Recreation Center Governing Board

REC GOVERNING BOARD Minutes For Meeting Of May 2, 2019 @ 11:30 a.m. Rec Board Members In Attendance: Mayor Kline, Law Director Raber, Finance Director Gilbride, School Rep. Ferguson (sitting in for Seeker), Community Member Salerno. (5 voting members) Rec Center Staff In Attendance: Parks/Rec Superintendent Simons, Adm. Assistant Enos Approval of Minutes: Raber moved to approve the Governing Board minutes of March 7th; seconded by Gilbride. Gilbride: I do have a few corrections. On page 4, my last name is listed as “Gilbert” and then since we’re changing that, in the next sentence on page 4, “Mollie” is shown as “Molly” so we might as well change that too. Vote to approve with corrections: 5/0. Old Business: Past Event Updates: Simons: We’ve had quite a few events since our last meeting, the big one being the National Wheelchair Basketball Tournament. That went very, very well. It was a lot of hard work on Adam’s part working with the tourism people as well as the wheelchair basketball groups. Those two weekends flowed really nicely, we didn’t have any major issues or anything and it is something we hope to pursue again in the future. We heard a lot of good feedback from the event organizers and got a lot of good local press. Mayor: So what has spawned as a result of that, is Cory Mihalec who is a wheelchair guy, is going to Columbus and speaking in front of the State Finance Committee to talk about wheelchair basketball and to get more funding for it. I got a copy of his speech and it was really great that they were able to do this and speak to those state legislators on behalf of the program. Simons: That’s awesome! The middle school Builder’s Club is doing a fundraiser right now in order to buy some wheelchairs for the high school to have for that team as well as at our facility for people to use too, so it seems to have really inspired a lot of people! We also had the EXPO and that went pretty well, didn’t hear a whole lot of complaints about it and we’ll be doing it again in another 2 years. Also had a very successful Easter Egg Hunt, lots of candy given out and a good crowd. We hosted the Dru Joyce Basketball Tournament last weekend and it was pretty much the same as it always is. Mayor: It looked like the parking lot was full all the time. Simons: I heard it went pretty well on Saturday. We did have a fight on Friday night and the police did respond. I spoke to Mr. Joyce about it. But I think Saturday and Sunday went pretty well. Some of the attendees just don’t have a lot of respect for our facility and throw trash on the floor, etc. Staff Updates: Simons: We are in the midst of our summer hiring for lifeguards, summer camp, concessions for Maca, etc. We have our management team in place for Maca and I’m confident they’ll do a good job. We have a good number of lifeguards and an equally good number of camp counselors so I think we are looking pretty good so far. Mayor: Great! Can you tell us something about the refurbishing of the basketball courts? Simons: We are moving forward with the basketball courts and aerobics rooms and that is supposed to begin July 8th. They are estimating it should be about 3 weeks and we are planning for 4 or 5 just to make sure our -2- plans are in place if the work is delayed. We are moving a lot of our classes to the Community Center or to other areas within the Rec Center. We’re trying to get that schedule out now to make sure all of our patrons are aware that some courts and rooms will be shut down during this procedure. They will be sanding, repainting the lines and completely refinishing the floors. It needs to be done every 10-12 years and it’s been 15 for us. Raber: So what will be the impact for those people who bring kids they are trying to have coverage for . . . Simons: We are trying to figure that all now, answering questions like is that something that we could do and what all would be involved? The library is not open during that time so we’d have to find a place for them at the Community Center while having two classes going on. We’re still working on that aspect of it but as far as the classes themselves and what’s being moved over there, we’ve got a handle on that. We are planning to put a computer over there so people can still swipe-in and we can track info. Mayor: So, will the workout area be available? Simons: Yes, the rest of the facility will be available. They’ll be putting some plastic sheeting up during the sanding process and that will have to come down before they paint and they put the finish on the floors so there may be some odor in the air if anyone is sensitive to that and can’t come in, we’ll refund or pause their membership or what-have-you until they can attend again. Mayor: Jeff, when you guys do the floors at the high school, is the smell pretty bad? When we’ve refinished before, it was just a light sanding and a topcoat but this is a total stripdown. Ferguson: Like you said, when you just put on a topcoat, there’s a day or two when the odor is pretty strong. Simon: We’re going to keep the aerobics rooms closed a little longer than you would think especially when we’re just doing a topcoat, but it is an enclosed space and it will take a little longer for that to clear out. We are trying to anticipate that as well. Ferguson: The one advantage you will have is that you’ve got some doors to the outside that can be opened. When we’ve done that in the middle of a building, there’s no air circulating. Mayor: Well you can turn on some exhaust fans on the side of the building. New Business: Master Plan Process - Simons: They are finishing up the master plan. I’ve seen a draft of most of it with the exception of the final report, conclusions, that kind of thing. They should have that finished and ready to present to the Steering Committee by the end of May and then they’ll come in and put on a presentation to Council and the work session and all that stuff as well. Those of you who are involved in the Steering Committee process, everything that I’ve seen so far is pretty accurate with what they have been talking to us about with the park improvement goals and objectives. They’re putting that all together and as soon as a final plan is done, we should have an update – I am thinking by the end of this month.  Additions to Council Grid: Simons: We have a few updates that will occur on the grid that goes to Council. The first one is something that came up earlier this year with our Zumba instructor. She asked about our having a Zumba certification or continuing education program for Zumba people. Zumba instructors could attend and learn some new dances and new routines and -3- then it kind of gives us the ability to recruit from that pool of people to add instructors to our staff or contractor list. This will also allow our current instructors additional training so that they can bring some new things to the classes they are already offering at the Rec Center. A lot of other places do these classes and usually in exchange for a free room rental, they will come in and provide the class free-of-charge for us and some of our instructors. So basically we would be asking to provide classes as a benefit to our facilities such as fitness instructor trainings - they would be permitted to use a room at no cost in exchange for offering that class. Raber: I think this was part of the hesitation before, that instructors are independent contractors and we would be giving them a benefit that we would not otherwise be paying for. Simons: Often the instructors have to pay for the class but we do occasionally get the free entry to the class. A lot of times, depending on what the class may be, I would likely send our Fitness Coordinator, but even though he can’t teach the classes, he would know what’s going on especially if it’s something new that we don’t have like a “beach body” type class or something we don’t offer any of. That way he knows what those instructors should be doing and has that knowledge. Often times the instructors have to pay, but are offered a discount. They also may even offer a discount to anyone that is a member of our facility that wants to take the class but they would pay that organization directly. If they have a group that attends a group exercise class, someone who’s a member of you facility who takes it . . Gilbride: What would be the fee that we’re abating? Simons: The room rental fee. Raber: Couldn’t we expand it to say “members”? Simons: Yes, we can do that. Instructor staff or members. Gilbride: What is the room rental? Simons: $50 an hour, that is shown on the grid page under “TRC Meeting Rooms”. Gilbride: How long would a typical class be? Is it an all-day class-like would it be a $400 abatement? I mean what is the benefit to the organization? Simons: The benefit is that we would be able to host these and . . . Gilbride: No, I mean what would be the benefit to the organization that we’re giving it to? I mean what is the value? Simons: It depends on the class as to how long it is? Gilbride: Are we even exceeding that value? I guess that’s where we’re weighing that . . . Simons: The value would depend on the class, they’re usually around 4 hours for the Zumba one that we were approached on. If you do a personal training class, that’s usually a whole weekend of classes. Our benefit is that we will be attracting people who are getting certified in those areas to our facility. They can see our facility and then we can recruit from that pool of people taking that class to add to our instructor list. If we wouldn’t offer this then they just wouldn’t come to our facility because there are plenty of other facilities that do offer it. This is just kind of a tool to help us recruit new instructors and develop new class formats. Ferguson: Your rental schedule – that room’s not overly booked when you’re bumping a paying customer . . . Simons: No, we would not be bumping any paying customers. We don’t often rent the aerobics rooms out. Maybe just a couple of times for people doing dance practices, but by doing this, not enough that we would be losing revenue. Raber: Maybe we could add “and members too” in case a member wanted to do it. Gilbride: Well and then I think also to the understanding that the instructors, while they are getting it for free, they are not being paid by us during the instructional period. That they are on their own free time. Salerno: I would like to move that we accept the number 1 grid change; Raber: with the addition of adding instructors, indoor staff and/or members . . . Salerno: yes. Mayor: And that the city wouldn’t be paying for -4- anyone to attend that meeting; Gilbride: other than actual employees. Seconded with those amendments included by Ferguson. Vote to approve: 5/0. Simons: There is one more grid change. It would be adding an hourly early entry rate to all of our halls. We’ve had a couple of requests for this and Kristin brought it to my attention. Specifically the church where wedding parties want to come in a little early to do more with flowers than what they’re allotted in that timeframe. The only early entry fee outlined in this grid that we have right now is for the Community Center. If you rent on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday, you can enter early the day prior at 2:00 for $100. That’s all well and good for those rentals but there are rentals in other places that would like some extra time above and beyond. Kristin did find that in some of the contracts there is a rate listed but evidently didn’t use. She put together a proposal for what these rates should be and kind of took it from what the early entry rate was for Ritchie Hall which was $30/hour and she wanted to make it equal to that for Lions since they are equivalent facilities. The Community Center was just a little bit more just because it’s more overall to rent. We’re looking at $50/hour early entry for that and for the church, $100/hour because that’s about what the rentals break down to. Mayor: Do we have the staff to go in and open for early entry? Simons: Absolutely. The only one we would need a staff person for is the church, everything else we just clean prior to the rentals. As long as we know what time they’re coming in, then we can get it cleaned before that. Raber: I move to approve the early entry fees as delineated in the grid; seconded by Ferguson. Vote to approve: 5/0. Other: Simons: Maca Pool is up and running. Everything seems to be going smoothly. I was over there this morning and there was water in it and it’s filtering. And Mayor did you get my message today that it was coming in through that one pipe and I shut the pipe and it stopped. We’ll talk about it. The Food Truck Festival is coming up May 19th so we’re wrapping everything for that and getting it all set up. It will be at the Fairgrounds this year and I think this will make for an excellent change for this program. Maca opens May 24th for members only and we’re planning to extend our season until August 25th when the kids go back to school. So we may have limited availability at some of the areas depending on staffing levels once 2 a days start for some of the fall sports, and other kids who go away to school, it becomes harder to staff. Raber asks a question about the summer camp but sentence is not distinguishable. Simons: Rene is working on that right now, we’re thinking at least one week but it will probably at the Rec Center rather than Lions just because the busing is kind of an issue right now so we’ll get that information out as soon as it is finalized. Raber: And then obviously next week we’ll find out what’s going on with after ???? Simons: We’ve got a couple of ideas going on with that. Monthly Reports: TRC Membership: Simons: It’s ugly this month, Adam and I have looked at it to try and find out why it’s down so much. We think the monthly blue adult being down I feel that we lost a lot in March when we were hosting tournaments and some of the other Saturdays being closed. This is about the level we’re at in May so I just feel those did not rebound as they usually do. Silver Sneakers are down about 95 memberships and we knew that was going to happen but overall we’re still up on the insurance-based and also up in some of the other senior memberships. The monthly blue senior, and senior striders who either lost their Silver Sneakers and either moved to a different insurance company or have opted for those paid memberships, I don’t really feel that we’re any worse off in that fashion without going with that supplement plan where they paid half of their membership but it is something we’re going to have to monitor. TRC Financials: Gilbride: With the implementation of the new software I had a difficult time getting the April report out by May 2nd. You got the end of March to see where we are. To remind everyone we did make some changes to how we’re looking at the Rec Center. We took some of the revenue items that we had had in the past as part of the Rec Center that really did not deal with the “operation” of it out of there as well as the expenses. However, I did not go back to the 2018 numbers and try to figure out what didn’t belong and what did. Now that we’re into our new software, I’m going to be able to track that better. These figures are still on the old system so as you can see, we still have a small loss - $26,000 but looking better than we were last year and I think part of that is just the fact that we are accounting for things more accurately to the actual operation of the Rec Center. The court rentals are really helping that out, the wheelchair basketball, the Dru Joyce numbers, we did well on those – maybe not the Dru Joyce numbers but the wheelchair basketball brought us $20,000 from where we were last year for that tournament and the exposure, press-wise that was helpful. We had a whole weekend of admissions lost for games that we had to reschedule, etc. Simons: Obviously, the walk-ins are down because of that tournament too. TRC Donations: Enos: We’ve had a couple of donations since our last meeting. There were 5 of them. There were a couple of Ccommunity fairs, we had the EXPO, we prepared a couple of packages for the Deyarmin Foundation and also for their Memorial Benefit and then we had a Wellness Fair that we gave a donation to. Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 11:57 a.m.