Great Minds
My wife and I are having a house built and have sold our old house. We have been living up at our lake house for the last few months. A beautiful place, but pretty isolated. A great place to think (or over think?!). Combine that with a 50 minute drive to get to one of my gyms I have had lots of time to think.
As the Chairman of the USECA I have been on the USAG Advisory Committee. We do not seem to get a lot done. It is just too large if a group with too many interests to actually advise. It is NOT for lack of trying. There is good leadership and some very committed people. The representatives on the Advisory Council are wonderful and do a great job representing their constituents. But it may be time for more.
The US Gymnastics Club Owners Association has been a great asset for clubs as we all tried to navigate getting reopened. Now that many of us our open they are a resource to learn from each other mistakes and successes.
- What is working
- What are you cleaning with,
- What does your new waiver look like,
- Where do we go from here
- Are you traveling with your team this year
- Are you hosting your invitational
What the USGCOA understands is that Gymnastics professionals and gymnastics business owners are struggling. My personal feeling is that before this is all over close to 1/3 of the clubs in the USA could be forced to close their doors.
There are some great MINDS in the gymnastics world. People with a lot of experience and creative thinkers as well as problem solvers. It may be time to tap these minds and come up with some concrete and creative ideas to navigate out of this.
This is not a “let’s overthrow USAG”. Truthfully, I don’t care about them at all right now. I am worried about the future of our sport. My gyms will survive. But others may not. My brain power is consumed by just day to day operations as we reopen in stages and HOPE to get to 50% of what our enrollment has been. How many gyms are NOT going to be able make it on 50%? It would have been nice to have some better direction and leadership from the federation, but they are operating in survival mode. At this point there really are no viable alternatives to USAG. I am the education coordinator for USAIGC and I believe it is a great program but I don’t believe they have an interest in becoming the National Governing Body for gymnastics. AAU was once the NGB. Like USAIGC, they have a good program, BUT they are not equipped to be NGB in this day and age.
My caffeine fueled thought today is that we should put together a meeting, zoom or otherwise, just to see if we can find ways to navigate this. There should be representation from
- Women’s Program
- Men’s Program
- Large Club (400+ enrollment) 2 or 3 reps. East coast, Middle, West coast)
- Small Club (Under 400) (2 or 3 reps. East coast, middle, West coast)
- Suppliers
It would be great to get these great minds together and see what kind of solutions come up. Having representatives from clubs of different sizes in different geographical areas will be of benefit. I do not know if this is possible or even if there is the collective bandwidth to take on such a task.
Just my thoughts! Let me know yours!
- Who would you like to hear from?
- What questions would you want answered?
- Any Thoughts on representation?