COLUMBUS, GEORGIA Parks and Recreation Department

Transcription

1 MEMORANDUM COLUMBUS, GEORGIA Parks and Recreation Department TO: FROM: Mayor Teresa Tomlinson City Councilors City Manager Isaiah Hugley Deputy City Manager Lisa Goodwin Deputy City Manager David Arrington Parks and Recreation Employees Recreation Advisory Council Members James D. Worsley, Director DATE: December 7, 2012 SUBJECT: Friday Newsletter RECREATION CENTER SERVICES FRANK CHESTER RECREATION CENTER Frank Chester Recreation Center and South Columbus United Methodist Church are sponsoring a community toy giveaway! This effort is another partnership designed to support and assist families in need. Names are being accepted until Dec. 11 and the event will take place on Saturday, Dec. 15 at 10:00 AM. Bikes will be presented to several lucky kids and Columbus Police officers will present helmets. We are looking forward to making Christmas merry for our youth! Many thanks to Ms. Yolanda Sumbry and Pastor Reggie Williams.

2 GALLOPS SENIOR CENTER Please join the Gallops exercise group every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 9:30am. If you would only like a light workout please join our chair exercise class at 10:30am every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. We encourage fitness at Gallops. Please join us Tuesday, December 11, 2012 at noon for our Gallops Christmas party. A Mary Kay representative will be here doing facials for the men and women and giving out makeup tips to all the ladies. We will also have different agencies on hand giving out valuable information to the seniors in attendance. Gallops is an awesome Senior Recreation Center with lots to do if you need more information please call Reggie Thompson at (706) or

3 FRANK CHESTER SENIOR CENTER Last week we stated the long process of getting all of our Christmas decorations out and sorted. Many of our seniors volunteered to help decorate the trees and put out some of the knick knacks as I call them in all of our rooms. It took all of us the majority of last week but we finally finished and I must say our facility looks wonderful and we ve had several of nice comments on how well decorated everything looks. Our food drive is growing as we come closer to our holiday lunch and party. Our Christmas tree now has gifts underneath it, and we plan to donate the toys to the Women s Battered Shelter after our Christmas Party as well as the food, which will be donated to the Valley Rescue Mission. Our seniors have always been generous with their donations to these worthy organizations. Our Grannies Babies Doll Club celebrated another member s birthday this week. Jeanette Barfield turned 84 on Sat. The other members in this group treated her like a Queen for the day. The birthday girls get to wear a pink boa around them, while the others prepare and serve a birthday luncheon to the birthday queen. After lunch is served then everyone is treated to a special dessert (the birthday person picks her favorite) and the occasion is not complete until everyone sings Happy Birthday and passes out the hugs. We applaud the Doll Club for coming up with such clever ideas to make the birthday person feel special on their day. Our Needle pointer Group was also busy last week, with their Thanksgiving get together after the holiday was over. Everyone brought a covered dish to share, and the tables were nicely decorated. A lot of fun, food and fellowship took place as well.

4 In conjunction with the luncheon, they held their business meeting to discuss their upcoming Christmas Luncheon, where the identify of their secret pal will be revealed and names will be pulled for next year. You may remember that last year I wrote about this great idea they came up with to draw names of the ones who wanted to participate, then all thru the year they slip in gifts for their secret pal and hide them in the designated area without anyone noticing. Its tons of fun to see the look on the person s face when they find out they have a surprise gift waiting for them. It becomes more interesting as the year progresses to watch for clues that might indicate who your secret pal is, so when December gets here we can all start guessing who it was before their identify is revealed. All this is just one of the many things we do to help our seniors keep their spirits bright, when illness and sometimes death tries to get in the way as they grow older. Fun for Your Child, Right for Your Family SHIRLEY B. WINSTON RECREATION CENTER Columbus Youth Basketball (CYB) League Columbus Youth Basketball (CYB) League has been organized to provide youth of our community with a structured basketball organization that promotes fair play, skills, development, respect, and most of all fun.

5 We believe that programs are successful because of good communications, a solid based organizational staff and coaches. No matter which youth basketball league or basketball camp you choose, Shirley B. Winston Recreation Center s CYB League will be fun for the whole family. Our youth basketball program: Teaches sport skills and values Offers family-friendly schedules Allows youth to make new friends Provides equal playing time Throughout the season, your child will explore and discover their love of the sport by playing half of every game. Youth will be individually recognized at each game and find positive role models in coaches and other sports volunteers. FLUELLEN RECREATION CENTER Fluellen Recreation Center is in the Christmas spirit! Staff has been busy decorating and getting prepared for the upcoming holiday season. Some of the kids of FRC showed their Christmas spirit by helping the Staff decorate and by creating their own ornaments to be displayed on our seasonal board. As you can see, they used their imaginations and created some unique and fun pieces for our Christmas décor. Happy Holidays!! THERAPEUTICS On Friday November 30th, TR experienced a day of events with the Muscogee County Special Olympics Bowling Tournament at AMF Peach Lanes. We had several of our athletes come out and compete against other Special Olympic Athletes in the area for three games of bowling.

6 All of our Special Olympics athletes received a ribbon of 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place in a small little ceremony after the tournament. Later that evening, we all met at Northside for the monthly dance. We danced the night away to mixes of various genres of music including Christmas classics. On Monday December 3rd, TR participants learned about the meaning of giving during the holidays for part 1 of our life skill. We discussed the many ways we can give to others during this month like our time by volunteering or donations. We also touched on the three community service projects that the participants choose to participate in for Christmas. The community service projects allow the participants to apply the principles learned from the life skill in real life. We will be taking donations of coats, toiletries, and canned food items to donate to local organizations. After discussing the importance of giving, we created Christmas ornaments made out of red and green dough. We used cookie cutters to create shapes such as reindeers, gingerbread men, Christmas trees and many more holiday symbols. Once placed in the oven they hardened and were finished by tying colorful ribbons so they can be hung on their Christmas tree at home. The last craft used baby food jars, water and glitter to make snow globes. We used little Christmas figurines of carolers, snowmen and Jolly Saint Nick. Each participant went home with great ornaments and the knowledge that this is not just the season for receiving but also for giving.

7 On Tuesday December 4th, the TR participants spent the day playing Wii Resort and Sports games. This allowed us to get in some physical activity for the day as we actively played different sport games on the Wii. These games allow the participants to see the balance between fun and staying physically active. For "Fitness Time" the participants began with their stretches and 10 minute walk with our new weights. The second part of our extended program had each participant using the Wii fit to burn calories and work on strength training and aerobic exercises. On Wednesday December 5th, our All about Clue day began with participants working together to piece the Clue Mystery puzzle together as they heard the story unfold. After working on the puzzle we took a break and played the DVD version of the classic board game. The participants worked together as team mates to figure out which character committed the crime, with what weapon and in what place? These activities allow the participants to use deductive reasoning and teamwork to solve the mystery. Later on that day, the Cooking Class met for the first time in December. Participants let their creative juices flow by decorating a graham cracker gingerbread house. Participants enjoyed using a variety of sweet treats to construct an individual work of art.

8 ATHLETICS DIVISION Columbus Youth Basketball: We have concluded registration for the Columbus Youth Basketball League. Teams are being split up and will start practicing in the very near future. We are scheduled to start this league on January 12, 2013 and are looking forward to another exciting season of youth basketball Adult Basketball League: Next week will tip-off our annual Holiday Tournament for our 10 Adult Basketball Teams. This is a single elimination tournament that will begin on Monday, December 10 th at Northside and Psalmond Road Gyms and the championship game will be held on December 20 th at Psalmond Road Gym. Games start at 7: Columbus Youth Football Holiday Bowl: Columbus Youth Football will host their 8 th Annual Holiday Bowl this weekend in Columbus. Games will be played on Friday and Saturday at Shirley Winston, Midland, and Fort football fields. The championship games will be held on Sunday at A.J. McClung Memorial Stadium. Schedules for each age group can be found on CYF s website: Athletics Webpage:

9 COMMUNITY SCHOOLS Over the past few weeks the children in all of our programs have been learning more about community helpers. For this week we would like to highlight our community helpers and say thank you to all of you all. For coming into our programs and providing our kids with numerous ways they can also be helpers in their community. The kids really enjoyed each and every one of you. We look forward to see who our future guest speakers are going to be! Just a reminder, 2012 Columbus Parks & Recreation Holiday Camp. Dates are December 17-21, December 26-31, & January 7-9 (Year Round) Dates are December 26-31, January 2-4 & January 7-9 (Traditional)