I never realised how much I needed an alternative to WhatsApp for my kid’s sports team. Until all the noise was quietened. And Allelujah.
I work as an Operations Manager for a muso. That in itself is a lot.
He’s got a million different things on the go all the time, a team of people who work with him, a huge community of followers, and a young family himself.
He’s often travelling which requires lots of logistics for me to organise. And he’s a creative which means things can and do change. Every day. Actually, sometimes every hour.
Plus I have a couple of irons of my own in the fire too. My husband works full-time (and sometimes more) as a personal trainer.
And we have a cute dog who is bit higher maintenance than I anticipated.
But we also have a daughter who is busier than a termite in a sawmill.
She has school, she does some clothes modelling, she’s a swimmer and has a cool little bunch of mates.
Plus, she plays netball. Oh, netball.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s a great team sport, especially for young kids.
And she's gotten so much out of being part of the Wildcats (that's her team name).
But it involves a lot of organisation.
Keeping up with all the training times and the draw and the registrations and the carnivals and the social events.
I sometimes think I should send her an invoice or be on her payroll for all I have to do.
And by far, one of the biggest funstoppers for me being a part of her netball team though is the WhatsApp noise that I cop. Oh, the WhatsApp noise.
If you’ve ever been on a WhatsApp group chat, you’ll know what I mean by the noise.
Look, I get it. Kids get sick and can’t get to team events all the time. And it’s awful when any child is unwell.
But if one of the kids in the netball team gets sick and can’t make training, EVERYONE on the group chat gets told about it.
Then everyone else feels obliged to acknowledge this ill kid and wish them better. Which is lovely that everyone cares. (Or wants to show that they care.) I do too.
At the risk of sounding like I have a stone cold heart…WHY??????!!!!!!!
I’ve got enough noise of my own going on and I really do wish the child a rapid recovery.
But it’s not important information for me.
And, dare I say, it’s not important information for all the other parents of kids who aren’t sick on that day who are on the WhatsApp group.
And this, my friends, is why having a digital info hub to manage my daughter’s netball team info and events is giving me next-level ‘adulting’ joy.
It's courtesy of an organised, digital space in the Eggy app.
I’ll cut to the chase and give y’all a back stage pass.
Here’s how the space looks for the Wildcats in 2023.
First and foremost. Everything is organised. (Surely that can be a song for the next Lego movie.)
So, I can have a category for all the relevant ‘parts’ of my daughter’s netball team.
And in each category, I’ve got all the necessary info.
Like ‘Team Contacts’ in case I need to email the Club Manager.
And ‘Courts’ which has a map of the courts they play on at different venues.
The ‘Sponsors’ of the club get a category too. As they should. Couldn’t happen without them.
But the big value is in the events.
I took the gigantic PDF of draws for the team issued by the district netball association and added all the relevant events into Eggy.
Training times.
Weekly games.
And carnivals.
All. In. The calendar!!!
So I can see what’s coming up each week.
And I get reminder notifications that ping me the day before and the hour before each game.
But how good’s this…
All the other parents who are in the Wildcats 2023 space with me, they also get all the events added in their calendar. And they get the reminder notifications too.
Me being the organiser of the whole shebang, means they don’t even have to do anything, apart from joining the Wildcats 2023 space.
I don’t mind doing the organising because I have to do it for my own kid anyway.
It’s really nothing for me to invite other netty parents into this space and they get to share in the joy of having their ship together.
I think the final piece of gold for me is that I can have her netball info and events right alongside the info and events for all the other parts of my/our life in the same place.
Like my waxing and brow appointments.
And my husband’s work roster.
And the dog’s vet appointments.
And my daughter’s school report cards.
And the car rego papers and council rates.
And our family get togethers.
All in the one place.
It doesn’t calm the crazy of the work I do as an Ops Manager for my muso boss.
But it does calm the crazy for multiple other parts of my life.
High fives all ‘round to Eggy for turning down the WhatsApp group chat noise for the long-suffering parents of kids playing team sports.
- Lauren, wife, mum, dog nanny, all ‘round legend :)