Help out or get out, says little aths boss

By Ben Hope
AN ANGRY parent has described a Casey Little Athletics policy to exclude children from events if their parents don’t get involved as ‘ridiculous’.
Last week the Casey Little Athletics club sent an e-mail to Michael Ryan’s sister telling her that her children would not be able to compete in last weekend’s Centre Championships because she had not completed four ‘duties’ during the athletics season.
“Imagine saying to a nine-year-old who was ready to compete in the finals that they can’t run because their mum hasn’t volunteered enough – it’s ridiculous,” Mr Ryan said.
“Some parents just won’t go and do it; they are embarrassed and don’t feel comfortable, but why punish the kids?”
Mr Ryan’s sister received the e-mail after her volunteering for the season wasn’t recorded properly, but her children were allowed to compete after Mr Ryan sent an e-mail on her behalf to the club.
Mr Ryan completed his required duties for the season so his three children could compete, but he is now worried about the effect on children who are sent away because their parents haven’t.
“If the goal is to increase participation, this won’t help,” he said.
“You can’t start beating parents with sticks or shaming and embarrassing them, it’s wrong. Parents just won’t turn up and then the kids miss out.
“In an age of childhood obesity, we should be doing everything we can to encourage parents to bring their children to athletics.”
Duties can involve being a team manager, helping in the canteen, measuring long jumps and acting as a marshal or timekeeper. Most duties take place on a Saturday morning between 8.30am and noon.
Casey Little Athletics Club president Shane Triffitt said the club has been trying to increase parental participation for the past eight years and had cancelled some events in the past because of lack of volunteers.
Mr Triffitt said the club’s expectations and penalties were clearly outlined in the parental commitment document that parents were required to sign for the first time this year.
“This is a variation on what we have done in previous years and this season was the first time we enforced the policy,” he said.
“The bottom line is, on any given competition day we have up to 500 kids compete and we need 112-120 parents to help out.
“We’re all in the same boat, those of us who do it week in and week out are all volunteers, but we can’t do it on our own. If parents do three or four duties a year, everybody gets a crack at it and no-one misses out substantially.”
Mr Triffitt said no children were turned away on the day despite the 20-30 e-mails sent by the club to parents advising them their children couldn’t compete. He said next year there would be a tougher enforcement of the policy.
Mr Ryan said that although the club had folded on their threat to exclude the children this year, they were ultimately missing the point if they continued to penalise children for the actions of their parents.
“If they can’t run the athletics events with the resources they have then maybe they have the design wrong. If you’re planning events that need 120 parents and you can’t get enough to help, maybe you should set it up so that only 60 people can run it,” he said.
“They have this elaborate recording system of times and graphs. That’s great if you can do it with the resources you have, but if you have to beat all the parents with a stick to record it all then why not just let the kids run down the track and enjoy themselves?
“The first prerequisite should be don’t punish the kids, and they are not doing that.
“We don’t fine parents in football and cricket clubs for not being goal umpires. If they need 120 parents on the field every weekend you may as well pull the grandstand down, there will be nobody watching.”
Mr Triffitt said the policy was similar to that used by other junior athletics clubs around the state.
He said his club was prepared to make exceptions for parents with valid reasons why they couldn’t perform duties at the club.
“Over the next few years the policy will be implemented correctly after some teething problems with our recording this season and we will be applying the penalties,” he said.
“Since January we have reminded parents of the requirement every week, including an e-mail three weeks prior that got a lot of parents across the line.
“There are parents who have sat on the hill for a few years and this was one way to try and make some of them move and it actually worked on a couple of parents.”
A spokeswomen for Victorian Little Athletics said it was a policy across all little athletics clubs in Victoria to expect parents to perform duties.
“In all centres parents would be expected to do some duty, it is part of the registration sign-off,” she said.
“To run an athletics meet you need parental participation and it is up to the individual centres to decide on what measures they will take to ensure that participation.”