Track is not like any other sport, youth or otherwise, when it comes to needing volunteers as officials to conduct the meet. Unlike soccer or baseball, a track meet cannot be held with 3 or 4 adults. As you will see, it takes 30 to 60 people to conduct a track meet: thirty if you want to work a few people to death and risk losing them from the program and 60 if you ask for reasonable commitments from each adult (shifts, 2-3 hours each).
Securing the volunteers to conduct the meets will, in all likelihood, be your most challenging and frustrating task as a board member or meet director. The tasks of finding and training coaches and board level staff will pale beside the effort you are going to put in for the meet officials.
The incentive that you and your organization have to find and train officials is to be able to conduct a meet in an efficient manner and shorten the length of the meet. One of the primary complaints of parents about our program is the amount of time they must devote each Saturday to the meets.
Hopefully, this chapter will give you some tips and information which will help you through recruiting and training volunteers to run your home meets.
Staffing the meets properly is a result of three efforts by you and your club staff:
1. Recruiting and,2. Training and,
3. Reminding
First, I will deal with some of the best suggestions from experienced club members of the conference on how you can recruit the volunteers. Remember, none of these methods are guaranteed. What may work for one club/community may not work for another. Further, you may need to vary your methods from year to year even within your own club since the best excuses are developed after knowing your system.
- I believe that getting the right type and quantity of meet workers on meet day is a product of early season work by you and your club board. For our club, I break the activity into several separate tasks which can and should be done by more than one person. This gets the best result since none of your board is over worked, the job is more likely to get done, and it gives your club an organized look.
First, You have to identify what types and quantities of meet workers you need. The list at the end of this chapter will give you a sample of what is used at Newbury Park. You may want to modify the list for your club depending on its size and in some cases, the facility and number of field event areas you will be using.
Secondly, START IMMEDIATELY TO FIND THE KEY MEET OFFICIALS. These are the few people who will actually make your meet happen. Without them, or any one of them, your job will increasingly get more difficult. The key officials are:
Meet DirectorReferee
Announcer
Starter
Finish Coordinator (Head Finish Judge/Timer)
Stager
Awards/recorder Clerk
Snack Bar (if you provide one)
These positions should not be combined if at all possible. I can't imagine a meet where any of the above positions could be combined successfully, except the Referee and Meet Director if you had a very experienced person. These people should not have other meet official duties or, especially, should not be coaches.
I have successfully used board members who are not coaching in these positions on meet day. Typically, board members are there anyway without other duties which conflict.
Thirdly, recruit the remaining meet workers. I suggest you do this as early in the season as possible. For us, I have a "sign-up" sheet for each home meet at registration. As a part of the registration process, one station is for parent sign-up as a meet volunteer. I require that each parent who signs up a child to volunteer for at least one position at each home meet. If they won't or can't, then I don't accept the child's registration into the club. It took a few seasons of conducting a meet with 30 or so to develop the ability to turn down children into the program but I now consider it necessary.
By the way, as a reply to the "My schedule______" excuse I usually ask the parent if they EVER intend to see their child run in the meets. The answer is inevitably a "yes". I then point out that being a meet volunteer will only get them closer to the action, suggest a simple job for the first meet, and give them a set of instructions to read. Most go along with the program but I have turned away 1 or 2 each season.
Some clubs have indicated that they either use or favor a monetary or other penalty for not volunteering to help. I have found that if there is no one to run the long jump on meet day, extra money in the treasury is of little help. It is not possible to find a labor pool big enough to supply all or even a majority of workers for the amount you could penalize non-workers and not drive members away. I am also very sensitive to providing a program financially accessible by all in the community. Perhaps a deposit, paid at registration, which is returned at season's end if they work the meet(s) ? It clearly doesn't solve the problem, and still doesn't provide workers, but it is a stronger incentive than just reminders.
This is certainly an area for new ideas. All clubs have the same problem in some degree. I believe in incentives as opposed to penalties. Neither seems to work perfectly, probably because recruiting is a "people" activity.
Some clubs use High School team members to help staff their programs. If your club has a close relationship with the High School, you may be able to get them to help. I have found that, IF I can get them to come to the meet as promised, they can be great assets. If you get Track team members, they will have a better knowledge of the sport than most of the parents. I believe that, morally, the parents are obligated to provide the labor to conduct their own children's meets, and I concentrate on getting them involved first. If your parent base is small, or more unreliable than most, you will need to pursue other labor pools such as the High School, volunteer firemen, or even arrange with the visiting club to take responsibility for a part of the meet. Most clubs will gladly help.
One final word regarding the use of High School age meet workers: Be careful in placing them in sole supervision over an activity. Most are not experienced with the safety issues concerning the children.
Be sure to keep a list of who volunteered for what for use at the meet. It can be a long time between the sign-up and first meet to be worked.
- If you are lucky, your first meet is an away meet. This will allow the parents to see a meet in action if they haven't yet. If the first meet is away, I try to locate my key officials and get them to watch the other club run the area they will be responsible for.
If your first meet is at home and most or all of your key meet officials are new, you may want to organize a reduced format "practice" meet. This will allow them to learn under a low pressure situation. Most coaches will support the pre-season meet as a time trial opportunity. By the way, a "reduced" format means not all events are run. We run only the 100, 400, mile, 4x100 relay, and long jump.
I have also found that giving out an instruction sheet at the time the parent decides which position(s) at the meets they want to work is of great help. The instructions should be brief (1 page or less), not written in a lot of technical track terms, and in a "step-by-step" format.
- Since most of the commitments to work the meets are made near the beginning of the season, reminders need to be made as the home meets(s) approach. Generally, this can take a verbal or written form, or both.
Written notices are one form of reminder that works. Some suggestions you can use: Post cards with computer generated messages, mailed letters, or letters sent home with the children all with specific messages, or a generic "flyer". Each has its own obvious unique advantages and disadvantages.
I take the sign-up sheets mentioned and enter them into a simple personal computer program that will generate "stick on" labels with names, address, and a reminder notice typed on them. We stick the labels on post cards and mail them out on Monday or Tuesday prior to each home meet.
If you decide to use a written message, make it strongly worded, even if it sounds as though it were a reminder on a past due bill. I use something similar to:
" -- REMINDER --
You volunteered to help at your child's track meet on ______
as a __________. Please report to _______________ at ______.THE MEET CANNOT BE HELD WITHOUT YOUR HELP. If you cannot
honor your commitment, don't call the coach or a board
member, please get your own replacement. If your child is
at the meet, we expect you to help. "
Another type of reminder that works is to make personal contact with the parents. This can be done by phone or in person. If you have a large club, the personal contact method can be VERY time consuming and you will probably need some kind of committee to handle it. We use the phone calls to reinforce the mailed out reminders, especially to the key officials. Phone calls work best 3-4 days prior to the meet.
Be sure to prepare and bring that list of "who is doing what" for use at the meet. If needed, use the PA to remind them.
The following table should assist you in determining the number of position required:
|
POSITION |
|
|
COMMENTS |
|
Meet Director |
|
|
Key Official |
|
Referee |
|
|
Key Official |
|
Announcer |
|
|
Key Official |
|
Finish Coordinator |
|
|
Key Official |
|
Stager |
|
|
Key Official |
|
Starter |
|
|
Key Official |
|
Head Awards |
|
|
Key Official |
|
Snack Bar Chief |
|
|
Key Official |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Timers |
|
|
|
|
Asst.Staging |
|
|
|
|
Asst. Starter |
|
|
|
|
Awards Table |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Long Jump |
|
|
Per Pit |
|
High Jump |
|
|
Per Pit |
|
Shot Put |
|
|
Per Ring |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Starting Block Crew |
|
|
|
|
Pre-Meet Field Crew |
|
|
Can also work meet |
|
Meet Day Set-up Crew |
|
|
Can also work meet |
|
Take Down Crew |
|
|
Can also work meet |
|
TOTAL |
|
|
|
* Number of timers can be greatly reduced if a multi-recording device (e.g., Chronomix, or Seiko) is used. You should consider what you will do if you are going to depend on this type of device and it fails.