Recreation Guy

The other day I was talking on the phone with a friend of mine, Susan, who is the director of an after school YMCA site. We were discussing programming, as we always do, and she mentioned that she started running a sign language program.
I took a semester of sign language in college. I really enjoyed [...]

It won’t be too long before summer staff interviews begin, if they haven’t already. You most likely have an interview sheet already created with specific questions on them. Here are some that you might want to add to that sheet, if they are not already on there.

I see a lot of parks and recreation department and YMCA brochures. Most of them have one thing in common, the cover is not as engaging as it could be. I would show you examples but I don’t want anyone getting offended. Just take a look at yours or the city recreation departments and YMCAs [...]

1. You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for the entire period of this time around.

When the youth programs supervisor told me she wanted to do an after school program called Spinners I was intrigued.
“Spinners? Is that where you spin the paper and drop paint on the paper making cool designs.”
“No Curt, it’s a jump rope program.”
“Huh? You want kids to jump rope for an hour of after school programming?”
“Exactly. [...]

You would think in this economy the fees to attend conferences would be a bit more reasonable. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.

I’m sure most of you have heard by now that there is a new show coming to NBC in April called Parks and Recreation. It’s filmed in the same mockumentary style as the Office. Now I am a big fan of the Office, I think Amy Poehler is hysterical and of course I love the [...]

A while ago I took my car in for some auto repairs. You know how hard it is to fine a good mechanic, don’t you? Well, there was a shop that was recommended to me. I went to the auto shop and was pleasantly surprised by the service and the rates. They did great work [...]

Years ago I worked for a recreation department as a part-time employee. I was already in the California PERS (Public Employee Retirement System) system so I wasn’t required to stay under the 1000 annual hours that some of the other part-time staff were restricted to. Even so, during the school year I was only given [...]

Does it seem like your department is running the same programs year after year? Do you feel that your staff doesn’t have the “buy-in” you’d like to see? As creative and innovative as you may or may not be, having your staff give their creative suggestions is something every company, including recreation organizations, should encourage.
Disney [...]