NC for this as may be identifiable but I'm a long term poster. Just after a bit of a sense check as to whether I am entitled to be annoyed about something or not.
My DC has been part of a countywide sports squad for 6 years now. It's a geographically fairly large county so inevitably there's a lot of travelling involved. Training venues change each year and have never been nearer than 40 miles from where we live, often further. It's irritating but it is par for the course for where we live and I have never complained before.
However, this year the venue is right down at the far end of the county so it is going to be a nearly 150 mile round trip for each session for us and quite a few other players. In the current economic climate I think they should probably have looked for more central venues so that nobody had such long journeys, but that's life.
The straw that has broken the camel's back for me is the timing. Every year before this the start time has been such that we've not had to leave any earlier than 9am. But this year I'll probably have to leave before 7am. We've got the double whammy of the furthest possible venue and an early start. Now I will readily admit to not being a morning person, but besides having to get up at an unholy hour each weekend, for most of the season it's going to be pitch dark when we leave and quite a lot of the journey is along poor quality unlit country roads that are often not gritted so I think I do have a legitimate reason for not being happy, not just laziness.
All the various age groups are at the same place but at different times. Obviously every age group will have some players who have long journeys and nobody will like the earliest session, so in my opinion the fairest thing to do would be to rotate the age groups through the time slots so that over the course of the season everyone gets roughly the same number of early starts, late finishes etc. (The coaches are the same throughout so I don't see any reason it should bother them.)
I want to email the admin person to suggest this but DC doesn't want me to rock the boat. There's a new head coach this year and DC is concerned about being seen as a trouble maker before they've got to know the coach. I doubt that will happen as I suspect it's just an oversight rather than I'm undermining some great master plan. But then I'm not a hormonal teenager so probably see things differently!
What would you do? Put up and shut up to save DC's blushes or is it reasonable raise the issue? (I should add that in previous years different age groups have had different coaches and used different venues so nobody has had such an early start before. It's not that I have happily accepted the more civilised time slots and am now moaning because it is our turn for the early ones.)