The NSCGA

As you know by now, Giulia goes to gymnastics classes. This year she turns 6 making her eligible for competition (once she has all the required skills). I've always known that competing means a bigger investment of time and money....I just never knew how much bigger.

Giulia is now doing gymnastics 3 days per week - 3 hours per day. She goes on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays. Yesterday was the first meeting to welcome new parents to the life of competitive gymnastics. I left Diego with my mom and Giulia in piano class for John to pick up and headed in. The gym is 20 minutes away from us (with no traffic).

We were introduced to the Board of Directors of the NSCGA. The NSCGA is the parents organization that funds the gymnasts. During this 2-hour meeting they kept throwing around the words 'assessment fee' but never telling us how much this fee was; instead they told us to attend today's meeting where this fee would be communicated to us and voted on. We then got spoken to about fund-raising and corporate sponsors, and lastly volunteering for administrative tasks and working meets - they could not emphasize anymore how important volunteering was. This volunteer sign-up and all relevant information would also be provided at todays meeting. Ultimately, I wasted 2 hours of my day yesterday to go back and get the relevant information today.

Today's meeting was at 12PM - Giulia's class was at 1PM. John came along since 2 or 3 hours with Diego attending a meeting would probably proof destructive (how right I was). We once again were introduced to the Board of Directors and fund-raising and the 'assessment fee' - the assessment fee mystery for this year was revealed to be &1700; that fee does not include a competition leotard ($60), a membership application ($50), an USGA application ($49), a warm-up ($150), or our monthly payment to the gym ($195). The fee took an hour to vote on, the poor thing was torn to shreds with questions and complaints - but it got approved in the end.

Onto volunteering, I had already taken the time yesterday to speak to the people doing anything computer related since that is the only thing I can volunteer for. Today we were given an information-less handout that lists the positions we can volunteer for (no clue what each does) and this is when Diego decided he'd had enough (an hour and a half into the meeting). He screamed for 15 minutes - and I mean SCREAMED like only Diego can. I had to take him downstairs where finally he exhausted himself and went out. By the time I got back upstairs the meeting was over - the volunteer sign-ups had been discussed without me. We left.

I called the appropriate board members to try to get my name on the list since the screaming child prevented me from doing anything during the meeting and was told the list would be posted on the bulletin board. I explained that I don't go in on Monday to drop Giulia off and so someone else might volunteer for the things I can do (I can only do things doable around my work, school, and Diego schedule - and I explained this to them) - so they tell me not to worry if they are taken I can volunteer for something else someone has not.....hello - did you completely miss the point? I told them that those were the only things I could volunteer to do once again, but they did not want to sign me up and suggested that maybe my DH could do something with his time instead ---- all I had left to say was: 'I don't think so' - and 'oh well, I tried! - thank you for your time'

So much for the importance of volunteering, you'd think with something that important they would have taken my name and written in immediately. Oh well, I tried :)