kids, but not by much.

When I was a kid I was on a local swim team in the summer, as well as a "junior elite" type club for track and cross country in a nearby city after the high school XC season and in the summer. For the swim team, parents were expected to volunteer at meets (my dad was often head timer) and there was other fund-raising such as a swim-a-thon (I got sponsors and swam 10K straight a couple times) and bake sales. Mainly Dad--guess he was more into swimming. Also a prof so he usually had summers off from teaching and more flexible time.

For the running club, one way we raised $ was by putting on a couple of road races--working at packet-pickup, timing, etc. A lot of the parents, and even some of the older athletes, got certification to be TAC officials so they could run the youth meets. The cool part of that was that I learned a lot about managing road races and track meets from that work. We also had some jogathons and probably other fundraising activities, but I didn't take part in many, as I lived further away than most of the others. (I only occasionally trained with the team, but competed with them.) Maybe my parents paid an extra fee or something, since we couldn't take part in many of the fundraising activities. I do recall that there was an amazing amount of driving involved (once from Ohio to Louisiana and once from Ohio to Seattle!) sometimes, and we often took other athletes as well as me in our van. I'm sure it was more trouble and expense than my parents bargained for with just one kid, but those trips were some of the highlights of my youth.

I do remember lots of unstructured outdoor time when I was younger, up until middle school or high school, that my students don't have today. As LB said, the adults only interfered when someone needed trip to the hospital, which admittedly happened sometimes. I was kind of a physically daring kid, and sometimes amazed I survived my childhood! I feel sorry for my students now-- There really aren't safe or appropriate areas for kids to play unsupervised outside, and most of my kids spend their limited free time playing online games or on social media. Guessing that's the same in a lot of places. I feel like the kids I teach today, compared to myself and my peers at the same age (10-11) tend to be fatter, have poorer muscle tone (especially core strength), and are more dependent on adults in many ways, and less emotionally resilient. I think that has to do with the lack of unstructured outdoor play.

My experiance comes from swimming... we raise funds by working at a casino every 18 months. Sell kit, provide officials at meets and pay fees.

The only thing you mentioned that is not normal is the part about ice making/maintenace... thats a professional job in Canada.

Our summer swim club is the biggest in the province and because of that we are expected to contribute more at away meets than the others. In one case more than the host club. We had 170 kids last summer and cant grow without more pool time or coaching resources.