I must say the gym we're at now is far and away better than where we were as far as communication. We have a conference with the coach(gymnast and parent) about 1 month after the season ends. The gymnast fills out a short questionaire and the coach reviews the answers and discusses with parent and child. They also ask for the girls' goals---just survive, try for L10, whatever. Certainly gives them a better idea what the kids are thinking about. Since they do uptraining during the season, they discuss where skills are for the next level, explain what skills are needed with the parents and what the focus will be for summer practice(for the optional girls).
The girls all have skills pre-test and a final test before levels are decided and those dates are put on the team calendar, so nothing sneaky going on. If I need to talk with gymmie's coach, just leave a note in her mailbox at the gym and the coaches are told to get back with parents by the end of the next practice. Now, the HC has put out a list with all the coach's email addresses, which will make sending little updates or getting questions answered that much easier. Also, the coaches actually come OUT of the gym at the end of practice(used to hide somewhere at our old gym or act like they had a VERY important phone call), so we can easily catch them for a quick question. Gymmie's coach is very approachable and will usually stop for a minute or so to give an update on a skill thats now clicking or just that she had a good practice. She has also asked if my gymmie is feeling ok a couple of times when she's seen low energy or just not with it.
Interesting that our HC came from our former gym----he really does want to work things our with parents before major problems come up.