 Hello and welcome to today's program on the Sheboygan County YMCA. Today we're going to talk a little bit about the Y's upcoming 75th anniversary. This is a milestone that's going to be celebrated by many people who have used the Y over the years, have volunteered and been staff members at the Y. They recently set a goal to try to take the Y into the future and plan ahead for future generations. I'm Mike Van der Steen, your host for today's show and I'd like to have the other members of the Y Campaign Committee introduce themselves. Let's start over here. My name is Steve Larson. I'm the chairman of the 2011 County YMCA Capital Campaign. Hello, I'm Steve Woods. I've been a member of the YMCA since 1985 and I'm on my second third year term as the chairman of the Sheboygan County Board of Directors. Hello, I'm Donna Wetland, the president of the YMCA. Henry Young, I am the current development director of the Sheboygan County YMCA, have been for the past 10 years and have been a YMCA member for a better part of 65 years. Thank you very much. To start out with the Y has been doing a lot of planning for several years to get ready for this capital campaign project and was officially kicked off in mid-July. And Steve, could you tell us a little bit about how the campaign is structured and how it's going so far? Sure. Before we actually kicked off the campaign, we thought what we'd do is go out to the community and find out what our customers actually are looking for in a YMCA. What programs are working, what programs are not, and what needs they have that they would ask the YMCA to participate in from a programming standpoint. We did that and we've got some very good feedback and we took that information from the community needs activity that started about two and a half years ago and we took that to a program assessment committee. Each one of these committees were comprised of between 10 and 15 people. The program assessment committee took that input and along with the Y staff put together a plan based on all three facilities as to what type of programming needs they were out there for the community and our customers. After that information was gathered, we passed it along to a facility needs team that took a look at our existing facilities and determined what needed to be done in each of the three facilities, Sheboygan Falls and Camp Waikota, to accommodate the needs of the community. We started our silent phase about a year and a half ago and at the time of the kickoff of the county campaign, we had raised approximately $5 million. We then opened up our community campaign on July 21st and since that time, we've raised approximately $700,000 and the way that campaign is structured will be talked in more detail about with Henry Young. Thank you very much for that, Steve. During the planning stages, Donna, you did some evaluation of the health and wellness of our community. What did that survey show you? Well, that survey showed us that there's probably 50% of our community that could be termed to be health seekers, people that are interested in starting a healthier lifestyle, people that would be interested in coming to the YMCA should we improve our accessibility to the building, maybe offer locker rooms that would be on the first floor, especially for the women. Also, if we would add to our current fitness programs, encouraging people that have diabetes, people that have been diagnosed with cancer or cancer survivors to come, and also our senior citizens, which is currently our largest increasing group in membership. I hear you also analyzed your current programs to determine which provide program, had the best value to your customers at the Y. What were the top programs that the community identified? The top programs identified our aquatics. Youth sports, gymnastics, Camp Waikota, and of course childcare. Wow, that's quite a list of important things. Steve, you've announced the building campaign to preserve and enhance the existing facilities. What infrastructure and safety needs are you trying to address with this plan? Well, when we get into the preliminary design stage of the three different projects, we did look and we did assess the infrastructure updates, upgrades, as well as some imminent safety concerns. Very shortly, I'm going to go through the building plans, but just so you can have a grasp of the level of that, at the three branch facilities, we are scheduled to spend almost $1.2 million in infrastructure changes and upgrades, mechanic electrical equipment, and as far as ADA accessibility and life safety issues, another half million. So all told, we're looking at spending $1.7 million or 22% of the budget on those two items alone. What's interesting is that people will see the accessible ramps and the drop off lanes and et cetera, but very few people ever see the $1.2 million in infrastructure. It's the mechanical workings of the YMCA's. It's a very old building and I'm sure there's a lot of old power plants that need to be replaced. The Y was built in 1954, so old is a relative word. Thank you for that information. And then turning to Henry. Henry, I think over the years, I've done a lot of work with Don Lohman years ago in the mid-70s and the mid-80s on different capital campaigns, and I know he had quite a structure and a process to go through to set that up. What are you looking at for the form of this capital campaign? You're absolutely right. Don was an excellent, excellent mentor. Together we worked on the 73, 84 campaign, 96 debt retirement campaign. So the structure that I'm following for this campaign is relatively the same as it was back in those earlier years. The difference is that the current campaign will have 22 divisions, each with their own co-division leader. Each one will have their separate decisions as to whether they'll make individual calls, whether they'll do it by group, whether they'll do it by letter, or whether they'll ask for some type of grouping where we can take our message out to a specific area. Those divisions are rather interesting. The first one would be actually the professional division, which we had way back in 73 and 84. That could be attorneys, that could be real estate, could be insurance, certainly could be medical, could be dentists, and all of those would be under that professional umbrella. The next segment would be, and probably one of the most important ones in past campaigns, would be business, major business, retail, commercial, unions, financials, foundations, all of that umbrella. Then the balance of the campaign, Don and I are really working on, which would be the community segment. That could be our Y staff, it could be board members, it could be a host of others in that particular area. It could be special gifts. I will not take a campaign role until I feel I want to participate myself. So I've taken a division, Friends of the Y, along with Barbara Gruber, and we have together 62 calls. What I think we're doing interesting now is that each week the four of us will communicate with our division leaders. We'll do it on a rotation basis. I started followed by Donna, followed by Steve Larson and Steve Woods, and we write a segment, and then on the right-hand column of this weekly newsletter, what we do is give the statistics as to what we've accomplished in any of the given divisions that we're undertaking. Am I optimistic? Absolutely. Is it a tough challenge? Yes, it is, because to communicate weekly with 22 different co-division leaders is a task in itself. Henry, could you tell us a little bit about the giving levels and how the pledges are structured for the people that maybe get approached by some of the team captains in their everyday working life? Certainly. We developed three different pledge cards. The first pledge card would be for individuals or family, and within that pledge card alone, there are five giving letters, levels. You mentioned 75 years of Miami being in Sheboygan County. The first giving level is $75 a year for each of three years, and then it goes all the way up, and we've had people that have given $75,000 to show their support. Then there's a second level of giving, which would be the commercial level, and that level has only four categories, and then we have finally a top level of giving, which will incorporate foundations and special gifts and whatever. Now, if someone out there in our listening audience would like to participate, are there other ways that they can get back to the Y to learn more or to make a pledge even if they're not being contacted by one of these official campaign chiefs? We thought ahead for that, and we've prepared a presentation board at the end of this show that will incorporate where they can call or send their gift. Donna and I both have our offices at the YMCA. It's at 812 Broken Drive. We both have an email. We both have websites. We both have telephone numbers that we can be reached, and we hope that people... We're reaching about 4,000 people for our total campaign, which is the bulk of our membership of the YMCA, spread over Camp Waikota, Sheboygan Falls, and Sheboygan, of which 2,000 alone pledge cards that were sent out, letters that were sent out, mailing pieces and a marketing piece that encouraged people to use the pledge card that was included in their packet. That's fantastic. It sounds like you're really living up to Donna. We think we've got a pretty good handle on it, and Don would be proud of us. I think so. Steve, your campaign reaches out into the Sheboygan County community, and the Sheboygan Y is going to be affected by this capital campaign, but Camp Waikota and the Falls YMCA. Could you tell us a little bit about more of those plans and how they're coming along? Sure, it's probably going to be easy to show you in a moment, but what we did once we got all this information that Steve alluded to earlier, we actually contracted with three professional firms to take this information and put together some presentation drawings so we could go out in a format like this and also other Friends of the Y, as Henry mentioned, and present the projects in themselves. So I'm actually set up to go do that. Sure, that would be great. And please indulge the papers because I'm trying to put together a 30-minute presentation in about 15, so Camp Waikota would be the first one we want to talk about today, and in quick order, if you pull into Camp Waikota, there's a storage barn here, which has seen its better days. We'd raise that and make additional parking spots for the lodge. We would also incorporate a new storage building to replace what we took down here. Currently, our asphalt parking lot is this area right here, and it's a one-way in and one-way out, and it's very congested. There's buses involved in that. There's people that have rented the lodge for use during the weekend on weekends, and it's a traffic problem. We're looking at proposing to add this additional asphalt, which would give us a flow-through traffic pattern. We have a bus drop-off area here where if there's rental groups while Camp is going on, the buses are off to one side, and it takes out the problem of traffic with kids going all around Camp. We are looking at a new proposed structure here, which is going to identify the entrance to the Johnsonville Conference Center, which I'll show you in a moment, and we're also proposing an administrative addition that's going to house Camp offices and a workroom and et cetera. To see that in a little bigger detail, this would show the floor plan, which shows we're proposing a timber structure that's going to highlight the entrance to the Johnsonville Conference Center. This would illustrate the director's office, conference room, a workroom. Right now, everything that goes on for Camp administratively is taken care of in this little spot here, so this would be a much-needed addition. This actually becomes part of the mechanic room and additional workroom. Currently, our toilet rooms and showers occupy this space right here. We would encroach into a storage room on the west and basically update both of our toilet rooms, maintaining the showers which enter out on the pool deck, which is a state code. We have weddings out here. We rent this to businesses, et cetera, and unfortunately, our toilet rooms currently are not to the level that they should be, so that's a long overdue but welcomed project in this whole stuff that's going on at Camp. What doesn't show on here, we have a pond at Camp, which is very instrumental in the education processing camp, and that is basically filling in on its own, and so we would reconstruct the pond as well. This is one of the renderings that we have that would show that we've got the new timber structure that identifies the entrance to the Johnsonville Conference Center. This would be the administrative addition for our camp offices, and the entire rest of the building would be resided, so it all looks new and matching, and I think this is a very good representation of what it might look like. They did a very good job on that. Moving to Sheboygan Falls. Sheboygan Falls sits just north of the municipal parking lot, which is right next to the municipal building which houses the police station. Currently, our entrance into that is buried in the corner here, and you really can't see this from the road. One of the big things at Sheboygan Falls is our daycare. We've got one of the few shows in town. Currently, up in this area of our property is what's called the Neverhouse. It's a two-story, cream city brick building, residential house that's old. Our plans are to raise that and to fill in this corner of the property with a new addition. Currently, in the Falls Y, our lifestyle center is right here. We're proposing to take that and move it over here to the northwest corner of the Y. It allows us to expand that area, but also these windows look out at the Sheboygan River. It just gives you a little better viewing when you're working out. The new addition would be a combination of daycare and a multi-purpose room, but the entire area, the interior space here would be renovated and turned into daycare. We start with infant daycare and go all the way up to YDC daycare up to 14 years old. As I mentioned, currently, the entrance to the Sheboygan Falls Y is tucked around the corner here, and our current ADA accessible entrance is all the way back here. We would propose to put a new entrance facing south on the existing building tie that into an accessible handicap ramp, which makes this entrance more accessible, stairs. We'd have parking right out in front, which would be drop-off parking and also handicap parking. The drop-off parking would be utilized for people bringing their kids into daycare, handicap parking because of the accessible ramp. We would have some additional interior remodeling to take care of things. From an infrastructure standpoint that we talked about earlier, we'd get some new HVAC units. There's a fire alarm system out here. Once again, those things would happen, but nobody would really see them. A rendition or a rendering of what we think would happen with that entrance on the south showing the handicap ramp. Nothing really happens to the parking lot proper, which the city of Sheboygan Falls was actually, I think they were grateful for that. This does show that addition to the northeast corner, which would house some additional daycare and I do also like to tell people that we've been working on this so long that since we first started, the Y emblem has changed. This was the old Y emblem. This is the new Y emblem on the shirt that I'm wearing. So this has been a labor of love for quite some time. When we get to Sheboygan, excuse me, Sheboygan was a process. As you can see on these plans, I think you can see that it says Scheme C. I think we're all the way up to Scheme G. Infrastructure-wise, that I mentioned earlier, we are replacing the boilers. We're replacing the hot water heating system. We're replacing the fire alarm system. We're replacing the building control system. We're replacing the emergency generator. All of that stuff has just about a $1 million price tag and it doesn't do anything with this floor plant. One of the life safety issues that I discussed, if you've ever been at the YMCA in the afternoon or in the morning, anytime, the drop-off lane on Broughton Drive is an accident waiting to happen, what we're looking at doing is carving out a drop-off lane to get these cars that are either picking off or dropping off kids, buses, et cetera, off of the traffic lane on Broughton Drive. We were proposing a new entrance that would combine not only a canopy-covered entrance, but also an ADA-accessible ramp. Currently, our ADA-accessible entrance into the Sheboygan YMCA is on the north side on this series of ramps. It works, but it's not the best. So the idea of getting these cars off the street, ADA ramp and a covered canopy entrance just makes perfect sense. When we did this survey, the information that Steve talked about, a lot of our members, our lifestyle center right now is currently in the lower level under the Gymnastics Center. It's in a basement, for lack of a better word. We were proposing to take out racquetball courts four and five and encroach into this northeast corner going past what the, well, city approval would let us go this big, but have a two-story, high lifestyle center. Lower level, this would show the footprint of the lower level, which would house the free weights and et cetera, all the heavy equipment. This shows the footprint of the upper level with a railing here, and this would be open looking down onto the lower level. We'd have aerobic equipment and other things up here. It's accessible by the existing elevator that we have, which is currently right here. This is something that I think when people see it, it sells the whole project. Sheboygan is also heavily into daycare, childcare, et cetera. We are scattered all over the building. We have YDC here right now. We've got babysitting in the basement, and we have more daycare here. This is a planning concept, and if we added this 2,000 square feet to the southeast corner of the building, we could consolidate all of daycare into one area in the YMCA. It just makes it easier for staff. It makes it easier for members and et cetera. Another one of the issues with ADA, we don't have a locker room that enters out on the pool deck right now. We're looking at adding family locker rooms up into this corner of the building. You ramp up to a certain elevation. We have five family or handicap locker rooms, changing rooms that enter out onto the pool deck, which we don't have right now, and that was a big issue when we talked to members. We would be having increased space with moving YDC and et cetera out, so it would free up spaces for a large dance studio and another multi-purpose room. The last thing that we're looking at doing at the Y is to expand the entrance corridor, improve our interior circulation, have a member lounge, reduce the size of the kitchen, so it's more efficient. We do want to keep the kitchen. That's something that the members have told us. But all in all, this has taken some time to put together, and what I always like to say is the selling point is this is something that is just unbelievable. This is what it would look like, as you're driving up and down Broughton Drive, the two-story lifestyle edition. I think it's fantastic. It does show our small addition for daycare and a canopy on the front, which I think still needs some work, and in addition to some other interior model we are looking at replacing a lot of the windows on the outside, which are vintage 1954, which are single pane, no insulation, et cetera. In a nutshell, this to me is the biggest selling picture of this whole project. Now, Henry alluded to the fact if there is any interest, and I'm sure this will be up in the camera for a little bit, but that in record time is my walk through our project. That's quite a trip you took us through. Thank you very much. You're welcome. There's a lot of things happening there. The YMC has been a valued asset of the community for 75 years. I believe you've balanced your budget for the last 43, and so it's been an important part. What do you see the next decade happening at the Y, and how can the people that are viewing this program participate in that? That's why we're here. Thank you. Yes, first of all, we are proud that we have balanced the budget for 43 years. I like to think that it's successful management within the YMCA for that amount of years. It goes to show that in addition to our programming that the management staff has been very good. How can the viewing audience help? How can Sheboygan Community help? We're in the midst of our capital campaign. If you have pledged your support, thank you very much from all of us. We wouldn't be here if it weren't for you. If you have been approached and you're considering financial support, now after seeing these boards again, we'd like you to deeply consider maybe raising your level of interest or your level of support. Hopefully that what you've seen here today on the boards allows you to know that we're doing some worthwhile things with the money that we are taking in. If you haven't been approached and you are interested in supporting the Y in whatever way you want to, here's the number that you can call and we would look forward to your support. As a goal right now, Mike, and for the next couple decades, our goal is to enhance the three facilities we have for the YMCA. Not only for our members, but for the Sheboygan County community. Now through these enhancements and additions and et cetera, those are going to take care of us for many years to come. I don't think I'm going to see another capital campaign of this magnitude in my lifetime. So what we're doing now is going to take us into the future. It's going to allow us to provide the continuing high level of service and programs that we are doing and we have been doing. But what's almost more important is that going forward, because of these enhancements now, we're going to be able to do this without the burden of debt as the next generation comes in. So I think that's very important. That's very good. Thank you. I appreciate your report on this and all the work that you put into these plans over several years. I know you've been working on this. Several years is a good definition, yes. As I personally think about the Y, I came to Sheboygan in 1973 and as a single individual, I went down there and had a lot of good recreational activities. Once I got married and began raising a family, it was a great spot for our kids to learn how to swim, play basketball, soccer. They went to the Y Daycare. They went to the Camp Waikota once a summer for that experience. It's just been a great help in raising a good community and good families here. Anyone else have any last things that they'd like to add to this? I'd like to add a comment that we're a very sound institution. Since 1962, we've had a foundation and the Endowment Trust of the YMC currently has about 3.5 million dollars that's been supported through contributions from our Horizon Club members of which there are at least 600 or so. So it's a very financially sound and growing group of individuals that have cared for decades. In some instances, four generations of members have used the YMC. Donna, we've got a couple of events coming up that you could maybe give a plug to. There's going to be an event for Camp Waikota and then we have our annual Thanksgiving Day run. Could you give us a few details on those? Sure. The end of October, the 27th and 28th, we have no school days. Camp Waikota will be open for children which also includes an overnight. And then our annual Thanksgiving Day run will be held on Thursday, November 24th. 9.30 a.m. Our major sponsor is Aurora. And last year we had 1,475 participants. This year we're looking to break the record and have 1,500. So it's going to be an exciting day. You can find information on our website. Sheboygancountymca.org. That's great. You also have a silent auction out at Sheboygan Falls that goes on until the end of the month too. Yes. The items are on display in the lobby and individuals from the community can walk in as well as Y members and place their bid. We have some Green Bay Packer tickets and other items that would interest you. That's fantastic. I want to thank everyone for the time that you spent today telling us more about the Y story and the capital campaign. From my perspective, it really looks like you've put a great plan together and I hope that the community will respond to your efforts and support the time and effort that's been put in. So thank you very much. We thank everyone for watching the program today and again you've got some information here that you can follow up on if you need to and we'll hope that you'll take Steve's advice and either consider a donation to the campaign or increasing a current one. Thank you very much. Have a good day.