Town of Pittsford, Vermont

PITTSFORD RECREATION DEPARTMENT
Director’s Report
September 3, 2004

            September is here and even though the kids are back in school and most of the lifeguards have returned to college, the Recreation Area will continue to be busy with activity for a couple more months as the fall soccer programs are set to begin. The Pittsford Youth Soccer program has grown into one the Recreation Department’s most popular programs. In 2002 we had 60 children, 4 years old – 4^th grade, register to participate, last season we had 76 kids and this fall I expect even higher numbers due to the amount of kids we had sign up for T-Ball in the spring. For the third year in a row the Otter Valley Girls Varsity Soccer Team will help assist with our program. No doubt the OV Girls are part of the reason why our Youth Soccer program has become so successful; the younger children absolutely admire and look up to the older players, and the OV Girls have been excellent interacting and helping the kids. Some tight bonds and close friendships have been created the last two years and sometimes it hard to tell which group, the younger players or the OV girls, get more out the program.

            The Recreation Department is again this year handling the Lothrop Elementary School’s 5^th/6^th grade soccer and basketball programs. The school hires the Recreation Department to perform duties like schedule games, find coaches, and hire referees. Lothrop School is then billed for the time that I put into their programs. This is the fourth year that the Recreation Department has been working with Lothrop in this fashion and it has been working out nicely. I can coordinate the Recreation programs and the school programs at the same time, which is great because both programs use many of the same resources (fields, Lothrop Gym, and even coaches) and I can schedule everything to operate cohesively.

            The last day the Swim Area will be open for the season is Saturday, September 4^th, after that the two remaining lifeguards that are still working will be going back to school. Overall the Swim Area had a good summer. The Recreation Department worked diligently last winter to come up with new procedures so that the Swim Area would operate a bit more professionally. I’m happy to report that many of those “procedures” had a positive effect on the quality of our services. Based on the overall positive feedback I’ve received from 2004 Swim Lessons Survey people were very satisfied with their experience at the Swim Area, and other than the weather we didn’t receive too many negative comments, unlike last summer. The most important change we made over the winter was that the Recreation Department came up with a precise list of rules for the Swim Area. In the spring everybody who applied as a lifeguard received a personal copy of those rules so that they knew exactly what the Recreation Department was asking them to enforce. Also to make sure the public was on the same page as the Recreation Department as to what rules we were going to be enforcing, I had two signs made clearly listing our expectations. The first sign was posted so that potential customers could read the “rules” before they decided to pay to swim or not. The second sign was placed inside the Swim Area to remind the swim patrons exactly what we expected of them. I feel the lifeguards did a much better job enforcing these rules because they knew, and everyone else knew, precisely what was going to be tolerated and what was not. The lifeguards were much more consistent from guard to guard as to how they handled situations and gave the entire beach much more uniformity when dealing with issues. Also another addition I made this summer to help the Swim Area run a bit more professionally was that I held a staff meeting each and every week. Our meetings were held on the same day, at the same time, each week so that there would be no confusion as to when they would be. This worked out to be a wonderful communication tool for not only myself, but also the guards. I was able to keep the guards up to date with information they needed to know. I was able to follow up week to week on requests I had made to ensure that things were being done. Each meeting ended with a two (2) part Questions & Answers portion. The first part was a group Q&A where guards were able to bring up anything they had on their minds. This was a huge help because the guards did nice job keeping me informed as to what they were seeing at the Swim Area. The second part of Q&A I did privately one to one. This gave guards an opportunity to express their views, feelings, or suggestions in a non-group setting. Most often I didn’t get a lot extra feedback during the discussions, however the couple times I did get some information that was useful in keeping the overall Swim Area running smoothly.

            The 2004 Fall Brochure is now available. The Hunter Safety program has already begun. The program is very popular and filled rather quickly. This year we have 19 individuals learning how to be responsible and ethical hunters. Mr. Bernie McMahon and Mr. Bruce Babcock are once again the instructors for the program. Other programs that the Recreation Department is offering this fall include Youth Soccer, School Break Fun Days, Pittsford Pumpkin Party, Killington Jr. Program, Teen Nights, and Adult Yoga and Women’s Open Basketball at the VT Police Academy. I encourage anyone who is interested in participating in any of these programs to call the Recreation Department for more information.

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