Entertainment expenses?

[Sparkey]

I would really appreciate the input of coaches and also of parents of competitive skaters here. My child was "unofficially" monitored by a representative of the national organization recently for an international assignment. I say "unofficially" because the person was there not to monitor my child, but to monitor other members of the school, and took some time with my child as well.

I have no problem with paying for lesson time that the coach spent with the representative during my child's "monitoring". But I was informed now that in the evening, the time that was spent "wining and dining" the representative will be charged to me (or, my portion of it).

Is this standard procedure? In my business, I would write it off my taxes as entertainment expenses, but don't think I would charge it to my students! Am I off base here, or just very naive?

[Skittl1321]

I have no idea if this is standard procedure or not- but it seems ridiciulous to require you to pay for anything that was not discussed with you up front.

Otherwise coaches would run around the rink telling everyone to bend their knees and then send bills!

Hopefully someone who knows how these things work will also come by and answer- but if it was me, i'd be quite irritated.

[SynchroSk8r114]

I agree with Skittl that it's not right that this wasn't discussed upfront; however, with some coaches, this is standard procedure. My old coach did this with out-of-town competition expenses, but everyone was informed of this before agreeing to compete. For instance, if I was going to a competition that required an overnight stay, meals, gas, etc. and five or so of my coach's skaters were also going, the cost of my coach's meals, gas, tolls, hotel, and so forth would be divided up among these five skaters. So, if my coach's out-of-town expenses ran...let's say, $275.00, each competitior would end up paying $55.00, which seemed fair. Unfortunately for my parents, who had both my sister and I competiting, they didn't get a break - like the other skaters, my parents still owed $55.00 for each of us, so they actually ended up paying $110.00. Bummer, I know...:roll:

As a coach myself, I am upfront right from the beginning about things like out-of-town competition or test expenses. I usually do monthly/bi-monthly newsletters informing my students of any rate changes, cancelation charges, new policies, days I won't be teaching, upcoming competitions (in-town and out-of-town), test sessions, etc. This eliminates any confusion when situations like competition expenses arise, which is especially important because we're dealing with money here. This seems to work out pretty well for me, for if one of my students doesn't want to pay these fees for out-of-town competitions, they simply don't compete there. Often times parents will see how many of my other skaters are coming before making a decision and go from there.

While I agree that you should have been informed of this "wining and dining" expense beforehand, I don't think there's much you can do about this now. Sure, it stinks, but I think the best way to handle it is to just pay your portion and be aware that in the future, some coaches do charge for things along these lines (meals, gas, tolls, hotels, etc.). Perhaps next time, ask in advance about any additional costs that you may be billed for. Any ethical coach should be happy to inform you of such expenses.

[SynchroSk8r114]

I also found this in a random google search and thought it'd help you out. Too bad the coach your child worked with didn't go through all this...:frus:

PSA 2000 Informing Parents
http://www.plover.com/rainbowice/psa102000.html

[Mrs Redboots]

I think you should tell the coach concerned that you are not happy as this wasn't discussed with you beforehand. Ask him or her for a written list of their schedule of charges, which all coaches should provide when they take on a skater anyway.

It won't mean you don't have to pay up this time, but the coach may stop and think before charging people at random later!

[slusher]

Skating is a slippery business isn't it? 8O

I asked at the rink last night about this, I wanted to do that before I posted. Basically if it's a club that invites a high level judge in to give unofficial monitoring or simulation observation, a fee is charged to all the skaters that is supposed to cover all the expenses. It's like a test day. Skaters pay their own coaches for their on ice time as usual. Then the club officials take the judge out for lunch or whatever, and the club bears that expense. Coaches don't get to go along because the point is for the judge to tell the club if their skaters are progressing or not, and that can involve criticism of coaches. So, no coaches. This is also for the club to impress the judge, or whoever it is as to how wonderful they are so that the important person can repeat that elsewhere and talk up the club.

If a coach invites someone in, as in here's my friend Sally who I went to the olympics with, I brought her in for my skaters, then again, skaters pay the coaches time, but because the relationship between the coach and Sally is one of friendship, it is very difficult to then charge for eating dinner, because for sure, there's going to be things talked about at a personal level and then it's no longer business. Do business at the rink, and socializing at home.

The one thing I got from the club executive who joined in the conversation that it was very bad manners for a coach to invite someone in and not have that person available to all the club's skaters. So generally, if a coach has a connection that brings someone in, the club then becomes the host and expenses are then on the club. The club would set it up as a seminar and maybe bill a separate fee for the privilege of being monitored, and from there, pay whatever expenses they have.

And, if I read your question right, your coach was charging for their TIME to go and eat dinner with the monitor. ? Wrong. Again, it would be a privilege for the coach to be able to eat with the important person and to basically, spend the time sucking up and improving one own's reputation.


Put it this way, if my company said, here's two tickets to the hockey game, take out our best client for dinner and charge it to the company, that's fine. If I then said, can I bill overtime for the time spent doing this, I'd quickly find that some other employee got the privilege of wining and dining the client. It's a perk. An employment related perk, but a perk nevertheless.