jroddin
January 14th, 2013, 02:53 PM
Anyone who has been a Registrar can probably relate to this. The phrase LMSC (Local Masters Swimming Committee) is not intuitive to your average masters swimmer - and most certainly not to prospective members. I'll bet there are numerous 10+ year members who can't tell you what an LMSC is. I wonder if I had a nickel for every time Tracy or Anna Lea had to explain what an LMSC is would I be a rich man? I get a handful of swimmers every year who register in the wrong LMSC because they don't understand our structure. For instance, they live in Maryland so how in the world should they know they are technically part of the Potomac Valley LMSC and not the Maryland LMSC? Likewise for northern Virginia swimmers who understandably get confused as to why they are supposed to register with Potomac Valley and not Virginia.
I have a long term challenge for USMS: to re-think how we organize ourselves as LMSCs. Most probably already know this but LMSC was derived from LSC (Local Swimming Committee) from the USA Swimming organization. So anybody who grew up in USA-S more or less figures out what LMSCs are. But otherwise we have to explain to members what the heck LMSC means. And even after we spell out the acronym it still doesn't make sense to some.
Since I know our organization is slow to adopt change, I have one idea for the "powers to be" to consider:
Local Masters Swimming Chapter (LMSC)
And casually we would just call them "Chapters" instead of "LMSCs." Our rulebook would spell out LMSCs but in emails and phone calls we could just call them Chapters ("yes, I understand - you'll want to join the Virginia Chapter and not the Potomac Valley Chapter..."). I tend to think the average person would more intuitively understand what a Chapter means - that a Chapter defines a geographic area. Region could be another possibility, but Chapter provides the convenient "C" in the acronym to not require us to re-write everything under the sun when it comes to registration forms and webpages. I realize swimmers will still register in the wrong LMSC but my feeling is this will at least help us to better explain our structure and perhaps cut down on this perpetual confusion.
We could also call these regions "Copelands" and preserve our beloved acronym. But then we'd have to give Rob those nickels every time we used the phrase.
If the President deems this to be worthy I suppose it would go to the LMSC Development Committee but I wanted to first hear what others (general public) think about the idea in case it is all wet (not the specific idea to change to Chapters but the idea to blow up LMSC and think of something new that is more informative).
Jeff Roddin
(lives in Maryland but registered in the Potomac Valley Local Masters Swimming Committee)
I have a long term challenge for USMS: to re-think how we organize ourselves as LMSCs. Most probably already know this but LMSC was derived from LSC (Local Swimming Committee) from the USA Swimming organization. So anybody who grew up in USA-S more or less figures out what LMSCs are. But otherwise we have to explain to members what the heck LMSC means. And even after we spell out the acronym it still doesn't make sense to some.
Since I know our organization is slow to adopt change, I have one idea for the "powers to be" to consider:
Local Masters Swimming Chapter (LMSC)
And casually we would just call them "Chapters" instead of "LMSCs." Our rulebook would spell out LMSCs but in emails and phone calls we could just call them Chapters ("yes, I understand - you'll want to join the Virginia Chapter and not the Potomac Valley Chapter..."). I tend to think the average person would more intuitively understand what a Chapter means - that a Chapter defines a geographic area. Region could be another possibility, but Chapter provides the convenient "C" in the acronym to not require us to re-write everything under the sun when it comes to registration forms and webpages. I realize swimmers will still register in the wrong LMSC but my feeling is this will at least help us to better explain our structure and perhaps cut down on this perpetual confusion.
We could also call these regions "Copelands" and preserve our beloved acronym. But then we'd have to give Rob those nickels every time we used the phrase.
If the President deems this to be worthy I suppose it would go to the LMSC Development Committee but I wanted to first hear what others (general public) think about the idea in case it is all wet (not the specific idea to change to Chapters but the idea to blow up LMSC and think of something new that is more informative).
Jeff Roddin
(lives in Maryland but registered in the Potomac Valley Local Masters Swimming Committee)