Anyone who has organized their child’s team sports (ahem… me once and only once) knows the pain of keeping the team member’s parents informed about an endless list of things from who is bringing a nut-free snack to where is that game anyway?! It’s a lot of stuff to coordinate on top of practices. Last year, my oldest’s soccer team went electronic and our coach put everyone on Team Snap. It seemed to help with the day-to-day communication though it is only as good as the users who participate (i.e. if you are not going to make a game, you now have 3 options to tell people BUT you still have do something!). My husband and I are huge fans of Team Snap and should he decide to coach again, he’d definitely use it. Then I discovered Directra, which is another free electronic organization tool for teams but also large groups (think volunteer groups at the PTO/PTA). To avoid a brain cramp, I asked the nice folks at Directra to give me an unbiased feature by feature comparison. The upshot is this: electronic organization for groups is a godsend to organizers. Both of these platforms are FREE. TeamSnap is specifically for team sports and is great and very helpful for volunteer coaches/parents. Directra is great for team sports and group efforts such as volunteers. Since participants need to be entered into the system which is the most time consuming part, I’d suggest picking the platform that you’ll use the most over the long haul. PTO/PTA management types: use Directra. Coaches that will coach their child from cradle to college: TeamSnap is for you. But don’t take my word on this; read on to decide for yourself!
