At the beginning of the season, set up a WhatsApp group with all the parents from the team. Some families include both parents, others not.
Add parents of new players who join during the year to WhatsApp group if relevant. – Share information to parents about training days and times.
Tell parents they should send a message in the WhatsApp group if their child cannot make it to practice so that coach is aware.
Give information to parents about modus operandi for matches, mainly:
- Players should arrive 45 minutes before game time so that players can change and warm-up prior to kick-off.
- Players change into team uniforms on-site; parent who has washed the kits, brings kit bag to game and therefore must arrive on time to allow players to change.
- For away games, the kit bag should have 3 balls and cones as well as uniforms. The club will soon provide balls and cones that each team can keep in its kit bag on an ongoing basis to avoid having to remember to take balls and cones from the club before each away game.
- For home games, two parents bring drinks (lemonade) to both teams at half-time. The drinks are free and are provided by the bar. The bar gives two trays with pre-filled cups (it is close to impossible for one person to carry two trays so better to have two parents go pick up the trays), one tray per team. Parents responsible for this should keep track of time and go to the bar about 10 minutes before half-time to make sure drinks are there on time for the players. The trays and empty cups need to be brought back afterwards to the bar.
- For home games, most often two parents will be required to do bar duty, i.e. man the bar for 90 minutes. Sometimes bar duty is during the game, sometimes it is before or after. There is not much we can do about timing of bar duty, we just have to make sure we provide the manpower. One club parent is responsible of getting the information of time slots from the Dutch club and sharing this with all the team parents in the Team Parent WhatsApp group. This parent depends on the Dutch club and sometimes the information arrives late in the week. We have to be as flexible as possible to accommodate this. Most parents will have to do bar duty twice a year so it is not a huge commitment and it is essential for our cooperation with the other clubs who use the same facilities. They are very helpful in explaining how the bar works and other parents who have done it before are usually happy to help parents who are new to this as well.
- For some age group home games, team parent is in charge of assigning a parent to referee the game and another to be linesman. For away games, it is only necessary to appoint a linesman.
Assign duties to parents for upcoming games (games that are already scheduled in voetbal.nl for example) and share info with parents asking if the dates are convenient for them. Swapping dates among parents will usually happen and it is helpful to have a way to keep track and update who does what and when to share the load as equally as possible:
Washing kits – uniforms should be washed in cold/30 degree water on a sports cycle (gentle spin).
On a weekly basis, using the WhatsApp group, and preferably no later than Wednesday:
- Share details of the Saturday game, for example by taking a screen shot of the game info available in voetbal.nl.
- Ask who is available to join the game
- If not enough players are available to have a full team, alert David on Team Parents group asap so that he can find other players to help your team
- Remind parents of their respective duties for that week
As soon as the parent who is responsible of bar duty sends time slots, check if your team is on the list (only when you have a home game) and ask for volunteers to do bar duty. Keeping track of who has done bar duty is helpful to share the load as equally as possible.
Facilitate reassignment of duties if something comes up and someone cannot do what had been scheduled.
Respond to questions of parents on an ad hoc basis.
Forward messages from Youth Committee and David that are posted in the Team Parent Group.