 Hi and welcome to What's Up? Wilson, our monthly TV show where you take a closer look at things going on in our community. I'm your host, town manager Eric Wells. Happy New Year. This month I sat down with Recreation and Parks Director Todd Goodwin to check in and see what's going on in our recreation programming, talk about our new indoor recreation space, the Rec Zone, and take a look at our outdoor skating rink. We finally got some good snow and ice to get people out there. I sat down with Todd earlier today. Joining me next is our Recreation and Parks Director, Todd Goodwin. We're going to check in and see what's going on in Recreation and Parks. How are you doing, Todd? Good. Thanks, Eric. Glad to be here today. Appreciate it. Nice snowy morning out there. Yes, it is. Ski and ride day today. That's right, down at Cochrane's, right? Yeah, Cochrane's. How many students are participating this year? 225 participants and 29 student instructors, which is seventh and eighth graders. So we're up around the 250, 255 mark or so. Is that one of our higher numbers or is that? Yes, yeah. Increased enrollment. It's slowly increased back up to and beyond since COVID. So we're excited. Good day to be students. It won't keep you too long to get out there. So a number of interesting things going on in your department. One thing is a new photo contest at the launching for the program guide. How can folks get involved in that? Yeah, so yeah, we are doing a photo contest for a cover photo. Decided to do one photo. That's the whole cover to make it look like a magazine type of a thing. So we, in the last couple of weeks, we've reached out and asked people to send in photos of their families participating in, you know, rec program or at the. Community park and we got about a dozen or so and we picked the rec staff pick 3 of them that we thought would make it. They're good photos and we make good photo covers. And so now the voting is, is open on those 3 and people can go to our home page or our website and there's a under announcements. And they explain that and there's a link to click on so people can vote on a Google form and they see the 3 pictures they can vote for which one that they feel. So involving the community to send us pictures, but also to vote and then we'll use that as our cover photo on our spring summer program guide. And we hope to do this on all of our guides going forward and gets us great pictures, plus also if people are sending us some pictures, then they're okay with having their family on the front cover. Just a good thing. Yeah, that was great. Great way to highlight what's going on and get everybody involved to vote for the photo they'd like to be on cover here. Yeah, and our spring summer guide will be mailed home probably about mid February or so so look at a chance and I think we're going to use those other photos throughout the guide to get the people's permission to do that as well. But deadline for voting is this Sunday the 21st. So hopefully people will click on that link and vote for their favorite. The guide you know spring summer what months does that cover. The spring summer guide covers March through August programming. And then we send out another guide ball winter, which covers, they'll go out mid August and cover September through February. What when can folks are signing up for those programs is it right about when, when the guy goes out. As soon as the guide, as soon as you got the guide home programs will be up and running probably they go online for registration a day before. We know the guides going to be in the, in the homes. And the other thing that we're doing separately from our spring summer guide is a camp guide. And that's going to be mailed out early February for camps that are June, July and August. We typically encourage folks to register early for camp, right? We sometimes camps and get filled up pretty quickly. And if there's that someone's interested into jump on it and get their name. Yeah, there's already people asking us when the camps that information will come out. So they're looking for that here in January, but the guide will be early February registration opens February 8 for residents and a week later for non residents. So residents have a chance to get into those camps that feel quickly and are very popular. You're looking for summer staff. Camp counselors that that's probably something going up soon. Yeah, that's actually posted. We. On our website as well under announcements we have job postings for. Head counselors. Camp counselor, regular counselor, junior counselors. So we're reaching out to past year staff last year summers and asking if they're returning, but we're also looking to. Get an applications of people that are interested in working with us. So we put stuff out to the colleges. It's posted on our site and they'll be taken to the. Town site for job postings and they get it all. Explanations and job descriptions are there how to apply and go for so. Yes, we had started that process like started early to get the good people. A great great opportunity for you to get engaged with us with a good summer job working for recreation. Yeah, college kids that are looking to work with with students a great experience. Teachers or TAs or any of those that are working in the school to have the summers off. That wanted to continue working with kids and enjoy doing that. We're looking for those type of people. Any, any camps this year you want to highlight any, any new enrichment camps or anything that comes to mind or just just in general what what our camps. Yeah, we'll have our day camps rec camp and the LIT for the other kids. The our camp, which is more of an adventure camp type, you know, for 6 through 8th graders that are looking to be outdoors and being more adventurous. The enrichment camps are lining up to be about the same. We were adding a new. Multisports camp and I know Alex is hard at work finalizing some. Gardening programs, more kitchen food. You know, we have the baking camps and we're in popular bringing in some more. Cooking and food prep and that kind of stuff. So those camps are, you know, either newest ones. Plus, we're always looking for instructors who are interested in offering camps or programs, you know, throughout. So just like we have job postings, we're always looking for instructors as well. There was going on for vanilla. Good time to be thinking about that. Definitely. Yeah. And then in time to talk about our, our rec zone. It's an indoor space, the town least about a year ago, we started getting it set up and start offering. Programming last spring. I'm sure folks who are familiar with the rec zone kind of kind of what it is. And the departments got it up and running over the last year and things that that's being awful there. Yep. It's a 2000 square foot space that we have split into two areas. One is a active area for fitness programs and any type of programs where you just need an open space for some moving around and stuff like that. The other area is set up with tables and chairs for more educational or programming that, you know, is kind of sit down and working on something. The, it's all one space. So we can't do those two programs at the same time, but it's a nice setup where we don't have to tear down and set up for each of the different types of programs. So there can be a fitness program going on and that finishes and half hour 15 minutes later, another program can start that's, you know, with the tables and chairs, an educational type of program. We opened last March. So it's almost a year here that we'll be going. We've had some senior fitness dance classes, jazz or size is going on right now. And those are ongoing programs where you just kind of drop in pay five or $10 per class. You don't have you don't have to pre register you're not paying for six weeks of a program. So we're looking to bring more of those types of programs in as we grow it. We're also moved some of our programming that we had in the school, like dog training. You know that we could only do nine months out of the year and not the summer now will be able to do year round. And we brought in other programs like who fitness yoga. Working on a fencing program, possibly table tennis starts at the end of the month. People can register for now is for registration is open now so they can register to pick up program. You know, only taking so many so we don't overbook it. We got four donated ping pong tables. So, you know, it's really great. There's a group out there that looking to do that. We're excited about that. So, again, just bring it in programs that we can do things programs that we can do year round. And we can offer at all times of the day or on the weekend and also programs that are ongoing where people can drop in, try them and pay like five or $10. Each class so it's a great. It's been a great addition to recreation programs and helped us to grow our programming. And we're excited about it and and looking to do more and basically we're only limited by the instructors that we haven't met yet and haven't created a program with to put it into that so if there's instructors out there that looking for a space to and they want to work with us. We've got space and we want to work with you. Yeah, for many years, space has been a challenge for us. So, you know, got a space we can utilize and it's really like you name different types of programs. It's a wide spectrum of interests and an idea and things to participate in it's, you know, really, you know, the active recognition classroom style different instruction dog training so it's. Take advantage of trying out our new space or your instructor you've got talent you want to share with others. We're game to take on most things so definitely appropriate to the space I guess. Yeah, we have a program proposal that people fill out submit to us and then we look at over and we get old of them. We do a We meet them at the space and we get them to look, you know, look over the space and see if it will work for them and if it does then we find time and we put together that and put it on our website and have people register and, you know, so we have the space we need the instructors and once we get the instructors, we need the participants and then the programs that go and it's successful from there. We're really using this as, you know, our initial pilot within your space to we're having a lot of good information and data. The town did a comprehensive community survey last year is first part of the big project initiative here to look at it in your community center recreation space and really get the libraries to try at the same time. And the recommendation from that steering committee is to kind of look at these at two different pathways with these projects pursuing an addition on the library and exploring community recreation center site in tap corners and pro center area. So we're really learning a lot from what the community. First there are great participation in the survey but then having the space to learn about what different types of things can be offered. The town is going to be continuing that project coming up here some more funding was appropriated for it so kind of will kind of continue to work on needs. The idea of the potential of what this could be in the financial aspects of the spring. So, another thing, you know, some upcoming programs mission of spring and summer guide coming out some recent programs you want to want to highlight from that top. Yeah, right now, you know, we still got January and February of our winter months so we get dangerous girls program coming up and Ninja intro for a lot of different age groups and those have done by not a studio over in the rehab. In the kismet building, and they're a great partner. And that's another thing we do is we partner with businesses that are offering programs already. And what we do is we kind of, we take registration for those programs that they're already doing so we take up some spots and we help to to get people because people are coming to our site to look for and they're seeing a dangerous girl and dangerous girls is for 14 and older. So it's a great program for a mom and daughter to take together teaching self defense and stuff like that. The Ninja intro intros are Taekwondo intros so it's great program. They also do a ninja science during the February school break. And then we have a woman's pickup basketball that still has openings. We do do men's basketball and we do volleyball but those are filled at this time, very popular, but there is a woman's basketball on Wednesday nights that still has some spots and other people can get involved with. So those are some of the ones that we have coming up. And then, like I said, Alex, our program coordinator is working on the camp step, but he's also working on the spring summer guide. Looking to bring back a lot of programs that we've done in the past, but also looking to bring back, bring some new ones in. And again, as always, we're looking for instructors for those those programs, new programs that we could bring in as well. Great options out there folks. She mentioned outside. If there are ice right in the village community parks, something to town purchase factor in the pandemic. Or you've been been out there shoveling and making ice. So how about, what's the, what's the conditions as of today? As of today, the rink has been shoveled off and the ice is good. We opened up yesterday with some, some good ice. It's, we've had great ice, but we haven't had enough of it all season long. There's been a thin layer, but it hasn't frozen through with all the warm weather. And with all the rain that we've gotten, it's, it's quite high. It's probably about twice the amount of water that from when we initially put it into it with all the rain and and the melting that we have. So there's a, there's a lot of ice, but it's, it's, it's good right now. And the rink is open and anytime that we close it or open it will post it on Facebook and also on the homepage of the other website. So people know before going, but when it is closed with the gate fences up that we have rounded on block in the entrance and the entrance is by the warming hot, as you said, by in village community parks. So it's a great place. There are lights there until 930 so people can go at night as well. Great outdoor activity in the wintertime. Is the generally want people to skate there. People want to bring a hockey stick or a puck. So what uses are allowed on all uses are allowed and we ask everyone to use it together and share it on one side. Definitely a group could, you know, have sticks and pucks on the other side. You can just be the free skaters or figure skaters or anything like that. So definitely it's a 60 by 60 rink. So it's a good size for everyone to share at some point in time. And when that's like all of our facilities, we ask that people share play together and invite other ones into play. There's, you know, tennis, pickleball, basketball, everything like that. If you're using the court, you know, invite other ones to come and use it with you. Yeah. No, that that's about it. You know, I did have you touched on it and have the camp counselors put job posting, you know, we're doing that now. And again, the biggest thing is we're only limited by space instructors and participants. We now have the space. We're looking for the instructors and once we create the programs, we just need the participants to register for them sign up. And yeah, we'll have a lot of good lifestyle active lifestyle activities for the community. Yeah. Right. Thank you. Appreciate the time. Lots going on in the recreation and parks department. Our director Todd and Alex, our program coordinator do a great job there. So, so next this month, we'll look at our community notebook, a few things to be aware of coming up here in Williston. So as a reminder, final tax installment is due for the fiscal year 2024. That's due by February 15. You can have your taxes dropped off into the drop box. We have one one in the parking lot. You can do a drive through a town hall or one in the back of the building by February the 15th or we need a postmark by that date if you're going to mail in your in your taxes. And we are gearing up for town meeting day 2024. It's right around the corner. So Willison's town meeting will take place on Monday, March 5th in the Wilson Central School Auditorium at 7pm. We'll have an overview of town meeting articles, the town budget. We have a couple bond questions that'll that'll be up on the ballot as well. Then we have to be a school budget presentation as well and opportunity to ask questions. Then we'll have Australian ballot voting for articles on Tuesday, March 6. That'll take place in Wilson Armory next to the town hall annex in the village. Polls open from 7am to 7pm. You can also vote absentee or vote early. Contact the town clerk's office if you would like to receive a ballot early. And you can always, oh, Tuesday, March 5th. There's a typo in my slide here. Monday, March 4th and Tuesday, March 5th. I think I looked at the wrong month here. So thanks to the producer for the correction here. Everyone's aware, Monday, March 4th and Tuesday, March 5th. As a reminder, Willison 2050, our next town plan. We've been doing some community outreach the last few months here. We've had a community survey set up as well. We're calling Willison 2050 help plan the future of Williston. What we'll do is have this open until the end of January. The planning commission is going to be drafting the town plan language. Transmit that to the select board, likely this summer sometime. And then the new town plan would need to be adopted by the midway through 2025. So opportunity to get involved, help share your thoughts and ideas for the future of Williston and get engaged with this great process that we have set up. Reminder we're on social media. You can follow the town on Twitter, like us on Facebook. Our departments also have social media accounts, police and fire departments. They're certainly active on there as recreation department as well and our library. So always looking for feedback and segment ideas, contact information is on the screen. Send me an email, give me a call, stop by town hall. I always like to hear from anyone in the community. So that's going to wrap it up this month here on What's Up, Williston. Thanks for tuning in. I'm Eric Wells, Williston's town manager and I'll see you around town. Take care.