 I'm Leslie McVane. Welcome to CTN Member Highlights. Today we're featuring South Portland Recreation and my guest is Rick Toll, a frequent guest here on the show. It's been a good experience. You guys do a great job of helping us get the word out. I appreciate your patience. I mean, amateurs like me don't get to work with folks like you all the time, so. Well, and it's wonderful. You're doing great things over there in South Portland. Yeah, we have some great support from the community, a council that understands wellness and how important it is to quality of life, and I think that we as a staff treasure that opportunity to do it. I think we make some good things happen. And you've got so many opportunities to expand and this spring is gonna start. Oh yeah, I think we're really excited about the fact that we have the opportunity to always move a little bit forward, whether it's in programming or at our facilities. So we look forward to this spring and summer having some great programs with our summer camps and adult activities and making sure our maintenance is there so people can use the green belt and which is the spine of our program. But we also look forward to the fact that we have Wilkinson Park and some other places we'll be doing some updates so people's well in their neighborhoods will be able to see some improvements. Well, we'll talk about all of that, but let's start with some of the programs coming up this spring and summer. Yeah, well, if you if you want to be involved and be active this summer without question, you can find a way to do that with us. The summer programs for kids. I'll start with that. They're always phenomenal in South Florida. We're really proud of our programming and Lisa Thompson heads that up for us and she she's got some really good staff coming back and she's got some really exciting trips and programming curriculum for the kids involving nature. And you know, one of the things that we doing this year for the first time in the first program in the state is a program called character counts and there's six pillars to character counts and you can look that up under that just Google or whatever search engine you use character counts and you can see it and it talks about their six pillars of trustworthiness, responsibility and the various aspects of the program and what it means. So we've adopted that program will be involving that in our summer camps and our Kinder Camp this summer and with our staff and we've got some new banners we put up in our gymnasiums of our community centers and it has had a positive reception so far. Well, it just helps these children grow and be responsible citizens of the community. Yeah, the other day I had a young man who decided it would be funny and I was running on our indoor track and he took a Gatorade bottle and threw it across the gym floor to see how far it would skip. He's just being a kid. Yeah. But unfortunately, there was Gatorade in it. So from above on the track, I asked him, is that a really responsible thing to do because that's one of the pillars. Yeah. And so I'm kind of talking to him and it's ironic but behind me are those six huge banners and you know, we talked about it and one of the older folks that was going around who's there almost every day stopped and said, I like that. You know, it gives it gives a reference point for you to talk about with the child. Right and you didn't you didn't say no, that's wrong. You asked him a question. You asked him to decide. Yeah, because not you're not going to be there all the time and I think we often too many times try to decide the answer for the kid before they actually get to think about it. I'm not I mean, I'm a parent and I'm you know, there's many ways to raise children, many ways to teach. But I think that this, you know, that's a process. When you're not there, what questions are they going to ask themselves? Is this the right thing to do? Why or why is it not the right thing to do? It sounds like a wonderful thing to be part of what you're doing this summer with the kids. Yeah, I think it'll be great. And we're going to have that program ongoing. It's not just going to be you know, and with that one summer season kind of thing, we're trying to use it as the kickoff and hope for years to come as we, you know, expose them to the program that they accept it like we do and we can have fun with it. It's sort of the foundation of everything. Absolutely. That's what we're hoping for. Terrific. So what are some of the programs? You know, well, you got aerobics, you got adult softball, you know, you got all kinds of I mean, it's just a myriad of programming art classes, photography. So I think the key is our brochure comes out that you know, shortly and to go online and look at that it's digital, you can flip through it literally with your with your iPad, you know, sometimes I use my nose if my hands are busy, I don't know about you cooking something or whatever. But I think it's, you know, it's really neat to have that. And people can click on various areas and it'll take you right to our registration. So it's really easy. And the fees are very, very, you know, reasonable. We don't want to put us anybody in a position where if they can't afford it. But also for all of our programs, summer camps or adult, if you find a need, you know, let us know because we do have a scholarship program. You will help. And it's not just for South Portland residents. That's correct. You could be a resident or a non resident. We welcome everyone into the program. We do try to make sure in some of our programs, the residents have priority, especially when it comes to aquatics or our pool and things, you know, because our taxpayers do, you know, support them heavily and we want to make sure they they get primary. That's all I think only fair. I agree. Now, you're going into fall too with some programs coming up some. Yeah, I think we're trying to prepare now, believe it or not, for fall and winter. So we have our budget process we're going through like all communities. And we've proposed some, I think, innovative ideas for things, one of which is a cross country ski groomer for next winter. We had a real main winner this year. Right. So we hope when we do as years to come, we're also preparing for next winter with our Rotarians. They've signed on to be our signature partner with a new winter fest. And we're planning that now and we're looking forward to that process. So we're really trying to get out ahead of it and plan out for next year those things, even though we're looking at the door of spring. And there may be a future in kayaking over there. Yeah, I think at Buglight Park we're looking at trying to partner up with some folks for the fall, early fall as a pilot program so that next spring we can maybe out of that area have regular classes people could sign up for. We have a boat launch there at that facility and we have lots of ways to get out on the water. So when anyone listening who wants to partner with you should give you a call. Yeah, she give us a call over at our main office and we also have Willard Beach if people forget about that that we can launch out of there and do classes out there. We hope to do that too as well, especially for youth. So it could be as small or as large an area as possible. Absolutely and I think we're you know we can do rolling clinics in the winter in our pool. Right. So as we can, we're hoping to develop an out year round process and you know help people get a little more comfortable with it. Well it sounds like you're taking everything with a big solid foundation and the ability to grow with the program. Yeah. So to find out more, to register, to look at that wonderful list of offerings. Yeah they can call us at 767-765-0. That's our main number and ask questions or get information. You can also go to southportland.org which is the city website and click on Parks and Recreation and you can start going through there and you can get our brochure digitally as I'd mentioned. You can you know find us obviously not only on the web but there but we have a hard copy brochure that we can either mail it to you or you could pick up at our facilities. And so I think there's lots of ways to find us. Yeah. It's really picking which thing you have time for. You know and you go ahead. I know. Well as soon as we stand up and leave here I'm going to go check it out on the online. So thank you for being here and for updating us on what's happening over in South Portland. I appreciate it. Good to be here. Thank you.