Not every business is meant to thrive and succeed. That's the first thing.

Is the masters program you're asking about done at a local gym pool or is it part of a swim club? What I find is many masters swim programs wedge in the program when it's convenient for the pool, as in the worst hours available. So masters turns into an afterthought for the pool or club and is the redheaded stepchild of the pool's schedule. In turn it gets treated likewise by athletes that don't want to swim at 5am or 9pm.

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I realize that they'd be hard pressed to get 20 people in a practice, but at this point we are only getting an average of 8. Sunday mornings at 8:30 are our best attended practice. The pool is shared with an age group program. So we do get the off hours from 8-9 at night and 5:30-7 Wednesday morning. Would it help if we offered practice during the day, perhaps lunchtime? Thanks again

Lunch hours are worth investigating. The two masters programs that thrive in my town both have solid turnouts at lunch.

Another correlation to a thriving masters program that I have witnessed personally, is that the majority of participants are swimmers with a couple of triathletes sprinkled in. Not sure what the current break down of your squad is but if it's majority triathletes it may be worth thinking about how to get more swimmers on board.

Couple of ideas (our masters team is pretty well attended, on average I'd say around 50% of our members are at any given practice.)

We run practices Monday - Thursday evenings, Sat AM, and Sun AM, Sun evening.

Sunday AM is our LC practice.

Sunday evening is our lightest in terms of attendance.

1) evening practices start at 7pm or 7:30. Gives people enough time to get home from work, have a bite to eat, and still get home from practice at a reasonable hour
2) each practice has at least 3 lanes (slow / med / fast, although that's not what we call those groups).
3) social events. We do a monthly brunch after saturday morning practice, and monthly "pool to pub" night, usually the last thursday of the month. That helps to form friendships, and people are more likely to come if their friends are there.
4) the board meets about once a month to discuss issues that arise, any concerns that the members have, and we try to address those ASAP. That includes addressing things like etiquette in practices.

We have 2 coaches (paid) at any given time, they alternate nights. Coach A runs M / W / Sun PM and coach B runs T / Th / Sa / Sun AM. Coach B is the now retired former head coach for the local University varsity squad and largest AG club in the region. Coach A is young (couple of years post graduation) a former swimmer at the same university. Having 2 coaches, with different styles, lets people pick and choose which practices they like best.

Rates - we probably undercharge.

We also have an arrangement with the pool that our members can drop-in to any public lane swim at no extra charge. There are a number of swimmers who take advantage of that all the time, they do more lane swims than coached practices.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

I swim with a pretty successful program. The most important thing IMO is that the coaches are engaged, but things that also help are:

1) Social events, e.g. bi-monthly after-practice dinners, team dinners at meets, etc.
2) Planning team meets, for example we bring about 40 people to New England Masters SCY champs every March and about 10 people for Nationals (in late April) and everyone gets pumped up for this, cheers for each other and want each other to succeed
3) Practice times that are most popular are 7-8pm, and we have MWF from 6-7:30am that are popular as well

People join a team and stay with a team because of the people, coaches, and structured practices. Otherwise you might as well swim by yourself.

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Strava

X2.

I would be loathe to drive anywhere at any time for freestyle-only drills and speed work. In other words, you need swimmers to feel welcome and the triathletes must rise to the occasion.

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DFL > DNF > DNS

You need to figure out what the value proposition of your club is. Proximity is a factor for some, some places have beautiful facilities and have no trouble filling them up, some places it's the coaching.

For our sake, I'll echo the social events. We all head to the local Panera after saturday morning practice and people really look forward to it. If you have a weekend practice, invite folks to meet up afterward at the local spot for coffee and bagels or whatnot. It really is a hit with our group.

Things not mentioned before.
1. Have the coach discuss, attend, and invite people to the local masters meets. I hear from coach after coach who tell me their swimmers aren't interested in meets. I really find it hard to believe, and wonder if hey have invited the swimmers. Not an email blast or post on the white board, an actual - Hey Sally, the ***** meet is coming up, I think you'd enjoy the opportunity to come out and swim a 50 and 100 as fast as you can. We'll be practicing block starts over the next few weeks." Also, if the coach goes to the meet, people will go to the meet. If the coach doesn't very few people will go to the meet. The coach doesn't even really need to coach, just needs to go.

Meet attendance builds engagement and a sense of team. .You might not grab many new swimmers doing this, but you'll get your current swimmers to be more involved in the program you have now. Maybe they go from 2 workouts per week to three or possibly four.

2. The coach is nice to every lap swimmer, accommodates them the best they can and invites them to come to practice. I have seen way too many coaches who act like the lap swimmers in the lanes next to theirs don't exist. You don't need to be some sort of salesman, just say Hi, ask how the swim went etc. That makes the swimmer a possible masters swimmer in the future. If you don't even look at them, they will never try it.

If we are packed and there are a lot of swimmers there for lap swimming, I always invite them to join our practice. I just say something along the lines of, well you can try to jam in that one open lap lane but I realize that might not be fun with 5 others, if you'd like to join our practice I think you'd fit in with the swimmers in lane 2, they are doing 100s on 1:50 right now.

Good luck

These are all great ideas, thank you all for your suggestions! I will be sure to pass them along to the coaches. Does everyone pay by practice or do people have the option to pay for a seasonal membership?

I have nothing to contribute to this thread as a whole, but in reference to the above I HATED swimmers as a triathlete on Saturday mornings. They all got to go enjoy a nice breakfast or coffee while I had to go out and get on my bike for a few hours. LAME.

Carry on.

We break our year into 2 4 month sessions, Fall and Winter/Spring, with a reduced rate if you join for both sessions at the beginning of the year.

We don't do a "per-practice" drop-in option, but do let prospective members try us out for 3 practices for free before they have to join.

people will show up more regularly if they've already paid.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

I used to swim with a masters group and stopped partly because they went with seasonal/yearly plans only - i.e. stopped the per practice option. The seasonal plan works great for some people, but in some instances, when you're just trying to get a masters practice in when you can and schedule changes every week, having the flexibility is helpful (sometimes I made it to 3 a week, sometimes to 0 and just had to swim on my own). In my case, it didn't make sense to have a seasonal plan because I couldn't commit to making it to enough practices beforehand. It all depends on your demographic and who you're looking to attract (ex-competitive swimmer, fitness swimmer, triathlete, etc. those are all different types and probably have different interests/needs).

I've seen many different payment structures - seasonally, monthly, per-practice, and 10-packs or 5-packs. I pay a monthly fee with my Masters team (fitness center membership is $75 plus $10 for masters = $85 total for the month), which is pretty convenient. But I also swim with other teams in the area, and I pay the drop-in fee for those. Fees range from $5.50 to $20 per practice. My absolute limit is $15, but to be honest, price does enter my mind a bit when there are so many options around. I usually go to the place that has the $8 drop-in.

I think 8-9 PM is too late, especially if you're trying to recruit new members and/or there are other options in your area. My team recently moved practice up from 7 to 6:30 PM because so many people wanted it earlier. I often can't make the 6:30 PM practice coming from work, but I do like the earlier time.

5:30 AM is pretty standard for Masters - seems to be a popular time everywhere. I will say that I have never in my life gone to a practice that early, but most seasoned swimmers are used to early mornings. I'm not sure about triathletes. Personally I like a 7 AM or lunch time practice during the week. On the weekends I really enjoy the 9 AM practices although I will make sacrifices for the LCM pool.

It's hard to say what keeps a team going. I swim with one hugely popular Masters team (>400 swimmers) that is always crowded, even at their weekday mid-morning practices. I think it has to do with the social atmosphere, amazing coaching, and a real commitment to meets and other competitions. The pool isn't great - doesn't seem to bother anyone. My "home" team does zero meets, no social events, pool sucks, and the coaching is pretty bad - the only reason I keep going is because my teammates are so great to swim with.

Anyway, just my own take on things here in the Bay Area. In a less saturated area, I think it's just a matter of getting the word out, offering convenient swim times, and making an effort to have good coaching.

I tried out a local masters group.... I hated it. The "coaches" just gave us a workout on a whiteboard and didn't really interact with us or show much care. Granted, I only tried it twice - but I've a FAR better experience by swimming with a triathlon club instead. In the tri club setup, I have coaches that care and are actually interested in helping us improve and in knowing about us. It's like a family :-) vs just being a random attendee.

In contrast to others, I've always liked the right-after-work practices of about 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. where people come in at whatever time and do the 1-hr workout during the 2-hr window. I prefer the seasonal membership since it is usually less expensive. Another option to an "adults only" workout is to simply mix in and swim with the local age group team. As long as everyone works hard, this works out fine. I swam with an AG team in summer '09 despite being twice the age of my lane mates. :)

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