Recreation Advisory Board

Recreation Advisory Board Meeting September 28, 2018 Present: Jeff Blinderman, Ray Stewart, Cheryl Hancin, Bob Kilpatrick, Lee-Ann Gomes Excused: Julie Cagle, Stephanie Burnham, Bill Nash No quorum was present so this meeting was for discussion purposes only Call to Order Minutes…could not be approved, but were read and no corrections were noted Old Business • Program Review Summer…Cheryl reviewed the rest of summer. Day camp had a high of 75 kids per week. They enjoyed filed trips to the beach and Dodd Stadium. We hired a behavioral specialist and Bob is certified in this field as well. This especially helped with children who exhibited behavioral issues. We ran specialty camps like Lego, multi-sports, basketball camp, and a tennis camp. • The fall program book is out…5000 to school, 5000 in newspaper. The Rec participated in Family Day with the rest of NHS. They manned a Rec booth and ran the Harry O Fun Run with Chad Johnson that had 65 kids participate. For fall we are offering Fencing, Magic and Tai Chi all of which were set up by Bob. New fall this year is a basketball clinic run by Miles Daniels for 3 sessions for 6-8 weeks/session for children 7 to 15 at Kelly. • The department has promoted 15 youth programs; 14 are running (93% success rate). Online registration is working well, rec being flexible with registration. • Adult programs success rate is not as high. A new program is fall softball with John Brant who runs tournaments throughout the state to create revenue. He has given the department good ideas about how to increase revenue. Bob also mentioned a Gardening Club for adults which would help to beautiful public spaces in Norwich. • Planning winter now…Oct deadline to get the book to the Bulletin. Jeff suggested a class for social media The department is looking to do a community needs assessment survey. They hope to use this tool to get input from the community about what programming they would like to see. Survey needs to be vetted by the City and disseminated in many formats. Bob is working on winter program ideas; yoga, Mohegan Park cross country skiing, bowling, little toddlers program, kids sports night, baking and cooking, game night, learn to skate, men’s basketball and co-ed leagues are some of his ideas. He also plans to run programs in the schools Facility Update The maintainers completed lots of prep for the fields especially for youth leagues. They bought a supply of wood chips for the Hamilton Park playground for safety, roto-tilled the path at Taftville playground. Lowes did a free beautification program at the Taftville playground which included stone dusting the track, repairing bleachers, plantings and they then donated all the equipment they used to the Rec Department. The department is working on two capital improvement projects to improve irrigation at Fountain and Ouellette and to replace the Greenville playground fence. Other Business Cheryl and Lee-Ann are revising the field policy. Meeting adjourned 6:45pm