Holderness Recreation Board Meeting
15 January 2008
Board Members Present: Wendy Werner, Director, Tom Stepp (chair), Biff Sutcliffe (secretary), Jay Fogarty, Janis Messier Bob Stark, Fawn Ouellette
1) Minutes of 29 October, 2007 were approved and the Minutes of 11 November, 2007 were also approved.
2) White Mountain Swim Team -
Wendy reviewed the research she had done regarding a request that Holderness Recreation take over the running of the White Mountain Swim Team. She had done a laudable amount of research via email correspondence and telephone interviews with a number of people involved in many aspects of the program. The Board spent more than one hour in discussion and questioning. At the end of the discussion the Board was unanimous in its decision to not taking any action at this time. Our decision is based largely on a number of concerns:
o We need more time to more properly and fully understand the history of the present program, and weigh what we find with the type of program we would establish if we were starting from scratch.
o Only 5 Holderness swimmers make up the 48 member team (based on Wendy's questioning of former leadership, but the most recent records that were available were from 2006).
o Our 2008 budget has already been submitted and there is no time adequately address making changes to it prior to the Budget Hearings in less than a month.
o The budget breakdown that Wendy was able to garner in her research seemed incomplete, and we had a number of questions that remain unanswered after careful study of what we had to consider.
o As a town recreation department we felt that any "team" that we sponsor must have recreation as its clearly defined purpose. In the materials we had to consider it was not clear that this is the case with the present program. We do not want to inherit a program that has competition as its primary goal.
o What was equally unclear to the Board is how the present and past programs are/were administered. As a Holderness Recreation program the administration would fall to the Director and the Board. What was unclear to the Board was the role of the parents and coaching staff, who administered the budget, who made policy decisions, etc.
o The Board agreed that we do not want any program to run under the name of Holderness Recreation, yet run autonomously.
Because of all the fiscal and policy questions, plus the fact that we had to make a decision right away, the Board felt that we could not justify taking on this challenge at this time.
3) Budget-
The Town Budget Hearing will be on 13 February 2008.
While the official 2007 numbers have not yet been published according to Wendy's accounting the Recreation budget breakdown will reflect a cost to the Town of between $19,500 and $20,192. The range is a result of how some revenues are credited.
4) Programming-
o Dodgeball continues to be a "hit" with 41 participants overall and on most nights about 20 people have fun. The participants reflect all ages, people from many surrounding towns, and all with much enthusiasm.
o Family Dodgeball - Wendy is trying this out to see if it meets with much demand. One family has planned a birthday party around it.
o Volleyball - continues on
o Snowshoeing - a few trips are planned and some interest has been shown.
o Hockey - going very well - lots of participation
o Recreational Skating - not doing well. Very low participation.
5) Beach Update-
Nothing new to report
6) Day Camp -
Early mailings will be going out soon. The starting date of Day Camp is still to be determined as it appears that HCS will be going until at least the 23rd of June due to the late start to the year and a number of snow days.
7) Correspondence-
Wendy presented rough drafts of the annual reports of the Beach and Recreation sections to the Holderness 2007 Town Report. The Board read both and made suggestions for corrections and editing. Wendy was given to go-ahead to make the few changes and submit them for publication.
8) Other-
Wendy reported that she has been in contact with the Holderness Conservation Commission seeking help in learning more about the Town Forest and its trails. She is also interested in seeing how the Town Forest and the Conservation Commission might be resources for the Day Camp program and Recreation programs such as a spring trail clean-up offering, geo-caching and more.
9) NEXT MEETING: Monday, March 3rd at 7:00 PM
Respectfully submitted,
George D. Sutcliffe, Jr. (secretary)
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