Oh No! No Coach! Frustrated and Disillusioned - Rant warning.

[Deb in Oz]

I just had to share my frustrations somewhere... Some time ago my daughter and I made a move to a new coach. This was a stressful time for us as the old one is still at the same sessions with us. Anyway, all was going beautifully. Our new teacher is wonderful, has a great relationship with my daughter and our skating has really improved. My daughter did her first competition on the weekend and placed 2nd in her division.

Now the sad part... the new coach has had a disagreement with the rink management and has been asked to leave. This is with 2 days notice!! She works at another rink 45 minutes away but has no slots free we can make it to. I am so disillusioned at the moment, my motivation has hit bottom. I am especially upset for my daughter, who had just begun to progress really well. The other coaches at our rink are booked out - they have been cutting figure time at our rink, except for a new person they have brought in to replace our coach. I don't know her - noone does. I like to have references after my initial bad experience.

I want our coach back!!! Grrrrr. We will have to wait until we can get a spot at the other rink, which raises questions over clubs. Our local rink is 5 minutes away from home. We are club members. Would we have to change clubs too I guess. So no more handy practice sessions. Grrrr.

Oh well. Sorry for the rant. These things happen I guess. Thanks for listening.

[dbny]

So sorry! That really is a bummer. I wonder what the disagreement was about. Anyway - I don't see why you would have to change clubs. Over here, we can be members of two clubs. Usually you would pay for a full membership in one club and then an associate membership in a second. People do that for all kinds of reasons, one of which is access to a coach or practice sessions. You could go to the distant rink just for the lessons, and continue at your nearby rink for everything else.

[Query]

Probably wouldn't hurt to express your unhappiness to rink management. Maybe you should wait a week for tempers to cool.

Not saying that would fix the problem - and you might want to talk to your coach about it first, in case it was really the coach's decision after all.

Coaches and management are both human, and problems are inevitable.

If a bunch of students are in the same boat, maybe they can talk to the management at the other rink, and convince them to open an appropriate session at the right time. Or maybe not.