MikeMooreMedia

Madison-Mayodan Recreation Events 08.01.24

Lee Mitchell, Director. Floatilla, football, baseball, softball, soccer, volleyball, Cheer Camp, adult co-ed kickball, dance registration, senior games, Reidsville Area Foundation grant, master recreation plan.
Facebook.com/Madison-MayodanRecreationDepartment

Duration:: 17m
Broadcast on:: 01 Aug 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

Mike Moore media. I'm checking in with the Madison Mayor Dan Recreation Department Director Lee Mitchell is on the line where it's always busy. Gosh there's a lot going on Lee. Good morning. Good morning. Yep. We're definitely in our busiest season right now between all of our summer activities rolling right in the our fall sports so and activities there so yeah definitely a busy time for us. Yeah okay we'll bring us up today. I know there are a lot of river events coming up too and I see senior games I'm looking on your Facebook page here so tell us what's happening. Yeah yeah right now we got our you know tuban's going on always a busy time for us but this there's a little our first annual float hill that we're doing. We're actually partnering partnering with Southern Spirits on this adventure and and Darba also joining with a great trail state day event is gonna go along with that so it's not gonna be anything different as far as the way we are tubing day but what is gonna be a little different is we're gonna have a little costume contest so anybody that dresses up that day we'll have the chance to win a a Rockham County prize pack that I've got with Lindsay with towards the development she's gave us a lot of great prizes and that picture is on our Facebook page along with the math and tubing gear so anybody wants to dress up have a good time this weekend for a float hill and has a chance to win that prize package with a lot a lot of lots of fun things and gear in there so okay wonderful and then the other thing is Southern Spirits we're pairing with them with they're actually gonna have a live music all day so anybody that tubes with us tomorrow is gonna get one free drink ticket to Southern Spirits they can enjoy after being on the river you know they always have great music great food great drinks there so maybe this does a great job at Southern Spirits so they're gonna have live music from 230 till 9 p.m. tomorrow we're gonna have two bands the first bands will be 230 to 530 which has pressed the play we take a little small break and then 12th Avenue local band here in Medan's gonna jump in right after that mm-hmm okay well it sounds like a fun event so first float Tilla first annual float Tilla and it's kind of taking place of our boat race that unfortunately it's kind of a run its course which is always a great event but those people still enjoy the river but this is I think this is gonna be a new fun event that we're gonna add on going forward okay that's wonderful okay thanks a few of the things we're started our our fall football I've already started the numbers are really jumped up it's probably the largest football crowd we've had here in a really long time probably I was a kid to be honest with you but with that said we do still have space available in our 6u 8u and 12u if you kids are interested in playing our 10 u's got one spot left but so there's a few spots if you still want to get in play some youth tackle football or flag football come see us we can get you we get you a spot on the team but right now we're we'll have our third practice tonight and then our football cheer which that of course is full for everybody's looking to sign up but that practice will start tonight also so really looking forward to that this our first year back in the PTY fail the numbers look great very excited about Lamar Tatum taking over as our football coordinator so it's a lot of good things going on the numbers look great it's great to see that field just full of football players mm-hmm oh yeah and then with our other sports we're gonna we're got going on right now our fall baseball soccer registration just in it we do have some spots available in certain age groups so if you're interested get your kid in fall baseball softball I recommend you call the rec number one to see if you have if we have space available or stop by and see us and get them registered so always a good program there fall youth soccer registration is going on now that will go until August 16th that's from ages three all the way through high school so another great program and run out affairs part fall volleyball which again we talked about it every single season is constantly constant girl in program and you know we have a great program at the high school and I can't think it just blows right on down to the middle school in the youth programs also and we'll take registrations for that through August 23rd we're gonna have cheer camp August 20th to the 22nd we kind of do that in the middle of the football cheer season to kind of get them excited for the basketball season come up to so we can kind of get all those doors at once that's for ages four through 13 and again that'll be August 22nd to 23rd here at the rec department and then for the adults we haven't forgot about you either so that that adult co-ed kickball program team fee is only three hundred seventy five dollars that registration will end August 30th last year we had 12 teams and I'll tell you that's a terrific program a lot of fun and it's fun to see the adults out there whether a lot of the kids are running around watching their parents play play that basically a kid sports yeah well you know that that reminds me they're just so there's lots of family things going on there it sounds like too oh absolutely absolutely that's our gear we want to cover make sure we cover all ends of the spectrum we want to we want to get it we cover them from always young as you know three all the way up to ever how all with our seniors for their programming sure we cover a little bit of everybody okay another another big one is we're we're we've got our dance registration going on right now again Christina retired but she's turned over the program to Kelly who's running it's called now called state line movement dance company and Kelly's just you know fresh out of college got a fresh eye on this dance thing and running camp right now she's done a terrific job with the program really looking forward to what she brings to the dance program that's already been established and running for many many years okay that is exciting to just get some some new things going with that too yeah absolutely let me kind of jump into our senior end you spoke about earlier we are actually hosting the senior games archery event which is going to be done at Boneyard archery we've done it the last couple years and I tell you they really love going there Jonathan does a terrific job over there is to really stay the art facility and I recommend if anybody's into archery I haven't checked it out please go to Boneyard archery because they do it they do a very nice job of running programs over there but one thing we are in need of is volunteers there's a lot we need people to score we need the people to run our registration desk and also hand out snacks you know whatever you can do I've done the scoring every year and it's not very hard so we're really really looking for volunteers anybody interested that that events on Thursday August 29th starting at 8 a.m. when we typically go to about lunchtime maybe a little after but if you're interested please give us a call to rec or stop by and see us and we'd love to have you volunteer for that program a few other things we got going on we got a blood drive next Tuesday at 11 30 and then we have a watercolor program on the 20th on Tuesday the 20th at 1 p.m. and then we also have a free movie on Friday August 30th at 12 30 p.m. so a lot of things going on there and again there's you know that's just the tip of the iceberg on our senior programs what we do is we provide a newsletter and a calendar every month so I really encourage anybody to come by here and grab that for any more information on that now a big one that I would have it has been announced but we haven't talked about it on your show yet Mike we have received a grant that we are working with the Readable Area Foundation and I don't know if you've seen that on our Facebook page but we have received a digital inclusion grant for the for all of Rockingham County and this is big news yeah I did a story on it earlier this week but for those that don't know yeah you're really kind of the lead on all of this aren't you yeah yeah we are and again read where the foundation is doing a lot of the work behind the scenes we're just the lead organization so everything will be funneled through us so we're we're definitely partnering with the Readable Area Foundation help us through this process because if it is a big undertaking and a terrific cause so what that's going to do is we're actually going to partner with the Readable Area Foundation to fund projects for 17 local organization and municipalities throughout the county in an effort to an coordinated effort to expand reliable affordable high-speed internet access and equip our residents with the proper knowledge and training and skills to use the technology today's technology because I tell you if you're not getting up to date with technology you're getting left behind that's right forces there's a lot of people especially in rural counties like ours that are being left behind whether it's they don't have access to internet or they don't know how to use it I mean yeah me people do you run into is just that you know just doesn't want to fool with it and don't learn they're missing out on a lot of important information and face it but nowadays if you don't have access to the proper technology there's a lot of things you cannot do that you may need help with with whether they help their medical or or applying for jobs or you name it if it's endless then what would what happens if you don't have it if you don't have that access that's exactly right yeah yeah we're really excited about that and there's a lot of there's a lot of interesting things that go along with this and you'll kind of see it as we go but definitely keep it on our Facebook page Regional Area Foundations Facebook page and that whole news release is on our Facebook page so I highly recommend you read it and take a look at it because it's some great things going on that's going to be helping our county out yeah well I'm excited about that project for sure again and your partnership there with Regional Area Foundations so yeah thanks for telling us a little bit more about it yeah yeah and I'll say I almost left out and I can't do that otherwise our choirs would be mad at it so your programs are you know it's not in our new letter yet but our choirs coming up in September so if anybody wants to join our M&M choir I know if they and Keith would love to have you that they actually grew in numbers a little bit last year I want to see that grow even more but they put on two cantatas a year they practice here every Wednesday starting in September so I really excited to have that program start back up so I want to throw that out there before I jump in anything else yeah good okay now everyone's coverage is about yeah just about now though now jumping a little bit of our maintenance which doesn't get a whole lot of love because they'll you know they're more of the guys doing anything on the back side but we're in the midst of completing our our big grant that we got from the state last budget year and you'll see a lot of projects we get a lot of questions what's going on with the wreck well you know we we've put in new heat in there throughout the building new electrical new plumbing a lot of all the un-fun stuff that you guys don't really see but we have put in new handicap doors so now our our bottom door instead of I have to lift that big heavy door to open it we actually have a press button so it's more accessible to folks with disabilities or in wheelchairs and things like that so that's to put in we're putting a brand new handicap ramp that they're they're throwing it up every single day I think they're out the crews out there now working on it so I'm hoping that'll be done by the end of next week hopefully and in the next week or two we're gonna have a new LED sign going out the front lawn there so to keep you up to date on what registration is going on and what activities and events are coming Wow wouldn't it be good to have that and get rid of that one you've had for so many years yeah yeah that was a little bit of an eyesore out there so yeah very very excited a lot of work side to see that thing go up that being about the same position there same place or yeah it's very close it's gonna be slightly about about 20 feet 20 yards just beyond that sign so it's gonna be the same location just a little further down yeah okay Wow you know another yeah another big thing that we got going and I definitely want to save this for last because this is going to be something big going for the next 10 years and you guys probably seen us posted but our we are doing a recreation master plan we were working with destination by design and if that's a big undertaking we there was some some money a lot of money in that to make a plan that's gonna direct us for the next 10 to 15 years and and what you what we really need the community to help on is we have a survey there's a survey online where you can scan the QR code or if you or if you want to come in we got paper copies available also but we need the community feedback to kind of give us the direction we're going to need going forward because face it we're in an area that's going to be doing nothing but grow but this new 73 corridor coming in all these house developments come up 220 and in town we want to make sure we're going in the right direction and and creating the facilities and the programs that everybody in our community would like to see well I know you've been involved in the programs there for many many years and and now you as director it's exciting isn't it I guess for you to just see I know we've talked about this a little bit in the past the growth and everything that's the good things that are happening right you know we haven't seen a big uptick in our population per se and city limits I think it's a lot of us growing around it but we have seen a huge growth in our program so it's unbelievable from where I started back of 2018 to where we are now you know I haven't done you know I haven't looked back to see what those numbers actually look like but I just looking at the program from the outside it we've seen such tremendous growth and in almost all of our programming you know this is even going through you know COVID which was put up you know put a big dent in a lot of people's programming and numbers it has not it has not affected us we've bounced back and had no trouble growing in all the in the six years I've been here yeah and you've been there six years but but you go way back with in your youth with being involved in so many programs there too oh yeah yeah yeah I started the age 9 at the rec like I said it was growing up in once I get it done a lot for me here at the rec because I've talked about numerous times so I knew it done for me being a lowing you know low-income family here in town that struggle with things like ADHD and you know just economics and I think about that and I know what it done for me and it you know got me through high school high school college and you know it's always been a dream of mine to come back and give back to this facility what it gave to me as a child yeah yeah live in the dream there so to speak yeah that's great and so many life skills that you've been teaching there at that recreation department through the years to Lee always always great to talk to you thanks for everything you do all right actually thank you Mike all right talk to you soon bye all right we do have our monthly podcast with Lee Mitchell director of the Madison made-in recreation department the first Thursday in the month and you can go to their Facebook page Madison made-in recreation center and the same for the senior center and all of the activities that are going on there too thanks for your support I want to mention Dan River insurance services today in downtown may it and I'm on their Facebook page right now I think this is a kind of interesting what they've put up how much money are you losing each month by not comparing insurance rates and independent agent can compare different companies and rates and provide you with the best coverage and the most affordable rate so stopped by Dan River insurance services there you can almost see them from the rec department there just downtown may it end stopped by and talk to them about how they can help you save money on all of your insurance needs and again thank you for listening and supporting the Madison made-in recreation department [BLANK_AUDIO]