2010-02-25 Recreation Committee Minutes

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FAX: (781) 942 - 5441 Town of Reading 16 Lowell Street Reading, MA 01867 -2685 RECREATION DIVISION: (781) 942 - 9075 RECREATI( 2010 Town Hall Conference S Attendance: Bernie Winne, Recreation Committee Chairmen, Nancy -Linn Swain, Rec. Committee, Chris Campbell, Rec. Committee Member, Frank Driscoll, Rec. Committee Member, Mary Ellen Stolecki, Vice - Chairmen, John Feudo, Recreation Administrator B. Winne called the meeting to order at 7:03 PM. C. Campbell made a motion to accept the minutes from the January 13th meeting. F. Driscoll seconded the motion. Motion passed in favor of accepting the minutes including a recommended change of a small grammatical mistake for January 13, 2010 by a vote of 6 — 0- 0. Field Issue: J. Feudo stated that he and B. Winne were requested to meet with RYL and the Town Manager. RYL made a number of requests at the meeting and laid out the field schedule as presently approved. They brought three major concerns to the table; seasonality, Red Thunder soccer program and use of Longwood Place. RYLAX maintained that on paper, the schedule appeared to heavily favor the RUSC organization. The Youth Lacrosse organization felt the fact that Longwood Place has been strictly a soccer field put them at an unfair advantage and they felt that needed to be considered with in the distribution of fields. The issue of Red Thunder also came up and the fact that the organization has close to 70% of out of town participants using Reading fields was an issue. Finally, lacrosse continued to plead the case of seasonality. That topic has been closed as the Recreation Committee has deemed soccer a spring sport as it is considered the "main season" not only in New England, but in much of the country at the youth level. The committee will look at the demand for a program as an indicator of season. Upon hearing these facts the Town Manager asked the Recreation Committee to reconsider the schedule and gave guidance to the Recreation Chairmen and Administrator to splinter the larger groups into subgroups and permit them separately. The committee chairman appointed K. Kaminer and C. Campbell along with himself to reevaluate the current schedule and implement the instructions of the Town Manager. This committee will need to act swiftly and address the appearance of the inequities of the schedule.