Coaching - not a single thank you

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I have been coaching for about 5 years now but this year I took on a role as head coach to an U16 girls football group. The season was 18 weeks long, we had about 40 training sessions, 9 matches. We got to a final at the weekend which unfortunately we lost but was still a great achievement
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I did 16 hours coaching training to upskill my coaching qualification. I spent many hours planning training, organizing matches, recruiting new players. We got 7 new players this season, no other team in the club has done this.

Our season is over now and I put up a message on the team chat (for parents) to say well done to the all girls, it was great to coach them etc and not a single response did I get. Not a single thank you for your time.

I gave up 2/3 evenings a week, rushing home from work, no dinner and straight to the pitch. I put in a huge effort to ensure the girls were trained well, were fit, skills improved, confidence build as individuals and as a team.

I understand that people who havent coached before dont understand the level of time commitment it takes but they do see the training and matches.

WTF is wrong is people. I dont coach for thanks as I know you dont get it but seriously AIBU in thinking it is just plain rude and entitled.

I don't know where you live well hello but i rarely know anyone who works AND volunteers

My experience is the complete opposite. All the people I know who volunteer also work.

I play a sport as an adult and we always thank our (paid) coach at the end of the season with flowers.
for my kids footy teams we always have a collection and buy vouchers. Usually we get about £200-£300. Parents give what they can afford.
it’s so hard to keep girls motivated and playing sport at that age so the parents should be very grateful. If I were you I’d look for something paid or a new team who appreciate you.

Every volunteer I know works full time. My DH coaches 4 teams!! Now thats madness but 2 are for a sport he loves and wants to encourage children to play and the other two are our sons teams.
He works a very busy job and is out 5 nights a week and usually 1/2 matches at the weekend.
I work 50/60 hours a week and coach twice a week, we have 3 children. I also used to volunteer on the PTA and in another local group.
I live in a small town and its all the same people who volunteer.

Parents are the reason I refused to take on the Youth Band in our area. The children are great but too many parents are so entitled it hurts.

Yeah I’ve volunteered at

the food bank (all older ladies who had retired or been housewives and their kids had grown up),

an oxfam shop (all retirees),

a refugee support/education centre (retirees or student volunteers)

McMillan (students)

I know one person with a job who volunteers as a dog socialising person once a month.

I wasn't saying that people who volunteer don't work, for fuck's sake.

Can't people imagine other people having any sort of life that didn't allow them the time or headspace or physical or mental energy to volunteer? Particularly in a cost of living crisis - many people are living hand to mouth!

Have a fucking think on for five minutes if you can't. You have no idea what other people have going on in their lives.

As I said, I'm glad that people do volunteer and people should be thanked, but please don't think that everyone just falls into the category of either selfish twat or wonderfully altruistic perfect human being.

For me, I'm done with volunteering at the moment, I've done tons of it in the past- I want to step up in my career. Let other people do it, I've done my time.

I'm sure there are people at many of DCs activities who thought I should get involved more and that I was too self important with my posh job in London or didn't care, but they don't know how much of my free time I regularly gave to other volunteering activities at the time as well as working in a full on professional role which dammed near killed me with stress at one point. I really did not have the time or mental or physical energy to do more!

I think as women we always feel guilt that we should be doing more however much we do, and we need to stop, and also stop guilt tripping other people.

I'll happily pitch in and donate financially for anything but I am so glad to be never doing another bloody bake sale or on a committee for anything.

I don't know where you live well hello but i rarely know anyone who works AND volunteers. I worked at citizen's advice and majority volunteers were unemployed, retired or disabled

I guess it depends on the time of day that the volunteer is expected to work? After all, someone in full-time, Monday to Friday, work won't be available to volunteer if the work needed is during usual office hours. So that would mean that any voluntary role requiring these hours will fall to retired, unemployed etc.

But running kids clubs tends to need volunteers in the evening and weekends, meaning that people who work full time during usual office hours can volunteer for this type of role.

In our scout group, out of 22 leaders, all but one are in full-time employment. One of my assistant leaders has two jobs, working around 60-70 hours per week.

Thats the thing... People volunteer to keep these affordable services and activities going.

My DDs rugby club is free for all children so that money isn't an issue... the only thing you have to buy is a gum shield. Its all done by a lot of fundraising.

Scouts and Guides are often the cheapest groups around... and even then there are funds for those who can't afford it. These parents are usually the ones who go out their way with offers of help.

If organisations like Scouts/Guides and Sports relied only on the retired, then we would be in trouble.

Not for one second do I think their contribution is not valuable - their experience is worth millions - but you also need muscle for lugging around camp equipment, and ‘vigour’ for leading those young people on expeditions - be it up walking up hills or canoeing down rivers, or heading across Europe. Many retirees can do some of this - but not all. There are of course a fair number of exceptions before anyone leaps on me!

some one asked why we do it. Because young people are amazing. We have kids from all walks of life, all sorts of diagnoses, all sorts of abilities. And they are all astonishing in their own unique way. And when one overcomes a fear, or faces a challenge they never thought they could do - it is so rewarding!

There is always profuse thanks for the coaches of my son’s football team. So, no, UANBU. However, I would add that I mute that chat because of the constant pings, so sometimes it takes me a few days to respond to posts.

Youre not being unreasonable at all. My son has been in a football team for a few years and every Christmas and end of season we either got a card and prezzie from my son and us or all the parents clubbed together to get a decent voucher as a thabk you. All of us said thank you every session but always a much bigger one end of season.

One thing surely Scouts and Guides, and football clubs etc should be encouraging, within reason and the capabilities of the people involved, is class inclusivity. It's not very inclusive if the only kids who can go are from naice homes with a niace mum who does bake sales and is on the PTA and a naice dad who does some coaching on a Saturday and who have been reminded to say their pleases and thank yous.

My parents both worked full time and were from a working class background where volunteering was not a thing (it's not really if you do a full on manual labour job) and I definitely felt excluded or looked down on or not made to feel welcome by middle class mums who didn't work from/in the types of activities where parents were expected to volunteer or get involved when their kids were involved in them.

All the volunteers I work with work full time in paid work too.
My why is I see how the organisation benefits the girls. My own dc benefitted when she was younger.
We also obviously enjoy the activities we do and seeing the girls enjoy things and develop skills. Some girls have additional needs or issues and struggle at school so it’s lovely they can have friends and blossom with us. I gain from the social side of being friends with the other leaders.
Most parents are fine. But the odd unreasonable one can really drag you down. We do seem to be getting more of that now - sign of the times.
Examples we’ve had recently large scale activity hundreds of kids involved. Kids bussed back to collection point - dad verbally abusive as his child not on first bus.
Criticism of our cost - £4 a week inc all badges & activities/supplies for 90 mins - most goes on room hire.
Querying if £100 pack holiday was value for money - Fri to Sunday, nice accommodation in bunk beds all food and activities. It will cost me £75 in dog sitting to go and look after their children as dog sitting is £25 a day and I’ve needed a days annual leave.

The thing that is depressing is that you just assumed I don't understand manners, then went on to condescendingly describe how such manners should work, just because I asked a question about a contradiction in the OPs original post. Please don't make biased assumptions about people just because they ask awkward questions.

In what way does a volunteer hoping for a thank you, and a little help from parents, equate to not being inclusive?

No child is interviewed before being allowed in to the Scouts/Guides/sports club (there may be a trial for sports, depending on the level, but it's nothing to do with their parents). IME, parent rotas are not compulsory, although they may be strongly encouraged.

Inclusivity is paramount in Scouting and Guiding. No-one will kick out a child, or look down on them because their parent didn't say thankyou, or didn't help at a fundraiser. Nobody cares what their background is. We have NT children, children with SEN, children with disabilities.

Our scout leaders come from all sorts of backgrounds - we have accountants, lorry drivers, ex-army, company directors, painters and decorators, factory workers. We have employed, self-employed, and not working due to disability.

Scouts is one of the most inclusive organisations there is.

Things that help even if you can’t give time are paying on time, returning paperwork on time, labelling uniform, drop off and picking up on time, reading emails, not being rude to volunteers.
Anyone can sign a child up. There are arrangements if payment is an issue due to finances.
We ask for volunteers for ratio sometimes but can be anyone not just mum.

Things that help even if you can’t give time are paying on time, returning paperwork on time, labelling uniform, drop off and picking up on time, reading emails, not being rude to volunteers

This!! I'd settle for never getting a thank you again, if parents could just keep up their end of the admin. Absolute bane of my life, I seem to be constantly chasing paperwork and payments for activities and camps. We always set a date, and there are always people who can't seem to bring the paperwork/payment on time. It adds so much time and stress to my job! I know I should be a bit tougher, and say that if they miss the deadline, they miss the activity, but then I'd feel bad for the child, it's not the child's fault that their parents can't keep to a date.

I run a beaver colony and have absolutely no idea what social class any of the children are from. They sign up and when we can fit them in, we do. That's the entry requirement. Most of our colony have an additional need of some kind.

We are fortunate that we have a few parent volunteers who are willing to give their time.

We make it a stipulation, if you want your child to attend, you need to be prepared to give 60 minutes of your time out of two months.

I am from a working class background where volunteering was a thing. You gave your time, skills, experience as and when you could.

I'm really sorry you had that experience where you were made to feel unwelcome. Some people really are awful.

That bad form, do the parents know/have access to reply to messages?
I coach some teams and very involved in club all voluntary find parents are very good at thanking.
But with more business led activities the expectations are very high, people don't seem to realise the difference between business & volunteer led clubs.

I volunteered from the age of 14 to the age of 60. I was brought up to believe that everyone should contribute something voluntary to society. I worked in the NHS, but volunteered at various times over those years in toddler group, primary school, PTA, sports clubs, St John's Ambulance and 2 cancer charities. The school and the cancer charity people were always appreciative, but the toddler group and sports club parents were generally, with a few exceptions, ungrateful and entitled. Over all those years it was always the coaches and a few parents doing everything and the rest complaining.
OP thank you for everything you do.

I don't think every parent has to be an active helper. Everyone has other stuff going on in their lives and it's not possible to do everything. My DS is in a couple of sports clubs and I basically run one of them but am the archetypal drop and run Mum at the other. I am more than aware that lots of "uninvolved" parents are extremely heavily committed elsewhere. All I really want is parents to be reasonably polite and reliable and not to be the type who are there watching every session so clearly have at least that much time to spare but who flatly refuse when asked to do something simple like collect the bibs in at the end of the session.

Clearly some scouting organisations do require parents to take part, thereby making it less inclusive as @ShitChicken ‘s post shows.

I was responding to a post where someone else suggested busier parents were more likely to volunteer to help with their kids activities.

Clearly some scouting organisations do require parents to take part, thereby making it less inclusive as @ShitChicken ‘s post shows

I’ve yet to come across a scout group where a parent rota is compulsory. Even if it’s strongly encouraged, I’m sure if a parent had a genuine reason why they couldn’t do an hour once a term, then the requirement would be waived.

its not as if the parents are being asked to volunteer every week. It would be an hour very occasionally. Not an unreasonable request if you want your child to attend a volunteer-run club. Surely most parents, from all backgrounds and classes, can spare an hour, or find another adult to attend in their place. I fail to see how this policy could be non-inclusive

I was responding to the person who quoted you, not you. They said: 'I think you'll find that it's the people who don't work are also the ones who don't step up and volunteer but expect everyone else to.'
I was disagreeing with that.