Our post on club cyber bullying policy resulted in some heated comments.
Some coaches were definitive:
coaches should not be facebook friends with their athletes
JO feels we need some “professional distance” between coach and athlete.
A few coaches felt they had enough mastery of the ever changing Facebook privacy settings to friend gymnasts, but only let kids see very limited information. (Not other peoples photos tagged with the coaches name, for example.)
Just Another Opinion took the gutsy stance that coaches can benefit from friending their gymnasts. It’s a new mode of communication we need embrace.
One coach in my region communicates with his team via Facebook. That’s where his athletes live. He uses Facebook very efficiently. Communication has never been better as his athletes “share” some of his posts with family and friends.
I’ve got mixed feelings, myself. On the one hand I’m savvy enough with the internet (I hope) to avoid major gaffs, yet every week I read about male coaches going to jail, often partly due to inappropriate text or Facebook messages sent to minors. It’s easy for an innocent joke to be misinterpreted.
So where are we in 2010?
My advice to coaches is that they set up a private social network for their club, coaches, kids and parents on a site like flipbook.
Anyone who chooses can opt in.
Some of the advantages of Facebook, with a much lower risk.
… This is assuming that flipbook truly has foolproof privacy, of course.
What do YOU think?
_____ UPDATE from Anne:
Gymnastike has this. It’s called groups: http://www.gymnastike.org/groups
Coaches can make a group for their club team, then invite members to join. You can easily send messages to members and/or fans, parents, etc. You can also: update a team calendar, upload and share team forms and documents, and upload and organize videos of your team…. and its free!
Heres an example –http://www.gymnastike.org/group/5263-Team-Gymnastike
Gymnastics Coaching.com 