What does your gym expect of you?

[gym law mom]

Ok folks--new gym and new(well maybe) expectations. This gym was bought by 2 coaches who then brought in a 3rd coach/owner---all in their late 20s to mid 30s. They seem to have sorted through what they liked about other gyms and what they didn't.

Booster club--up to you to join. If you want to fine, if you don't fine. Must be a member of the booster club to do bingo. Funny how many of their booster club poilicies traveled across town when 1 parent left with his daughter to train at our old gym.
Volunteer hours: 25 for compulsory, 30 for optional. Big difference here is you get hours for setting up/tearing down for meets and any time worked during the meets. Wow---what a concept!!!!!! Since this gym hosts 1 large compulsory meet and 1 medium sized optional meet, we'll be able to get many hours that way. They also have parent meetings 1x/month and you get an hour of volunteer time for going.

As for bingo. The dad that runs it all is low key and they have their session on Fri night which means you don't have to drag yourself around half awake at work. As parents of an optional gymnast we have to do 3 sessions/month. What do we get? Her practice leo is paid for, USAG fee paid for, team fee($250/yr) is paid for plus all meet/travel and coaching fees. Since she will be traveling out of state to 2-3 meets, this is the only reasonable way to afford that. The only thing we have to pay for is her meet leo($105). The booster club buys the warm ups and then you check them out at the beginning of the comp season with a $25 deposit. If they're returned and don't need cleaning then you get the $25 back.

Overall, the parents are much more sane about the whole thing. The booster club even has 1 parent who is the "welcome parent" and meets with you and one of the owners to discuss the booster club etc. At our old gym, all anyone said, was "you owe-----."

[mariposa]

Just bumping this up because I just found out what DDs gym requires of her and found all of this interesting (and mind boggling, LOL).

We just had our "new parents" meeting and intro to what to expect while our DDs are on team. I am thankful that my DDs devo coach had been very open with us regarding all the costs, etc. It made the information much less shocking.

Parents are required to join the booster club. There is a $150 one time entry fee into the booster club. They do fundraisers, but we only have 3 mandatory fundraisers. 2 are working at the 2 meets the gym hosts a year, approx 12-13 hours for each one. The other is getting ads for the yearbook ($100 worth, or you fork that out and get your kid an ad, LOL). The rest of the various fundraisers they do are all optional.

Leo/warm-up suit/bag cost about $300 (if you buy new). The booster pays approx 10% of meets fees and you (or the funds you raise) pay the rest. USAG fees each year are also your responsibility.

Meetings are mandatory and held monthly. If you miss more than 3, you get fined. They seem to get out the minutes pretty fast and also seem very organized and helpful.

Still very overwhelming. With L4 tuition and all the approx fees, I figure if I do NO fundraising, I will be paying $300/month for everything, not including gas. I tried to bribe DD with a vacation to Disney World for a week, but she still wants to do team. LOL.

[Gymnasticsgirl521]

I know we have block fees that pay for the coaches expenses that is 200 every quarter. We have to vol so many hours, and of course there are meet fees, uniform fees etc. So we are pretty much in the same boat. I don't have it 100% spelled out just yet. We have been fundraising for our personal accounts for the past 6 months. We have about 200.00 already waiting for everything to kick in.

[Gymmonkeymomma]

I guess I'll add my 2 cents

I have a Level 5 and one training Level 8. We compete both USAG and USAIGC.

Tuition - $7030 a year for 2 girls, paid over 10 months (we don't pay July & Aug).
Parents Association - there is a $50 initial one-time membership fee. Monthly meetings, attendance is optional but recommended.
Each August 1-Sept 1 we put $500/gymnast into a personal account which is used for meet entry fees, USAIGC and USAG membership fees, coaching expenses.
There are mandatory fundraisers (participate or pay a 'buy out') and voluntary ones that go toward your personal fees.
We get statements on a 'regular' basis. When money runs low, we have to put in more. Last year, I put in about $2000 for both girls, in addition to fundraising. This year, I am up to $700 each.
We have yet to host a meet ourselves, although we did have one at our gym where we worked concession/raffles and made a little profit.
Leotards/warmups are purchased usually every 2 yrs, however, this year we are just buying new leos ($127 each).

[Panda-girl's Mom]

At our gym it was overwhelming at first when my daughter got on the team. Everybody is required to chair or co-chair a fundraiser or you get a $500.00 fine. So in the long run it worked out because their were so many fundraisers going on during the season and everybody who partcipated got a percentage towards our daughters fees. Our ad book we even got 100% of it back towards the fees, most of the sale stuff was like 20%. the parents association was very helpful in finding all the new parents fundraisers for them to help run many of us paired up with seasoned parents. We all had to work at the state meet our gym ran the whole weekend I mean from Friday at 4:00pm until Sunday night clean up, this was tough but everybody worked together to run a sucessful meet. The money they raised from last years meet paid for all the girls new competition leotards this year. All of these things have helped with the cost of gymnastics. So I only had to put out around $400 to $500 extra for meet fees, our fees our broken up in 5-7 payments during competiton season with my daughter being in level four, the fees increase as the levels do. One of the reasons I was glad for my daughter to return to the this gym is that the parent group is so organized and well run. The other nice thing is that if we fundraise above or paid ahead on our fees the extra money goes towards summer classes

[Shawn]

Wow. We're very lucky with how things work at our gym. The annual competition fees are about $1200 and cover 6 meets plus state, competition leo and warm ups, Crocs and gym bag. We can either pay the $1200 over three payments (July, Sept and Oct) or we can work some of it off. One of the moms has set us up with a security company at Road Atlanta to work security for various races. They "pay" hourly and the money is sent directly to the gym (no paycheck= no taxes, etc). In fact, DH is working at the races today and will make about $100 toward her fees. They will have four races available for us to work (two spring and two fall) and they are usually Wednesday-Saturday so there's plenty of days available. We'll also be doing a fundraiser through Coke and one through Dominos Pizza. The races and the fundraisers are completely optional but they provide enough opportunity that we'll probably be able to raise almost all of DD's competition fees for the coming year. I love that all of this is available to us but that nothing is required. It's the best of both worlds.

[Monkeygirlsmom]

Our gym is 30$ for the booster club fee each year!! (per family)
and the fundraisers are up to us to do if we want!! (a lot of the times there is money that would go in each of th efamilys accounts so it is beneficial to us to do the fundrasers!! that money we can use on anything gymnastics related!!
Camp, leos, spiritwear, hotel fees for meets, meets, tuiton, comp leos anything!!
some fundraiesers benefit just the club!!
we are required to help at the spring show and I think qualifier! (tho they are leniant when it comes to certian issues!!
I think we have a good booster club!! and gym!!
Im lucky!!!