MikeMooreMedia
Madison-Mayodan Recreation Events 07.03.24
Lee Mitchell, Director. Mad Town Tubing, fall registration for Dirty Birds football, baseball, T-ball and softball, cheerleaders, volleyball tryouts, youth soccer, adult kickball, senior programs, ice cream social, garden club, Blue Ridge Parkway fall excursion
www.m-mrec.org
Facebook.com/Madison-MayodanRecreationDepartment
- Duration:
- 14m
- Broadcast on:
- 03 Jul 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
Mike Moore Media. Let's check in with the Madison Band and recreation department. Director Lee Mitchell is on the line. We've slowed him down just a couple of minutes here because things are wide open aren't they Lee? Oh yeah yeah. It seems to be every summer. You know when I first started here summer was the slowest probably the slowest season we had. Really? Now that we've added in tubing and men's softball and a few other programs it's really taken off and yeah we're blessed to have all this going on and staying busy and more activity and revenue coming into the community and more people enjoying recreation. Sure that's exactly right. More options and more programs for all ages. Yeah you've made you and your team made a lot happen since you've been director there so thank you for all the hard work. So bring us up today. What's going on right now? All right well first of all foremost we're a neat deep in tubing season so madtown tubing is in full swing. We're starting to really see the numbers start to jump up. Usually July's our busiest month and you and the last 4th of July we've done 272 in one day which is our record. Wow. We've already come close twice this year. We've actually broke the 250 mark twice this year so I'm hoping we can actually break that 270 mark. Sometimes now in July so we'll see how that goes. Maybe this weekend. Yeah yeah maybe so like I said last this past Saturday we've done 263 so we come close. Oh yeah. So the numbers look real good. We've done almost 2,000 tubers already this summer and like I said we're just getting to the prime time. So we'll see through July and August. Last year we've done 5,200 total which was 1,000 over what we've done our other previous high. So maybe this year we can even break that record. Oh I'm sure you will. More people are hearing about that not only close my but far away coming in aren't they? Yeah and we're starting to see you know we've always had frequent returners to come back you know our frequent tubers is what we call them. So we're actually going to influx of those guys come back and people from years past who've come in multiple times a year. I don't know if it's just the with the inflation or just trying to stay close to home or what but we're starting to see folks come almost every single weekend. So it's kind of neat and kind of great to have those usual starting to get them known by name. Sure yeah. Madtown tubing. Yeah people love it that's for sure. Well I've jotted down your numbers here so we'll I'll get a total here at the end of the season see how that's looking. Yeah yeah it's great and the best thing is that 90% of our customers come from outside of Rockingham County so it's people that normally wouldn't come to to our county that's you know not only spending money tubing with us but they're you know they stop at our gas stations they stop at our restaurants they stop our stores and so it's all revenues going right back into Rockingham County. That's wonderful. When you when you give me those numbers and I know our friends at Economic Tourism Department here in the county love to hear those numbers but when you say 90% are coming from outside of the county that's phenomenal. Oh yeah absolutely absolutely. It's just a feeder system you know every trip we go through the town as we go through the town we're pointing out retail stores and restaurants and other places in town for them to shop when they get off the river so yeah we're starting to see more and more of those folks downtown as we keep showing throughout the day as they get off the river. Okay we're glad to have everyone here and have fun and be safe. Okay what's what's next. All right well we've already jumped into our fall registration believe it or not you know it's summertime but we you just spent a couple months trying to get in registrations for fall sports dirty birds football registration is going on and coming up soon. Believe it or not they will start practice at the end of this month. They'll begin practice on July 29th so our registration deadline ends July 27th. Now we jump into a new league so we're in we're back in the old PTY fail so it's gonna be a little less travel and a lot more and a few more home games in the old league we'd only get one weekend for home games now with this new league we'll get we'll guarantee three to four home games. So it would be a lot more folks coming from out of town also coming here for football. So we're really excited about being in back in the PTY fail got some new coaches coming in got brand new equipment brand new jerseys brand new look so really excited about a fresh start with football is one of this new league that's fine up for that. It's only 75 bucks to play and like the registration will end on July 26th. They're really looking forward to that season. Yeah that sounds great. Okay more home games. Okay and then kind of course follow that our cheerleading for football we extended that deadline to the end of Till Monday so you got you got up till Monday to register for cheerleading we've got plenty of spots left does it like we're going to cut it off at one squad instead of having multiple age groups so just be one big squad and got a couple new coaches that age group again new league different parameters you know I think we're it's gonna be a good change and we're looking forward to that that season also and again that you know with that one the registration is only $30 and then if you get it if the girls already got a uniform they want to buy a new one but they do get a do you have to get a uniform it is $125 but they look sharp. Junnie Carr will pick those out and they look terrific every single year. Nothing against the other chilies but I think ours look the best. Yeah okay great it's wonderful and then another thing is kind of crazy to think about right now but our panics volleyball tryouts are beginning this year so early this year again so we're going to do tryouts coming up on July 21st which is a Sunday we've been doing consecutive Sunday since July 21st and then July 28th and we do age groups 12 you all way up to 18 you so trying to extend those age groups get some more older girls here stay in the program stay local we have terrific coaches you know a lot of times they get they get pulled in by the nicer uniforms in the bigger cities but I tell you what I would put our coaches against anybody we have you know middle school high school and college coaches that actually coaching our program and you can and you know when Michael won the state championship a couple years ago every single girl on that team at one point it played for panning. So it's just a testament of how great a program that is and how committed our coaches and players are sure yeah all starting right there yep that's it and for those girls that's interested in trying out for panics we are having open gym because just going to give those girls some touches before they just jump right in the tryouts so that open gym is going to be July 15th through the 18th and it'll be for those different age groups so definitely check out our our website check out our Facebook page check out the panics specific Facebook page for more information on that the charge for those is only $10 a night and it really is just there to make sure we pay our coaches who's covering covering those open gyms and just giving those girls some touches before trial start sure and then roll them right into the other Paul Sports has got a little bit more a little longer deadline on them but our baseball T-ball at softball you know that's dirty birds also you know we got dirty bird to put ball of care that same name over in our baseball but that registration going on for the fall through July 26th and that'll be from ages four all the way up to age 14 so anybody interested definitely come play in our dirty bird's baseball program it's Bradley's done a terrific job of growing that program every single season and that it's fun to see them you know as we get more organized more and more coaches involved more parents more players and see that program really great it's done they've done a terrific job and it's starting to get the back what it was I remember when I was a kid those numbers are jumping right up to that level yeah yeah I've I think those who I was looking at earlier on your Facebook page some of those little fellas in uniform look very intimidating oh yeah oh yeah yeah I tell you what we got our all-star team still playing right now and our one of our eight you teams we just went to Virginia you've done a great job it's coached by Clark Earthkin over to a high school he does excellent job just just to see those kids how much they enjoy it and how well they're coached it's just it's just nice to see it's just you know I know I know what it meant to me when I was kid and to see that and relate on as now as a director it's wonderful to see sure I know it is okay all right and then get falling back on the volleyball we got our fall volleyball for the ones who's not interested in playing panics or hadn't quite got that level yet or not quite to that age or just aren't interested only playing it in wreck ball we do have rec volleyball this fall registration registrations begun for that and we'll deadline for that one is August 23rd and you know that's the one where all our games are played here at the wreck and you know always a great program another one is really seen a lot of growth and a big tribute to Jenny solo who runs that program and has done terrific job finding excellent coaches to really head that program up so yeah great team oh yeah and then finally our youth soccer program which has always been wonderful and run up there at Ferris Park Amy Ben Hammoo's done a terrific job of growing that one also she actually got the high school weeks began begun this past spring so we'll see if they won't continue to the fall but we'll do ages three all the way up through high school on that one and registration deadline for that one is August 16th so really looking forward to that now the one of the program that we haven't started registration for but be looking out for soon is our adult kickball program you know it's funny to hear but everybody gets excited about it we had 12 teams last year and you know that's been a terrific program they really loved it and it's fun to watch those guys playing a backyard school sport at the at J. Cackett's Park every every week in the fall so yeah okay jumping into our senior program we're having a watercolor class on July 16th at 1 p.m. another class that's really seen a lot of growth where we actually had to cut off registration last month because that's how many signing up another program that we're looking at looking at growing is our gardening club program we've done a great job of getting that greenhouse ready we've got you got the dirt poured into our raised beds and looking to start planning some stuff there but that that's on Thursday July 25th at 10 a.m. they're also doing a ice cream social on Thursday July 18th at 1 p.m. that's free just kind of a summer celebration to get our seniors out in out here and we'll have some fun games and music and and you know just just a social there for the seniors there that day I think Adrian's go do a great job with that and then finally we got our registration for our Blue Ridge Parkway trip on a February October 25th the cost is only $20 per person you know we're gonna go up and then you know they're gonna enjoy a day in the mountains in the in the leaves and probably doing a little bit of shopping and eating while they're out always fun trips oh yeah oh yeah and they're looking at getting those trips posted for the entire for the rest of the year here soon really look forward to that they're just trying to lock all those in but so be looking out for that on our website or Facebook page okay terrific yeah and then finally if you would we just released our new website we had we had a gentleman who local gentleman here with do to redo our entire website to go to m-mrec.org and check out our new website there you get all of our updated new information and then online registration for any program you that we can do on there is available there too also okay I'm going there now because I want to I want to see what this looks like so that's m-mrec.org okay that's right to the point they're gonna put in the dot org let me just see how it's looking here mmm mmm and you know the Facebook page always available there too Madison made and recreation apart all this looks great oh yeah oh yeah if there was old summer camp photo actually not a few of the staff kids in that photo yeah yeah okay yeah see here's senior games and wow this looks very nice so oh yeah okay so m-mrec.org new website up and rolling yeah things are rolling right along interesting to hear you talk about last thing here looking at the fall leaves and the mountains and now we're we're in that 95 degree temperatures here yeah so cool off with Mantown tubing that's for sure oh absolutely Lee always good to talk to you thanks for all the good information I know you have you'll have a great summer and all the best for July 4th down yet let's see the rank will be closed Thursday and Friday is that right that is correct yeah we'll be close for holiday and because it's so close we don't have a lot of programming going on on Friday anyway so I decided to give the staff a mixture day sure and and you know we'll still have Mantown tubing open and available but the record records self will be closed you deserve some time off right there for sure okay thank you Lee talk to you soon thank you Mike okay bye I say Mitchell director of the Madison-Mayette and recreation department thanks for your support with our programs sponsorships volunteering and all of that too great programs going there to m-mrec.org the new website up now [BLANK_AUDIO]