Recreation Guy

Play Sports TV

Curt — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 03:03:17 +0000

]]>

Teaching Sports After School

Curt — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 02:13:25 +0000

Every recreation department teaches sports to kids, whether by their own staff or through contract instructors. And why wouldn’t they, the benefits for children are many. But what if you want to offer a sport and don’t have an instructor? Maybe you can’t find a qualified contract instructor to teach the skills and nobody on your staff has the teaching experience for that particular sport.

PlaySportsTV.com is a website where you can watch free training videos and read free articles for a variety of sports including:

baseball
basketball
lacrosse
field hockey
football
hockey
soccer

softball
tennis
volleyball
cheerleading
golf
gymnastics
skateboard
ultimate Frisbee
wrestling

PlaySportsTV.com has multimedia training programs you can purchase for football, soccer, baseball, softball, basketball, hockey, lacrosse and tennis.

I played volleyball growing up, but I’ve never taught it. When the kids at the local elementary school mentioned that they would like to learn how to play competitive volleyball so they could be ready for middle school tryouts, I thought it would make a great after school program. I really didn’t even know where to start. So I bought a few books on coaching youth volleyball. The books were really good, but I couldn’t see the drills in action.

Once I found PlaySportsTV.com I immediately began watching the videos and was hooked. Though they don’t have a training module for volleyball they do have free instructional videos.. Teaching sports is made much easier thanks to them. I have since purchased two training programs and they are fantastic. Check them out.

If you know of websites that other recreation professionals might be interested in drop me an email at curt@recreationguy.com and tell me about it. I in turn review the site and post here at RecreationGuy.com

We Need More Recreation Programming Products

Curt — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 07:22:06 +0000

At the conference I attended last week there was an Expo. The expo hall was filled with companies vying for our attention, commitments to buy and business cards. As I meandered through the aisles and aisles of vendors I was specifically looking for programming products. Unfortunately there were only a couple of vendors that offered systems or equipment for youth and/or adult programs. Instead, it was mostly facility equipment, building and site planning, and various surfacing vendors.

I was disappointed. Why aren’t there companies or individuals creating programming products? For example, Skillastics was there. Now that is a neat product. Here are a couple of other ideas I would like to see someone come up with:

Theme week packages that would include games, decorations, crafts and more all in one box.
DVD and manual combo packages that demonstrates to recreation leaders how to run tot and pre-school sports programs.
All-in-one after school program packages. For example, an Under the Sea package would include games, riddles, crafts, decorations, songs, etc., much like the theme week packages.
Special Event DVDs that show all the neat things you can do with a particular special event for your community, as well as the step-by-step directions on getting sponsors and marketing the event.

I’ve go more suggestions, but I think you get the idea. I believe there is a need for these types of products. Sure they aren’t big ticket items like the $32,000 NEOS Wall, but an enterprising person or group of people that design and sell these types of products could make a very good living.

One of the Best Things About the Recreation Community is the People

Curt — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 06:36:31 +0000

Today I was at the CPRS conference and as I saw people I knew I couldn’t help but smile. After a day of workshops and social gatherings I thought about how lucky I was to be in such a great industry. When I go to work I am juiced (on most days) about seeing my co-workers and running programs for the kids and families in the community. It wasn’t always that way.

Not long ago I was working as a front office manager at a nice, limited service hotel in San Diego, CA. While I liked my front desk staff I dreaded going to work. Whether it was mean and ungrateful guests, a crazy General Manager, my frustrations with the head of maintenance or the corporate office telling me to oversell the property, I wanted out of there, and I couldn’t understand why I had left the recreation field to go back to the hotel industry.

I have friends that are in business and/or sales and make twice what I do (or more), but they hate their jobs – with a passion – and work obscene hours. What kind of life is that? They look at me with envy in their eyes, but they are living just within their means, driving the latest model BMW, living in the largest place they can afford, and going out as much as possible. They wouldn’t dare leave a lucrative job to follow their heart. It’s sad. I am so grateful for what I have, and being around people like you remind me of that.

There are a lot of things I love about the recreation community, but my favorite part is the people, my colleagues…you all. So (raising my imaginary glass) here’s to us and our choice of careers.

Flashcards – A Rainy Day Activity

Curt — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 07:04:28 +0000

Its been raining off and on here in Northern California so I decided to dig up some of my reference books and find some rainy day activities that I knew were good and have used in the past. Below is an excerpt from a book called Camp Program Ideas, edited and compiled by Janet Gibson, Anne Harper and Bob Hanson. This is a neat book with some fantastic ideas. Unfortunately, it’s out of print. However, it was published by San Diego State University so they may still be selling them. I don’t know, it’s a pretty old book. Anyway, this activity called “Flashcards” can be used in after school programs. The kids really enjoy it.

Equipment: About 100 4×6 or larger cards with large letters drawn on them…one Z, one X, two Ys, two Ws, five As, five Bs, etc.
The leader turns over one card at a time, while telling a little story, “On our last canoe trip we noticed many interesting animals, the first one was…At this point he turns over the first card. All of the campers try to be the first to yell out the name of an animal beginning with the letter, for example if a “B” was uncovered…Bear, beaver, bobcat, etc. The first one to be heard with the correct answer gets the card. The leader then continues, “later on that afternoon, we paddled by an island where we noticed a…,” turning over another card. The object is to see which camper or cabin can collect the most cards. An animal cannot be used more than once, if the same letter turns up again, After a while, the leader changes the category to perhaps birds, fish, trees or flowers. The activity works best with 15-40 campers.

Credit: Camp Kooch-I-Ching
International Falls, Minn.

Even thought the above game was written as a camp game, using it for an after school rainy day activity would work great.