USA Swimming’s House of Delegates has voted to approve an amended proposal to increase annual club dues, ending a contentious weekend over the proposed change at this weekend’s Annual Business Meeting in Denver.
The House of Delegates, the voting body representing clubs and LSCs around the country, approved the proposal with a couple of changes. The proposal to increase club dues for existing clubs from $75 to $225 annually was approved.
After an intense debate on Friday, Board of Directors Vice-Chair for Fiscal Oversight Kenneth Chung proposed an amendment to the original proposal. The amendment stated that new clubs will have to pay $750 in their first year instead of previously having to pay $750 per year for their first three years. After year one, these clubs will revert to the standard $225 annual fee.
USA Swimming says that the higher rate for new clubs will allow USA Swimming to offer more support for these programs as they get off the ground. Joel Shinofield told SwimSwam earlier this year that when a new club folds, 70% of the athlete members are lost.
In addition to this decrease, the amendment requires the sport development department to release a quarterly report on the USA Swimming website showing how the funds are being used.
The amended proposal was passed by a ‘yes’ vote from 83% of the voting members of the House of Delegates.
This marks the first change in club dues since 1990.
Club dues were a hot topic coming into this weekend after a vote was set for USA Swimming’s proposed 221% increase in club dues. The annual rate has sat at $70 since 1990.
Most coaches that SwimSwam spoke to said that they were ok with dues increases but had some concerns including knowing where the money was being spent as well as the burden that a higher dues would place on new clubs as part of initiatives to grow the sport.
USA Swimming has committed to use the funds on the following list of programs, though one coach told SwimSwam that even during the presentation, a malfunctioning computer led to a presenter commenting that some of the money would be spent on new computers and phones for staff members, which is not part of the list below.
- More visits from USA Swimming to LSCs
- Alignment with LSCs on serving clubs
- More club visits to variety of club sizes
- More listening to coaches at local level
- More recognition of clubs (especially those producing at an age group level)
- Regular meetings in LSC with coaches and LSC Boards
- In-person coach education
- Include coaches in decision-making process, both in-person and broad grassroots participation
- Help when clubs are facing significant challenges around facilities, board changes, etc.
Our club is also very small, and while $225 per year doesn’t amount to much per kid ($4.50 per year if you have 50 swimmers) I think for me it’s more about WHO wants the dues. Our local LSC has provided more assistance and services to our club than anyone at national has. If these funds were being distributed locally, where a lot of the support for smaller clubs really does lie, then I would not have as much of an issue. As it stands, I do not support my small club fixing the mess Hinchey left behind in addition to the size of the paychecks of some of those USAS employees.
How many of the people on USA swimming’s staff have coaching experience of at least say 10 years? If we are paying this much for the services being offered, shouldn’t it be done with people with experience?
Joel Shinofield, who leads the group administering this program, has a lot of coaching experience, though he moved into admin 12 years ago. Other senior members of the club services groups also have coaching experience – Beth Winkowski (18 years as associate head coach at Dynamo), Brendan Hansen, Bernardine Dickman, and Jane Grosser, the senior advisers, were all coaches at different points of their careers. Grosser is the only one of that group who hasn’t been on deck in the last 10 years as far as I know, though in the 80s and 90s she was a head coach and head age group coach.
I think a sport needs to have balance in its administration. I think staffing it entirely… Read more »
So not a lot. That’s a problem especially when you have an organization like ASCA who runs fantastic clinics throughout the year that bring in current coaches with an insurmountable amount of experience and success. Much more than what USA Swimming is trying to offer.
The most successful team will have areas you listed plus a whole lot more. I’m not suggesting staffing USA Swimming entirely on Coaches, but if they are going to have Coaches on staff, they need more coaches who have experienced tremendous success. Can’t be an expert without experience.
I’m surprised you read my reply and came to the conclusion of “not a lot”.
Leads me to believe you asked a question and already knew what your response to my answer was.
Our club has 40 kids max. $225 is a lot of money. And I guarantee they don’t care about our small little.clubs in the small towns.
Contact your zone chair. There is flexibility for rural, small, and economically disadvantaged teams.
“Contact your zone chair” okay but then why are we giving the money to USA Swimming and expecting the zones and LSCs to do all the work?
A lot of things beyond just swimming are between rock on a hard place as cost have gone way up, and people simply don’t have the cash to keep paying…
I wish I felt like I was being hysterical but something will have to give at somepoint and there’s so many indicators that day is coming sooner than any of us may wish.
I think those who have strong feelings about this should direct their energy to expressing their feelings to their representatives. A house of delegates (supposedly made up of your peers and colleagues) passed this with 83% of them in favor of it.
It’s easy to blame USA swimming, lord knows they’ve made that easy over the past few years. But this particular item was fought for (quite vociferously) by many coaches at the annual business meeting.
If we want to make the sport better than we need to increase involvement at the LSC and Zone level. Use that platform to have your voices heard because ultimately the top of top of our legislative pyramid does not care about… Read more »
How much money will be allocated to ” More listening to coaches at local level”
shouldn’t it be the other way around? smaller initial club fee and then increase it with a cap at $750? This doesn’t really entice someone to start a club. Or maybe that’s what they want?
As mentioned in the article, the idea is that new clubs need more support to get through that initial period of growth successfully.
I see a pro and a con to each system. Flipping it would mean more established clubs are essentially subsidizing their competitor clubs. Which is fine from a holistic environment standpoint, but is a tough sell at the local level.
Our club started three years ago. I can say for certain we’ve received very little (and, in reality, probably no) extra support from the national level during our initial growth period.
More clubs is better for the sport as a whole. Putting significant barriers in place to starting a club is a terrible idea.
More clubs isn’t inherently better for the sport. Better clubs are better for the sport. There are currently 2700 clubs in USA swimming, and we don’t get better simply from adding more clubs.
A point was made at one point about professionalism, and how having a higher fee initially might (rightfully) create a disincentive for a disgruntled parent to start up a club on a whim and claim to be a professional coach overnight.
There’s also a clause that if there is a geographical need to create a new club there may be options to subsidize the fee.
Well AAU is gonna get bigger!