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This week's tip:
Holiday Team Glue
How to keep your team rolling through the off-season and holidays
By Francisco Ramirez
Empire Speed Club rolls into Times Square during a holiday group skate.
photo: Francisco Ramirez
If you are a skate coach, like me, you are aware of a problem that rolls in each year with the holidays. I call it “skater drift.”
It’s the tendency of skaters to drift away from practice at the end of the season, sometimes never to return.
Needless to say, this is not good for the team or the athletes.
So what can you do about it?
The trick is to provide your team with the right balance of work and play.
Skaters don't join teams just to learn to skate faster, they want to be part of something bigger them themselves.
That's why a team should feel like an extended family. And as in a family, there is time for work and time for play.
Here are some of the things I found that keep skaters coming back for me.
1) Create a team page for your team on a social media site, such as Facebook or the Skater Network.
2) Send invites to team members through your social media team page.
3) Take photos at practices — in fact, at all team events — and post them on your social media page.
I’ve found that this is one of the best ways to keep people coming back for more. When team members see photos from a practice they missed, they tend not to miss the next one.
Get your camera (or phone) out and start recording evidence of your skaters improvement and show everyone else how fun it is.
4) Schedule fun skate events throughout the year.
Make sure that being fast is not important at these events. One way to do this is with group skates through your town. Not only can these be great fun, but they are great advertising for new members.
5) Schedule team parties in which you encourage everybody to attend. This promotes team unity.
I know I'm just scratching the surface here. So please share your ideas in the comment section below. And let’s keep inline growing!
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Francisco Ramirez is a speed skater and coach based in Hackettstown, NJ. He started on quads in his native Colombia and won a junior national championship, on inlines, in 1995. A week later, he immigrated to the United States, where he opened his first of several small businesses. He has been a member of the High Gear, Unity and Canariam speed teams. Currently, he manages K2-Empire Speed and coaches Excel Speed, which is based at Excel Skating Center, the rink he owns in Hackettstown, NJ.
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