Educating boosters & parents.A quarterly newsletter can help you communicate with and educate parents As we have mentioned in previous writings, one of the most difficult tasks in athletics athletics or track and field also track-and-field games Variety of sport competitions held on a running track and on the adjacent field. It is the oldest form of organized sports, having been a part of the ancient Olympic Games from c. is communicating with parents and educating them. We utilize every means available to us, beginning with a parents-coaches meeting at the start of every season. These meetings offer excellent opportunities to communicate with the parents and enable them to bond with the coaches of their children. If bond is too strong a word, you can definitely say that the meetings do establish a positive relationship with the coaches and their programs. The next step in our effort to educate our parents is a handbook that we distribute at our pre-season meetings or mail home to those who could not attend. Note: This handbook stimulated a lot of interest among the athletic directors Athletic director (commonly, "athletics director") is a position at many American colleges and universities, as well as in larger high schools and middle schools, which oversees the work of the coaches and related staff involved in intercollegiate or interscholastic athletic who read about it in A.D.ministration this past January. Our latest educational approach to parents is an Athletic Booster Club A booster club is an organization that is formed to contribute money to an associated club, sports team, or organization. Booster clubs are popular in American schools at the high school and university level. Quarterly Newsletter that contains notices of upcoming Booster Club events, brief recaps on how our teams are progressing, reports on the latest athletic developments at our school, plus articles by the athletic director on topics of special interest. In the latest issue, we tackled the attitude of some parents and fans toward the officials, which, we believed, needed enlightenment Enlightenment, term applied to the mainstream of thought of 18th-century Europe and America. Background and Basic Tenets The scientific and intellectual developments of the 17th cent. and improvement. We pointed out that officials do not win or lose games for you. Only teams and coaches do that. Since many of our parents do not understand this concept, we felt obliged o·blige v. o·bliged, o·blig·ing, o·blig·es v.tr. 1. To constrain by physical, legal, social, or moral means. 2. to enlighten en·light·en tr.v. en·light·ened, en·light·en·ing, en·light·ens 1. To give spiritual or intellectual insight to: them. Other ancillary or related issues also had to be dealt with. Recently, for example, we refurbished our gym floor at a cost of $13,500. Not only was the floor a thing of beauty, it offered our athletes a superior surface upon which to perform. But it did create a problem. Many of our fans, after years of careless careless adj., adv. 1) negligent. 2) the opposite of careful. A careless act can result in liability for damages to others. (See: negligent, negligence, care) habits, continued to walk across the floor in their shoes - abrading the finish. Repeated requests to stay off the floor had little effect. Something had to be done. And so we wrote a little article about the need for a change in behavior. The newsletter provided the perfect medium for it. We dealt with the limitations of our athletic budget in the same fashion. With people having all kinds of misconceptions Misconceptions is an American sitcom television series for The WB Network for the 2005-2006 season that never aired. It features Jane Leeves, formerly of Frasier, and French Stewart, formerly of 3rd Rock From the Sun. about the budgets, we felt it was important to set the record straight - as well as emphasize the necessity for fund-raising fund-raising, large-scale soliciting of voluntary contributions, especially in the United States. Fund-raising is widely undertaken by charitable organizations, educational institutions, and political groups to acquire sufficient funds to support their activities. . We addressed this issue in our newsletter. While perhaps not everyone agreed with our viewpoint, they at least got the right message, which, after all, is the essence of education. Up until this point, we have dealt with issues as ragging the officials, sportsmanship, quitting a team, and walking on new gym floors. Future columns will address negative parental influences on the player-coach relationship, the purpose of a JV team, the educational values derived from athletics, the purpose of captains, and the value of team managers. Each time a problem arises, we will deal with it in the newsletter. Though our meetings and literature haven't addressed all our problems with parents, we do feel they have provided us with a proactive approach to the answers. Your situation is undoubtedly different from ours and your concerns may be unique. But anytime you are faced with coaching shortages, budget limitations, facilities that need refurbishing, and sportsmanship problems, try addressing them in your newsletter. It can provide an excellent forum as well as a positive public relations public relations, activities and policies used to create public interest in a person, idea, product, institution, or business establishment. By its nature, public relations is devoted to serving particular interests by presenting them to the public in the most vehicle. Dr. David Hoch, Director of Athletics Eastern, Technical H.S., Baltimore County, MD |
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