It has been brought to my attention that some of you may be a little confused as to what constitutes the successful completion of a family's volunteering obligation. As per the handbook: "Registering your child to be a member of the Jersey Village Swim Team carries with it the responsibility to assist the team through volunteering. We must have good overall participation at each meet." This is to say that every family needs to volunteer in some capacity, either through volunteering at the meets or other functions the team may need. The timeframe for this obligation is through the Divisional meet.

If you have volunteered during a swim meet, then you are covered under this current policy. We know who most of you are, but if you have worked concessions and/or set-up and tear-down, then please email Kim at [email protected] to make sure she has you listed. We look for every opportunity to create ways for people to help out. If you have yet to volunteer and know that you cannot do so at a swim meet, then let us know so that we can help you find other ways to fulfill the team obligation.

To put this all in perspective, it takes a minimum of roughly 60 people (or shift positions) to run a home meet (not including officials, computers, team rep, ribbons, verifiers, etc.). We have around 187 kids on the team, some of those of course being siblings, so you can quickly see that if everyone truly does one shift for the entire year (which is all that we currently require to meet the volunteer obligation), we would not be able to fulfill our part of the volunteering (the other part being the visiting team) for the entire swim season. Some families do the 1 shift minimum (again, which is all that is required), others go above and beyond to help out so that our children can swim, compete, and have fun. And to these folks, the board is most appreciative. We recognize that we need a better system in place to remain fair to not only our overworked volunteers but to those who choose to pay the volunteer fee up front as well.

So if you have volunteered for something already, you have met the required minimum, and we thank you for your participation. If you have yet to volunteer, please do so at either the Concord Bridge meet this Saturday or at the Divisional meet.

The board is comprised of a group of unpaid volunteer parents just like yourselves. Many of us put in 20+ hours per week to help run this team, and we meet regularly to flesh out new ideas and ways to make the experience for all involved a positive one. We are implementing many great things for next year and continue to look for ways to improve things. If you have ideas on how to improve any aspect of the team, please bring them to the attention of the board. We will discuss them as a group.

I hope this email better clarifies our current volunteer policy.