12-10-87 Agenda & Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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FUTURE RECREATION IDEAS AND VISIONS FOR 1988 RECREATION IDEAS In this coming year the recreation staff would like to provide a • weekend of outdoor activities in the parks which would include all ages and especially families. This weekend of winter weather fun would be a nice organized way to break up the winter months and put a spark of excitement into the doldrums of a long, winter season. This weekend affair will be called "Snow Spectacular" and may include: Snoball Tournament, XC Ski-by-Moonlight, family sliding contests, co-rec broomball tournament, old fashioned community pleasure skating with music, snow sculpture contest, co-rec snow volleyball tournament and sleighrides. The dates for this weekend is January 22 - 24 . Community groups and organizations will be asked to participate in the "Snow Spectacular" . Mounds View leisure programs are assessed as providing quality activities, are reasonably priced, are convenient and provide a wide variety of interest activities. These attributes are required criteria for municipal recreation programs. The benefits of a municipal recreation program for community residents is the opportunity of providing programs and activities at moderate prices in the convenient vicinity of their community. The challenge of municipal recreation is the provision of high quality programs at moderate prices. The philosophy behind moderate prices is the belief that all people should be given the opportunity to participate in leisure recreational activities whether rich or poor. For this reason, municipal recreation has • been subsidized with tax funds as well as user fees. The day that user fees become the sole source of recreation program funding is the same day that the program fees will become so high that they will resemblerivate club fees that hat are available to the wealthly and exclude the poor. It is therefore the priority of this department to provide a variety of interest programs and activities as inexpensively p sively as possible while stillrovidinquality. P g The core recreational programs which are popular forever and will continue to provide stability and resources to the total program include adult athletics and swimming. It is our responsibility to ensure that these programs continue to remain strong by offering competitive facilities , services and fees. Instruction programs such as dance, exercise and gymnastics hold their own financially but require a conscientious effort to provide high quality instructors for both risk management reasons and to compete with other municipal and private programs. Youth athletics is a program that is very popular. It is also a program that takes an exorbitant amount of time to administer because it implements the use of volunteer coaches. The City of Mounds View is committed to the philosophy of youth sports as presented by the National Youth Sports Coaches Association. The City is a certified chapter with a certified staff clinician. The education, training and supervision of volunteer youth coaches is • time consuming but it also offers the opportunity to educate the public in the recreational philosophy of youth sports. This benefit alone supercedes all the hardships of administering volunteer coaches.