Traveling

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Nov 26, 2011
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How do your parents/organizations deal with the travel aspect of Rec cheer? A lot of the organizations with football attached have a standard Local competition, Regionals and then Nationals in Florida. Around here, there has been a LOT of drama regarding this.

Fundraising to go to Florida every year just gets exhausting for most families especially when there's an "auto bid" involved. With Pop Warner, if you have an automatic ride to Nationals, you're basically forced to go or you can't participate in any outside competitions. And honestly, the teams from the West Coast have a hard time competing against the ones from the East Coast. And now with even more levels, it seems like there will be even more auto-bids.

When I coached for Pop Warner, it just seemed like the years where we had to travel had so much more parent drama than the ones that didn't...but the parents still wanted to go to the outside competitions because the girls did really well at them. Do you agree with the system that they have set in place? Or do you just think it's some money making scheme? I feel like the Pop Warner teams around here have lost a lot of participation because of this. If you have the money to spend $1000 per person to go to a competition, why not just do All-Stars? Do you think there's any way to change it, or is Pop Warner Competitive Cheer going to be a thing of the past because of the lack of participation?
 
Our organization was running into the problem where all levels were placing in the top 3, earning a bid to nationals. To combat this we just created a rule where you can only go to Nationals in Florida if you place first in your division. If not, then you don't go.
Some of teams choose to rent hotel rooms for state, even though it is a 20 minute drive away, so the girls can have an end of the year "travel comp" but that is all up to the parents, and let's face it, a $120 hotel room is WAY cheaper than $800 to go to Nationals.
 
Our organization was running into the problem where all levels were placing in the top 3, earning a bid to nationals. To combat this we just created a rule where you can only go to Nationals in Florida if you place first in your division. If not, then you don't go.
Some of teams choose to rent hotel rooms for state, even though it is a 20 minute drive away, so the girls can have an end of the year "travel comp" but that is all up to the parents, and let's face it, a $120 hotel room is WAY cheaper than $800 to go to Nationals.
That's actually a great idea.
 
Our organization used to do at least two away compeitions and local competitons. Our kids, parents, and coaches have to fundraise their butts off for the away comps. Now we go to local "nationals" (sometimes we travel like an hour for these nationals) so we can get our bid to US Finals. So we do our local comps, local nationals and US Finals. Money is so tight these days and because we literally work around a billion different schedules (we have kids involved in all star cheer and high school cheer along with other sports) this new method has been the most successful.
 
Since we are new into rec allstars- this much traveling is new to our parents and believe me its not even a lot. My older daughter did 9 years of allstars and we traveld so much I think I was away more than I was home.
Here we made it 1 time a month we will compete, however being from Long Island we have to travel to every competition regardless if its a 1 day. We took away 1 of our over nights because parents complained to much. We start competing in november and go 1 time a month thru may.
 
Our organization was running into the problem where all levels were placing in the top 3, earning a bid to nationals. To combat this we just created a rule where you can only go to Nationals in Florida if you place first in your division. If not, then you don't go.
Some of teams choose to rent hotel rooms for state, even though it is a 20 minute drive away, so the girls can have an end of the year "travel comp" but that is all up to the parents, and let's face it, a $120 hotel room is WAY cheaper than $800 to go to Nationals.
I think this is a really good idea, gives the girls an oppertunity for something fun, but not pricy !
 
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