Is this the recreation? I'm Durgovich. Just turned it on. It's the new school committee representative. Welcome. Thank you. We're the fun committee. We're recreation. Great. What's that? Always fun. So, I will call the meeting
to order. Um, I first I'd be remiss if I didn't mention um those of you who may not have heard, unfortunately, one of our members and long longtime volunteers for the town, Michael Coleman, passed
away suddenly about a week ago. Um, we all know him well for all that he has done for this committee, this town. Um, he's just unrelenting force um to do good in our
community for many many years and it's very very sad that he he passed. So um I think I speak for the entire committee when I say our heartfelt appreciation for all that he did for the town and our
hearts go out to to Judy and rest of uh rest of his family. Um so um sorry to have a sad note but there is a memorial um on Thursday. Um so uh and if you you
can you can find information about that if you'd like to participate and be there. It's going to be at my park. Um so I think it's 5:30 7:30 but don't 5 5 to 8 I think they're going to start talking around 5:30 or so. Yeah, I know. I reached out to a few
folks, but I didn't want to reach out to everyone until the obituary um had gone out at one this weekend as well. And I've been I did speak with Judy as well and been helping her set up to have a nice little ceremony park where we all know what that meant to Michael community there. So, um they're going to
have some light refreshments. They're going to have a few people that will talk. Um they're going to set up for some chairs down there as well, too. So, all are welcome. I'll be there. I feel a little after five, but um Judy's a strong person. I talk to her. Um she's doing well. She's got her two kids with
her as well and doing whatever we can to help. Uh we all know Michael big heart, super passionate. It's a shock to all our system, but um he gave a lot to the town and you know what he did is going to live on a long long time especially
with these courts when they finally come. So yeah, definitely be missed. Um, with that, we'll go to the first order of business, which is me officially giving up my uh my gavvel.
Um, so I will turn it over to Jim um for for the annual committee viewer. Um, so J, you want to talk about what process is? Yeah. So, this is the second time I've done this, so I'm probably going to forget how we did this before. So, what we've done in the past, I know
Eric held a two-year term. Um I don't know if we want to do them two year again or we can go yearly. So generally speaking it's yearly. Um you it's it's it's completely up to the committee. Um there is no rule set in place for how long somebody can serve in
any particular position. Um I know in years past we have we have rotated through um so it's we'll we'll just take nominations and all right. So those that can be nominated have to be a full member as
well too. So I will open it up with someone recommending a nomination or you can nominate yourself as the chair of the recreation committee for next year starting tonight. I will um put in a nomination for uh
Rich Hand um to be chair for next year. Second. Doesn't need a second. There you go. Second all vice. Yeah. All those in favor. We have to we there has to be
discussion. Open for open for additional nominations. Any other nominations? All right. Any discussion? vote and go around the room and start over here. Make a motion. You made a
motion for I made a I made I made a motion. She seconded. So now we can vote on it. I congratulations. You are the new recreation chair.
Great. Thank you. Pastor Gav. Oh, first of all, before we begin, we got to thank Eric, right? Two years on the on the board, right? All the things navigating through two years of a lot of work, a lot of things going on. And
Eric, you did an awesome job in terms of navigating the political whims of of the town and support for recreation was for us, right? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Can I bring was supposed to vote as a she a full-time member being full
committ full time? Yes. I am skipped over you. That's okay. I vote yes as well. All right. So that's one two three four five six seven zero. It passes. All right. Great. So we guess we'll begin.
Um and there is one change. It's a I'm calling it an emergency uh request to go on the agenda. Um it's an amplified use. Before we do that, it's to the vice chair. You get you get to ask for nominations for vice chair first, right?
Third time. Okay. Next year. So, let's call for nominations for vice chair. Anybody want to do it? I have to be vice chair.
I'll not for second I second it. Um oh any any discussion first of all. All right. Let's go to a vote. We'll start with you again. I I
I congratulations forward to serving. All right. Wow. Look at that. 70 both ways. Okay, we're fun. And we don't have minutes. No minutes. I I tried to scramble and I'd love if he is the new um chair of
the recreation committee. If we could solidify a schedule that member could do the minutes that would be wonderful. I know we started to do it last year and I think we got it for about six months and it kind of died off. So y if we can look at doing that again that would be great. They're all taped on
RCTV so it's very easy to jump on there and spend a night doing some notes, right? And we all know that we don't have to write as much as we did before, right? But you can write correct. Yeah. If you can summarize the notes we did is we put a link on the RCTV YouTube channel as well saying full
can't be viewed. Right. I can give whoever's doing it a sample of my last notes that I did. Yeah. I'll do this one. Okay. All right. Thanks. Yeah. All right. So we have emergency um
amplified sound permit um uh for the purpose of Michael Co uh Hman celebration of life uh which is going to be held on August 14th uh time 5 to 8
and it's just going to use uh general sound equipment speakers mixer and microphone And it's going to be content is general announcement at Memorial Park. At Memorial Park. Second.
Great. Now we have to go for a vote. All in favor? Okay. I start with you again. I I take that any public comment. Is there anybody on? It's just us.
Okay. So, next next item on the agenda is a solar lighting request at Kage Middle School. Yeah, I can do this one here. So, uh they were supposed to come to the last meeting to do this. I did talk I talked with Jenna. This is the same request
we've got for the past three years. Um it's going to be the same thing. It's going to be solar powered lights and they are going to be faced towards the school. If for some reason that does change and it's a gas or they don't want to face it towards the school, I would bring them back in. But they have told me that it's going to be the same exact
thing it's been for the last two years. Um it' be end of August until mid November for their season. No changes whatsoever. And Jim, was there any issues last time? There were issues last time. The year before they ended up moving them once
and they were facing towards the neighbors because there was an issue with the batteries. So for the last two weeks they were facing towards the neighbors. I spoke with the neighbors, explained what happened and they were fine with that. And the last time we did, they said as long as everything's the same, they have zero issues with the lights. So just asking for the same
approval that we did last year before solar with lights facing towards the school. Any discussion, comments? Motion to approve. Second. Um
vote again. Eight. Eight. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. This is All right. Next on the agenda, um I'm going to be going to be giving this update here is on the master plan on the master plan.
Yeah. I'm going to pass it off. Eric had brought this to the last meeting. I don't know if you've gotten any more information. I kept it on there. I don't know if you've heard anything. There hasn't been a lot of select board meetings. I know that. No, I know that there were that the the last message that I got from Carlo was
kind of cryptic. Seemed like there was there's some talk of like how it's going to form and so I we can vote on it and say when we we could absolutely move forward and like have somebody who wants to do it. Um I think you had mentioned
being willing to do so. Yeah, I would do it. Yes. So, uh, like we could absolutely vote and say and and it could be, you know, you know, we nominate somebody from the rec committee um to be part of the master plan committee when it is.
So, so that way you we just have the agenda item for correct me if I'm wrong. We're going to find out if it could be an associate member. Why do I feel like at last meeting we talked we're going to find out if it could be an associate member or potentially a full and an associate member from the rec committee?
Yeah. I don't think we found out. I thought we were thinking about maybe have two there was going to be two people. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. In in times past we've had associates represent. It's kind of you know it's the committee
signing whoever the first I mean first case we pull it from it gets back. I will I will also add that all of these meetings are open. Right. Right. Right. So even if you weren't an
official member like Yeah. Yeah. Of course. But I I I don't I don't think that there is any reason why why he wouldn't follow let's follow up. But want to hold withhold from the vote
tonight or you want to follow up? Mr. Chair, your first not me anymore. I guess I would say to just wait and see what you know get more details because the the important thing is normally your commitment's going to be right like how often the meetings are going to be held and stuff like that.
Yeah. So maybe it's your first job you can reach out to the select board. Sure. So it sounds like they're not close to forming. The last message I got was that they had they had some things that were going on behind the scenes that needed to be resolved. Yeah, indeed.
Yeah, it wasn't brought up at the last select board meeting. So, it's probably a big deal. Yeah, that's this is the master plan committee for the entire town. Sarcasm. Entire town, not just the You understand that, don't you?
Yes. You understand what you're getting into. I know. Wow. Okay. All right. It's ambitious. Yeah, we'll pause that one. All right. Next one is the Birch Meadow Phase 2 updates. All right. We're moving. I think we're
going to be quick tonight, which is not a bad thing. So, Birch Meadow phase 2 project updates. I don't know if anyone's been down at Birch Meadow lately. They have flattened that area out very, very quick. They're actually going a lot quicker than expected. Um, I don't think they've been out there in the last four
days or so. They've been um kind of working with the modulars that have found themselves over there. I don't know if you've seen them. They actually painted them I think today like a they said they were doing green and black and it's like a soft green and it actually blends actually really nice. I was a little nervous how it would look but
it's actually kind of blends a little bit um as well. There's going to be some trees that are going in there as well to kind of help separate it from there because there's a home that's relatively close. So we are going to put some trees up that kind of do surround that area so that it does blend a little bit better. those neighbors out there. Um the delay
right now they're on is waiting for the post-tension concrete and all that material to come in. They want to get moving on the courts right away and the pathways um as soon as possible. And the playground is going to be the last part of that. Um we got the playground um off
the state bid list. So we saved a lot of money. So when we did that the timing of it was a little off. So they're hoping to get all the playground equipment here towards the end of this month. However, not the end of this month, I'm sorry, towards the end of October, potentially into November. However, when you do
that, um there's the surfacing that needs to go down as well, too, and that has to be done at a certain temperature and if we get late into that fall season, similar like tennis courts, it's not going to cure correctly. So, there's potential that the surfacing could get pushed to early spring, but we're
looking at the majority of it. We might run into the same issue with the basketball courts of getting that vinyl paint on the top depending on when it all gets in there. But, um, Quirk is the group that got the bid and they have been wonderful to work with. We had to do a lot of things to kind of get that
area ready. One of them was move a shed and they were phenomenal with helping us move a shed, giving us pallets and jacks to get it all out of there. So, they saved a lot and they've been really good communicating with they are they're flying right now. It's too bad that they're going so fast that it looks like
there's a little delay. Um, but they're moving very quick and they've worked wonderful with the facilities department getting that modular in there. That module has got to be ready in two weeks before school. Yeah, school starts 27th opens up. So, it it's been good. Uh, a few little hiccups here and there when
doing it. I know there was um some talk with the extended school year program at a few of the select board meetings with the resurfacing of the um rise playground. So that was done under facilities. The recck department and DPW worked together with them to get that
surfacing done and get them on the same permitting timetable as us. Um and I got to give kudos to Ryan Persal, our town engineer, who kind of jumped through a lot of hoops to make sure that servicing was done as quick as possible. And I think it probably pulled away I want to
say maybe four or five days from the kids to use over there. It was done in the summer. Um which is tough but it's really the only time a lot of these projects without disrupting too much going on down there. Um we've talked with Tom Bichesky from the school um
superintendent and he's been great to work with as well and he gave us our list as well too for getting that project done and it looks good. So birch medals is moving along. Does anyone have any questions right now on where we stand or what's going on?
How many baseballs do we lose? Not too many. I've got a key in there. So, whenever I go check it out, I go in there and I throw them. But I did say with uh little uh Reck would donate some some of the balls, especially Matthew's brand new balls every time. And with the fencing the way it was, there was a few
balls that that got lost over there. So, um your organization has always been great with Little League. been a good part of it as well and they've been tremendous with a lot of these little projects we've had and allowing us to do them and get them done without a lot of push back. So appreciate
I think we're taking majors offline for the fall. That'd be great. I think that outfield could use a little more. Yeah, it's needs needs work. So it's kind of good timing. Yeah. Oh, the one over at the high school. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're speaking with Little League and Paul and Jared were on the board in DPW to coordinate. I think they might
bring in an outside group potentially do some work on that infield as well too. It's the edging, you know, with the infield. After a while, coaches think they're sometimes helping by pushing puddles and moving dirt towards the infield and the base paths that are going up and down.
They push it over and that dirt goes in the grass and it forms as well. So, continue to educate them and I know coaches are out there volunteering and they're doing the best they can. So it will but needs a little bit of work.
Any other questions on Birch Meadow phase two? All right. Um thank thank you. Pickle ball. You pick. Yeah, pickle ball and recal. So pickle ball is moving along. It's kind of pickle ball and recal are jumping
through all the different areas right now. Um pickle ball was up. pickle ball and recal was at the conservation committee. I want to say it was about a week and a half ago. Um conservation when we're next to the land, there is some mitigation that they look for as well. There was talks of um putting a
trail I don't have any maps with me. My computer's not letting me upload photos. Um putting a trail that goes into the conservation land kind of on the north side of where the pickle ball courts are. Um now they're coming back saying that necessarily may not want that trail. trail going closer off of their
buffer conservation um area. There's another meeting conservation make sure they're happy with what we're doing and that we're following all the rules and regulations. I don't see there being any major hiccups whatsoever with pickle ball courts. The plan is to get those started sometime in the spring with
hopefully getting those courts up and running I would say midfall. That is the plan. Get them in midfall. That'll finish up before reading center for active living obviously. Um I met with our PPA two weeks ago and we started
talking about the initial design that activas which is our land escape architect and design consultant. Um we talked about fence sizing, port sizing, the waiting area, shaded structures, potential bathrooms, all this stuff
depending on what these bids come back in. Now, we did get a cost from um the consultants of what they think the cost is going to be and we had budgeted 1.5 million. Right now, it's coming back at 1.54 potentially for allin. There's two
alternatives. First alternatives is that seventh court. Then the second one is the seventh court with lights. So 1.54 is the number that the cost estimator has come up with. So, we're hopeful that when we do go up to bid, those numbers
will come back lower. Um, and based off of what happened with Birch Meadow, the numbers came in a lot lower than what we thought. So, we're hoping that it's a very aggressive bidding state right now. Um, and those numbers will be low as
they were with Birch Meadow. So, recal right now, Jenna has been pushing um coming up with operations plans, how this building's going to run, what it's going to cost, how we're going to afford these things. So, monthly we're meeting
with our team, COA, Veteran Services, and myself, and all of our staff and kind of going to six, what we want to see, how the programming is going to be spread out. Um the seniors are going to be in there as well to make sure that they get what they want as well and
working with them cohesively to make sure that this building is being utilized to the fullest. Um looking at setting our hours of operations, all this stuff and once we get a draft um we are going to come to the recreation committee as well as the COA and we're
going to do a presentation before anything gets finalized so that you guys can pick it apart as much as you can. see a way can do that as well and see if there's something that we miss operations plan how this building is going to run because it's going to be a challenge um for sure I'm going to have a new job in two and a
half years going from working in the town hall basement to a 27,000 square foot building that isn't going to pay for itself so my goal is going to be to program every hour every space that
building no additional cost and to make it basically selfunding as much as I can. As far as any recal stuff, just going for again all the permitting stuff, we meet monthly with the permanent building committee. I wasn't there last week. Jenna was there. I guess farewell.
They'll be meeting again next month too as they start to nitpick everything as well. People give their suggestions. What's the time frame on that? Uh, I want to say they're saying fall 2027 is they're hoping for it to open.
When they break around, they would hope to start breaking ground in the spring. So, January is when they probably have to start getting out to to bids. Okay. So, that'll obviously take a lot longer, but when starting the pickle ball and retrieval rating and all that stuff,
they'll start all as one. Okay. But they are two separate projects. They're split from one another. So pickle ball will be done first and the big cat will follow. Yes. Um we have met with the Burbank Ice Arena. We met with them last and some members of their board um to
discuss the shared parking. They're open to it. We have a draft. The town put together a draft. Jane Wilman put together and um it's basically just taking liability off the Burbank Ice Arena. we are using that for shared parking when pickle ball happens or there's a a big event over at the rent
center for active living and we're using their parking lot and vice versa. They're going to have hockey games there where it's going to overflow into our area. So, making sure that we're all on the same page and they're covered as well as the town's covered. So, um they're on board. Um it's going to be a
nice campus down there. We did a walk through and like you look at it now and it's got the occupant there and then just imagining having pickle ball courts, the writing center for active living over there. Nice pathway. It's going to be it's going to be nice. So very exciting.
Very exciting. Scary, but it's good for the town. Yeah. Any updates on pickle ball and recal tonight? Nothing.
Awesome. I want you to close us up then we can update. They usually go a little bit longer. Okay. You know, they school committee meetings are even longer. So that's why I said ours are fun when there's during the pickle ball. I mean his first few whatever when we pick up on that
two and a half three hours. We've done our time. All right. So uh I'm sorry before you start I don't know if you got my email. Are you Yeah, you got to fly. So we still have good, right? Yeah. Are you I'm good. I'm good. He's your associate. Yeah, it's fine. All right.
You're good. We may still be here if you come back. No worries. Thank you. So, if you left at what time we got 655 um program update 655 655
say it out loud for the watch next week. All right. So, uh some updates from me. Ed is not here. Ed is on vacation. I'll try to give you some updates. It's been a busy summer. I think all of us have been busy. It's been hard even just getting this meeting going. We finished up our big summer program. Um,
seven weeks, finished up last Friday. We average about 150 kids every week over at the middle school. No issues whatsoever. Your basic stuff, kids are kids, but no major issues. Staff was great. Um, a lot of positive feedback
from that program. It's a lot. It's uh it goes from 7 o'clock to basically five o'clock every day and we got 150 kids there with families trusting our counselors to take care of them. There's little hiccups, but for the most part, it was a huge success this year. On top of that, we had all of our camps and our
other programs taking place in spots we've never done before because of the fieldhouse project. Um, we definitely took a hit number-wise in some of our programs because we couldn't have 100 people over at Barrows Gymnasium for our basketball program or wouldn't for our volleyball program. So, um, we did kind
of take a little bit of a hit to be a 20% hit what we used to, but we're still okay. Um, next summer we have another curveball thrown our way. The Coolage Middle School gymnasium that's going to get redone. Yeah. Anyone's played on that court before? It
is Burbank Ice Arena Part Two. It's very slippery, so they're gonna strip it completely down. Parker Park is very Parker. Let's not take Parker away yet, please.
Um, so Koolage is gonna the wax is going to completely get stripped off. They're going to go down into the wood floor too and sand that as well and then do a proper proper coating. I'm not sure if they use an outside group or if it's custodians. Um, but that's going to be completely off limits. So, running a 150
person child camp, um, it's extremely difficult to do it when you get rainy days and you don't have two days. So, I reached out to the facilities department and my plan and my hopes is that we will be at Wood End Elementary School, which I think would be the ideal location for
us. We have the little kids. They've got the upper playground. Got a bigger playground down bottom. Beautiful gym. Cafeteria right next to it. And a large field that's right down there as well too. And it's off of a very quiet road as well too. Um I don't think parking
would be an issue. If parking becomes an issue, we could do a drop off as well very easily with that little loop around as well too. So I'm waiting for Kevin Der with the scruples to to get back to me. Can't be any worse than dropping 300 kitty. Yeah,
trip every day. If we go to one end, I may not want to leave and too. And the staff like that, too. I think they have better um we'll say air conditioning as well over there, too. So, if we do go over there, I'll be making a push. So, if you have
any say over there as that would be wonderful. But that's what's in the work. Hopefully Kevin can let us know so we can start kind of planning and not scrambling last minute to come up with our policies and our plans at a new building. It's been at Coolage for gosh 25 30 years I want to
say. So I'm looking forward to somewhat of a change. Um Kilum the field out there is a little bit offline right now. They've started setting up I think for some kind of construction. I don't know if that's trailing but they've got some fences out in the right field area of that softball field. So that will
prohibit us from doing some things out there mainly like T-ball is out there and softball potentially in the fall. I don't know if you guys do anything in the fall. We don't we don't do T- ball. So there'll be some shuffling there, but we will figure that out. Um Jane Wman came to me um after one of the last
select board meetings when they were talking about different funings going around. It was for conservation. You should get some money, but there's a shortage of money this year. So, she came to me with the potential idea of us helping fund some of their trail projects as well as some of the tools
they need to kind of make a little bit more passive recreation out in some of our fields like the foot bridges, wood chips, and all those things. Um, so there's going to probably be a request for us to potentially donate some money from our revolving fund. I have zero issues with that. I think it's a great
idea. In return, I did ask conservation if they could collaborate with us on a few different events. um throughout the year, community events that are free to charge whether we go to material cabin and we're talking about wildlife, nature, you know, maybe the scouts come
out and do these for us throughout the year. So that's my plan to do that with them and I think the more we get other departments, the better we all are, too. And you know, I think the trails are super important um in this town for recreation as well too. So, I think Jane
Wman was bringing it up at one of the select boards for work going forward. So, she didn't want it to be a big surprise to the recreation um committee. Conservation doesn't get a lot of money. Yeah. Any idea of how much money that they were talking about? That's about I think it's about 8
to9,000 substantial. Whenever we've talked about um having therapeutic programs or therapeutic coordinators, the answer has always been there's only so much money. we don't have enough. No problem. So, that's the first thing that comes up in my mind when we're talking about giving some a piece of our limited pie
away because if we don't have enough for our own I mean, and if I'm the only saving in the room, then it's not the only needs saving the room. But that's just the first thing that's on my mind. Very good point. I think that's a great point. And honestly, what I think of now with the conservator is if they're going to lease material cabin to a school for
cheap money and they're short 10 grand. That's Yeah. How do you how do you justify that? That's a really good point. when we're talking about monetizing things. Uh so there is a school bid. Yeah, there is a bid to open a um
tourist school program um at the Mera cabin location that would be um a private school. Um it is coming up before the school committee soon but we have not discussed it yet.
So what type of turnon lease would it be? I don't know yet. It was some ridiculously ridiculously low rent. Like I want to say I don't know that I should say it in minutes because I it was it was really really low. I remember listening to the meeting and being like this is extremely absurd.
It's like 10 grand or something, wasn't it? For I think I think it also aligned with the amount that Matara usually rents at. I don't think that it did because they said if you if Mater rents at X amount of dollars and we rented it at that then
the number would be why and 10 grand was ridiculously low. I mean I don't have notes in front of me so I don't really want to speak out of turn but my that was my impression from that. Um and so with Bob's point of if they need money why don't they you know get it there? That's I think that's a great point.
Yeah, and I'll bring this all up Jane tomorrow as well too. Nothing is set. She approached me last week asking and we do have some funds. Um, but I 100% I mean we just got inclusion sports on there and we've been waiting like a
really long time and forever and ever. It's just been special skates just that one program and now we're finally building up. I felt like there was really good momentum and you and Ed were working on getting um a therapeutic coordinator maybe sharing with towns and I just feel like when we have momentum I
just want to throw whatever limited weight I have behind that movement um instead of sharing on our y and um another update too Carl was here as well too we met with Carl the superintendent talking about unified sports and working with the schools and we talked about therapeutic wreck with
the schools as well and Tom Milichesky was open to potentially doing almost job share with the school as well as the town to bring in a therapeutic wreck person potentially even sooner as well too. So So unified is just RPS students though, right?
Unified right now. Yes. So unified but also therapeutic wreck meaning everything not just for that one specific program. Okay. I mean you'd have you just have to look at the sharing. Yep. because not everybody's an RPS
student because there are there are people that are you know above 22 that are looking for so unified so if you're not an RPS student you can't participate in I'm pretty sure you're a reading resident you can if you're a reading okay all right that was my question that was my question obviously within the age bounds
all right it's not just for students it's open president to president up to age 22 probably I don't know the age but I think it's 22 I think see all this. I know that look to continue want to go
into the elementary schools as well. Echo your your sentiment that it's always anytime there's any sort of like job share like you always want to make sure that it's that it's open available for others and it's not limited to one particular
group. Yeah. These are very beginning. If you want to I mean you probably get to involve some of these conversations moving forward if you wanted to. be open to you being there as well. I'm here, so I might as well. That's a good idea.
Yeah, but you keep me on my toe. Yeah, I appreciate it. I do. Um, Barrows is finally done. Barrows is done. Our fences and our Douglas. I don't know if you've been out there and seen it. It looks really nice. Very grass. You guys did a great job
with that three weeks ago. So there was some hiccups in that um initially but we got through and again Lily was super cooperative with us about you know fencing being there adjusting their stability. So that is done. Um tennis courts the resurfacing is still
scheduled for uh supposed to be end of August. Um Vermont Rea back to us. Um it's probably going to be the first week of September right now. I'll make sure I coordinate it with uh the tennis folks and make sure I get those courts offline play local. Um, and we're going to work
with the construction group as well to make sure that they're not doing a lot of construction and dust is in the air when they're painting the surfaces as well. Uh, ball field scheduling that's kind of ongoing this month. These next two weeks are really tough with high school sports
getting back in. Band is out there with all their stuff as well, too. So, it's a lot of juggling and changing who's going where till school starts up in September. But, we're getting there. Um, a lot of these sports now too, like their numbers are field hockey has
grown, I want to say 70%, they won, I don't know, from 50 to 140 or so girls playing field hockey this year. So, that puts me in a tough spot where I got to find field space for, you know, another six teams this year and we have such
limited space and if anyone's watched field hockey or played field hockey, if it's not played on turf, it is very hard to watch on grass. Um, so I've had to make a few adjustments and move some teams off um, of the regular time, soccer, cross. Um, they've had to open
up some space to get in there and they've been pretty flexible with that in one chair and also I think picked up an extra 60 girls this year as well too. So what has uh chair youth cheerleading? Yeah. So they've got a lot. So, um, I
keep saying I have this small little puzzle and I got these pieces that I'm trying to fit in. The pieces just keep getting bigger and bigger with this field space. So, I mean, I know there's going to be discussion of trying to find some more fields at some point, but where that's going to be, I'm not sure.
I mean, an ideal world, I'd love to have two community fields somewhere that opened, you know, kids got out of school and it was for the youth so that they're not practicing at 7:30 when the high school teams are getting off these turf fields. get a lot of grass fields, but the kind of specialty fields, a lot of
them are softball and baseball. Um, we do the best we can with the bigger ball fields where soccer will go on Simon's Way, Morton Field that we may have to start putting stuff on, but um, finding field space is extremely tough and trying to keep all these organizations. It's a challenge every every sports
season. So, you may hear rumblings that, you know, we don't get a lot of time, but I do the best I can. It's a good problem to have. It's a great problem. It's a really good problem. I don't want to ever say no to youth groups saying, you know, you got to stop continuing to take kids, but
at some point we need more fields or we do got to say we got to have a limit. So, but we're not there yet, but it's coming down. Anybody know any good field space anywhere we can buy? Yeah. Um, that's all I have for my updates.
Ed's updates would just be talking about programming and camp and summer concerts and all that stuff. We're winding down. I think we had our last summer concert this Sunday. They were all pretty well attended. The kids concerts went really well this year at Memorial Park. Um I myself would love to get a pavilion down
at Memorial Park. So that is something potentially thinking something open. I don't know if you've been to the Mata Cabin where they have that beautiful new pavilion area up by the gardens. It's wooden beam one with just a nice roof on it. It's wide open. I'd love to get something like that as well as a small
little corral that we could a porta body that would be hidden in there somewhere. Biggest complaint we get is that there's no port body port down at a park. So something I will be looking into near future. That's it. Well, thank you. Very busy
season. So I feel like I had a ton more updates, but today threw me off. I was sweating my butt off moving up and running around. But no, it's been a good summer. It's been a good summer. Excited to see it go, but I'll open. Thank you and for everything you guys
do. I know summer's obviously very hot. Just today was very hot. Boom. All that stuff. Must have been a challenge, but you got it all done. Young kids help a few girls and guys down there helping us move up as well, too. So, it's good. That's great. Yeah. And there's any other agenda
items? I know I want to speak for you, Rich. If there's agenda items, I know like future agenda items, maybe that's something you're put on our agenda each day. If there's future agenda items, you know, it's you guys are my board. So, if you have certain things you want me to look into, please reach out to Rich and
we can get it on the agenda. Um, I'm more than happy. Sometimes I feel like I'm putting a lot of stuff and sending it to Eric or whatever, saying this is what I got going on. But you guys are the committee. You guys hear things I don't hear all the time in different spots in different areas. I don't want to say I have blinders on sometimes, but
I certainly do. So, if you guys have any agenda items, reach out to your new uh chair. All right. That was my fault. That was my fault. Well, thank you. Any questions before we
ask for a vote to adjourn? Since I haven't been able to do it for two years, I'll do it tonight. I make a motion to adjurnn. Second in a vote.
All right. 12 it looks like. Not bad. Not bad. All right.