Today I am feeling so blessed! In 8 months a small little group has exploded to over 5,000 members. This site has brought some wonderful people into my life. ..I am a lucky mom! The future is bright for cheerleading and we, as parents, have voices that need to be heard! This is what Cheer Moms is…a place for you to find anything and everything you ever wanted to know about the world of cheerleading.
This week we will be rolling out a panel of experts that have graciously agreed to hop on board! From the best hair/makeup information to the leading experts in the fields of sports medicine, safety and training we have what you need to know! We have been incredibly blessed, yet again to have our experts coming on board with us this week!
First off, let me introduce myself. My name is Lisa and I am the co-founder of Cheer Moms, a site for parents of cheerleaders . You can find Cheer Moms! on our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/cheermoms along with our interactive site . We would love to have you join us. You never know what you’ll find. There is everything under the sun from questions about good gym fits to finding the perfect spanks!
Honestly, I had thought my cheer days were behind me. I cheered while in school and taught gymnastics in central Illinois. Our daughter came into the world and I pretty much knew from the time she was a baby that she was a performer! The child would make a stage out of anything and demand your attention. My daughter and my son are my miracles. They made it into the world after a fight with infertility and their own problems at birth. Abby has hip dysplasia. She spent a very long time in various braces. As soon as she was cleared for sports, I enrolled her at our local All-Star gym. What an education I was in for!
I was a cheerleader….an old school cheerleader! Now we were in the world of All-Stars. My daughter was hooked and I was on board for my inaugural year as a cheer mom! I must say, it was quite the inauguration. I had NO idea that I could write so many checks for one little girl! All-Star is expensive; there is no way around that one. I figured out quickly that if a fundraiser came my way, I better hop on it! Before I knew it, I was a team mom to a newly formed Mini team and took care of spirit and fundraising. I was totally immersed in being a cheer mom and LOVED it! I met some great people and every week I was amazed at what my daughter was learning!
By the end of the year, my daughter went from not being able to do a front roll to pulling a scorpion and doing her back walkover at our last competition. Mommy was proud! Along the way though, we had our share of scrapes and bumps...she learned how to fall gracefully, and I learned that not all moms played the nicest at times. Gym politics was a learning curve to say the least.
At the end of her first year the gym went through a major overhaul and I ended up behind the desk working the business end and dealing with parents. My experience with our gym and All-Star Cheerleading has been a fabulous ride! Once I started working with our owner we sat several goals:
1. A NO DRAMA gym.
2. Increase our numbers and get our name out.
3. Maintain a quality staff.
4. Find better fundraising.
5. Keep our parents informed as possible about what their child is doing and what is required of them.
6. Have a great gym where the students are learning and having fun!
I have found that goals such as these require constant retooling. We spend a lot of time taking a look at what we are doing and how we can do it better. You are never going to have things 100% perfect, but you can definitely turn a gym around and make it a fabulous place to be. We scratch our heads constantly over how you can be in the same place for over four years and people STILL say they didn’t know you were there! We are looking at the best way to spend advertising money as we speak. It is a huge challenge in a small town.
This year I will again be the mom of a crossover cheerleader. She will also be on the dance team for the first time. On the mom end I am constantly dealing with my own questions and concerns. Will she ever stretch out that round off back handspring correctly? Is she at the gym too much? Will she burn out before she hits high school? My questions are endless, as I am sure all parents are. Add that to responsibilities at the gym and I am sure it will make for some hilarious blogs that can share some great information with cheer moms and gyms alike! I love a challenge…let’s just hope I keep my sanity in the process.
It is great to meet you all!
Co-Founder- Cheer Moms!
