Post by hsrose on May 23, 2016 14:01:42 GMT -6
What do you find is the most effective method(s) for communicating (off-season) with your players? I am in a unique position in that I am physically on-campus, but not part of the staff/admin so I don't know the secret handshake. I find that in-season I have access to the players on a daily basis and can get the information to the players pretty directly. But in the off-season I don't have that direct link so I have to use other methods.
I know that regardless of what mechanism I use I will get 85-90% of the group. And I never want to be in a position of giving a player/family the out by them claiming they never got the word. The result is that I'm pretty sure that I go overboard on this.
What I do:
Print things - I have the roster, and print out mail-merge letters with the player name on top. I fold it, staple it, and take it to the office where the TA's then distribute them to the students. This works pretty well but there will still be a couple left there the next day. Took me, and the office, a few tries to get this going but it works pretty well.
Email - Players give me their email address(es) and I get their parents as well. So I can then send emails to the whole team at a time, but I find that there are players that change email addresses as often as they change socks and/or they never look at their email. So coverage is still pretty good, but not total.
Call them - I use DialMyCalls (http://www.dialmycalls.com/s/CSXY0XI for a sample) that I send to their home and cell phones. This costs $$ but it works pretty well. Lots of information in the reports that are generated as well. But there are still misses here, folks don't answer and there is no voice mail, dead numbers, or my favorite, the call lasted 4 seconds of a 30 second message. What did you get out of that.
What do you guys do to make sure that you know you got the word to the players?
I know that regardless of what mechanism I use I will get 85-90% of the group. And I never want to be in a position of giving a player/family the out by them claiming they never got the word. The result is that I'm pretty sure that I go overboard on this.
What I do:
Print things - I have the roster, and print out mail-merge letters with the player name on top. I fold it, staple it, and take it to the office where the TA's then distribute them to the students. This works pretty well but there will still be a couple left there the next day. Took me, and the office, a few tries to get this going but it works pretty well.
Email - Players give me their email address(es) and I get their parents as well. So I can then send emails to the whole team at a time, but I find that there are players that change email addresses as often as they change socks and/or they never look at their email. So coverage is still pretty good, but not total.
Call them - I use DialMyCalls (http://www.dialmycalls.com/s/CSXY0XI for a sample) that I send to their home and cell phones. This costs $$ but it works pretty well. Lots of information in the reports that are generated as well. But there are still misses here, folks don't answer and there is no voice mail, dead numbers, or my favorite, the call lasted 4 seconds of a 30 second message. What did you get out of that.
What do you guys do to make sure that you know you got the word to the players?
