In The News: From this weeks Weekly

Minute

The Playground Guardian™

Playground Management

Software includes:

Listing of all playground

sites

Full inventory of play-

ground equipment in-

cluding photographs

Playground inspection

records and reports

Automated To-do lists

and work orders for

playground mainte-

nance

Playground accident

and playground com-

plaint records

Paperless records and

reports

Park Ops Weekly Minute — iPads Create Efficiency for

Park Watch Coordinators & Park Rangers

this issue

Park News P.1

Enterprise Services P.2

Nature Preserves & Natural Resources P.3

Community & Recreation Center Services P.4

V o l u m e 2 I S S U E

J a n u a r y 1 1 2 0 1 3

2 WEEKLY

NEWSLETTER OF THE

PARK AND RECREATION

DEPARTMENT FridayFridayLetterLetter THE

Park Operations During this weeks training, Park Operations took the next step in leveraging the Playground Guardian Software by rolling out training on the iPad to staff. With the efficient use of iPads in the field, staff are un-tethering from the tra-ditional desktop PC and can function live in the field to complete real-time inspections, perform key duties and continue to be a key presence in parks daily.

Hear from Park Operations staff: George Smith and Shawn Irish as well as Park Region Man-ager Patricia Poteat as they discuss the efficiencies the iPad will create for them. Enjoy this weeks Park Ops Weekly Minute here or by clicking the “Watch us on YouTube” link below.

Park Operations Jeff Robinson, Division Director

Greg Clemmer, Park Superintendent

Chris Hunter, North Park Region Manager

Michael Campbell, Central Park Region Manager

Patricia Poteat, South Park Region Manager Catch up on recent Weekly Minutes by using the links below: Weekly Minute: Keep America Playing/ATV Safety Training Weekly Minute: Playground Guardian Weekly Minute: Ryan Newman Celebrity Bass/Partnerships with CFD and Boy Scouts

Aquatics: Event Round-up One eighty-five (185) swimmers participated in a CMS Dual Swim Meet Friday, January 4th

from 6:30pm – 9:30pm. Providence and Ardrey Kell High School competed. CMS High School Divers competed in a dual meet on Saturday, January 5th from 7:30am –

12:30pm and 46 total divers (24 boys and 22 girls) competed in the event. On Saturday, January 5th, Sun Valley, Concord, and Parkwood High Schools swam in a dual

meet from 1:30 – 3:30pm and 91 swimmers took part in the meet.

American Legion Memorial Stadium & Grady Cole Center The Queens University of Charlotte men’s and women’s basketball team played host to conference foe Limestone on Thursday night. The women’s team rolled to a 78-58 victory behind 21 points from fresh-man Nikia Squire. Shonice Pettaway had a double-double with 20 points and 10 rebounds. The men’s team fell in heartbreaking fashion, 76-75, despite 28 points from senior Antonio Stabler.

On Saturday afternoon, the men were back in action when the visiting Carson-Newman Eagles came to the Grady Cole Center. Exacting revenge from an earlier road loss, the Royals knocked off Carson-Newman, 70-66, behind Stabler’s 29 points and 10 rebounds. The Queens men’s and women’s teams will be back at the Grady Cole Center on Wednesday, January 16th when they play host to the Coker Cobras. The women will tip-off at 5:30 and the men will follow at 7:30.

Conference Carolinas Basketball Conference Carolinas is a NCAA Division II athletics con-ference made up of 12 teams from North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. These institutions consist of: Barton College, Belmont Abbey Col-lege, Coker College, Converse College, Erskine College, King College, Lees-McRae College, Limestone College, Mount Olive College, North Greenville University, Pfeiffer University, and Queens University of Charlotte. Many institutions have been members of the league during its rich history including Anderson, Appalachian, Atlan-tic Christian (now Barton Col-lege), Belmont Abbey, Ca-tawba, Coker, Converse, East Carolina, Erskine, Guilford, Elon, High Point, King, Lees-McRae, Lenoir-Rhyne, Lime-stone, Longwood, Mars Hill, Mount Olive, Newberry, North Greenville, Pembroke State, Pfeiffer, Presbyterian, Queens, St. Andrews, Western Carolina and Wingate. Barton is the only remaining charter member followed in longevity by Pfeiffer's mem-bership in 1960 and then Mount Olive's and St. Andrews both joining in 1988.

The Carolina Ori-enteering Klubb held their annual competition at Latta Plantation Nature Preserve on Saturday, January 5. The competition offers several courses of varying difficulty, depending on your level of experience and skill. On the cool, sunny day, 373 people and 3 dogs tested with navigational skills on the various courses. In addition to the regular competition, the CMS JROTC Orienteering Championships returned this year as well.

Marine Mammal Day at Central Cabarrus High 20 staff from Reedy Creek Nature Center went to Central Cabar-rus High for a full “Marine Mammal Day”. This was a special pro-gram featuring the “geo-dome” from the North Carolina Mu-seum of Natural History raised awareness on climate change and how marine life is being affected. Over 400 high school students had the opportunity to touch a polar bear pelt, learned about echolocation and other ma-rine mammal adaptations.

Students signed pledges to reduce their carbon footprint on leaves that were placed on a tree that will be planted on the school grounds in the spring as a reminder to their commit-ment to the environment.

A carbon footprint has historically been defined as "the total set of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused by an organization, event, product or person."

Did You Know: Orienteering Orienteering is a family of sports that requires naviga-tional skills using a map and compass to navigate from point to point in diverse and usually unfamiliar terrain, and normally moving at speed. Participants are given a to-pographical map, usually a specially prepared orienteer-ing map, which they use to find control points. Originally a training exercise in land navigation for military offi-cers, orienteering has devel-oped many variations. Among these, the oldest and the most popular is foot ori-enteering. Generally foot orienteering serves as a point of departure for discussion of all other variations, but basically any sport that involves racing against a clock and requires navigation using a map is a type of orienteering. ________________________

Orienteering through Latta Plantation Nature Preserve

NDRC Mentoring Matters sup-ports Panthers Football Naomi Drenan Recreation Center’s Men-toring Matters program took 20 teens and 4 mentors to enjoy a day at the Bank of America Stadium to support the Carolina Panthers. It was a fun day filled with laughter, cheers, and bonds built between mentors and teens. We look forward to our next day out.

Naomi Drenan Recreation Center For more information about our programs and events, contact NaomiDrenanRecreationCen-ter@MecklenburgCountyNC.gov or call 704.432.5231.

NDRC “Kings of the Court” Tournament On Dec. 31st, Naomi Drenan Recreation Center hosted a 3-on-3 basketball tournament called “Kings of the Court” We would like to thank all of our participants and spectators for coming out to bring in the New Year with us. Congratulations to Naomi Drenan Recreation Center's 3-on-3 Basketball Champs "Triple Threat!" They played a total of 6 games and won with a clutch 2 pointer with seconds left on the clock. They’re looking forward to next year, to renew their reign as "Kings of the Court". A special thank you to all of our partici-pants and spectators that came out to support this program.

Revolution Park Sports Academy Youth Basketball Season is Underway: The 2013 youth basketball regular season kicked off this past Saturday at 16 recreation centers through-out Mecklenburg County. Approximately 2,000 partici-pants between the ages 4 to 16 from 190 teams began league play and will continue every Saturday through the month of February. The coun-tywide tournament will begin in March immediately follow-ing the regular season. _______________________ For more information email YouthSports @MecklenburgCountyNC.gov call Revolution Park Sports Academy at (704) 432-4963.

Recreational News from Mecklenburg Communities

Nature in the Neighborhood On Friday January 4, the Su-gaw Creek Recreation Cen-ter’s YWCA After School Pro-gram and McDowell Nature Center partnered to offer an outing for 10 children ages 6-12 years. They made pinecone bird-feeders and hung them on trees and created binoculars to view the birds and nature. The event ended with cook-ing grilled cheese and a dump cake over the fire. Anthony Shaheen, Outdoor Recreation Specialist, and the staff at McDowell Nature Center did a fine job directing the tour! _______________________ McDowell Nature Preserve and Nature Center 15222 York Road Charlotte, NC 28278

Recreational News from Mecklenburg Communities

Park and Recreation News:

Submissions for the Newsletter

Please submit all news for the

Friday Letter to your Division

Director for review and routing.

Park Partners may contact

Kesha Meads at

Kesha.Meads@MecklenburgCountyNC.gov

for publication assistance.

The Friday Letter Volume 2 • Issue 2 • January 11, 2013

Mecklenburg County

Park and Recreation

Senior Leadership Team

Jim Garges, Director

Michael Kirschman, Deputy Director

James Alsop, Enterprise Services

Renea Barber, Human Resources

Mario Chang, Budget Administration

Lee Jones, Capital Planning

Lola Massad, Community Services and

Recreation Centers

Jeff Robinson, Park Operations

5841 Brookshire Blvd.

Charlotte, NC 28216

(704) 336-8840

Recreate All Year! As the weather changes, look forward to new and exciting way to continue recreating during the fall and winter months. Subscribe to the Park and Recreation E-Newsletter to stay up to date on activities that may be available to you.

www.parkandrec.com

National Gold Medal on Display at Recreation Centers The 2012 Gold Medal Grand Award will be making its rounds to all of the Recrea-tion Centers “Stanley Cup” style. See it on display next at: Central Region: Arbor Glen Recreation Center (November 26—December 7) South Region: Southview Recreation Center (December 10—Decembler 21) North Region: West Charlotte Recreation Center (December 26—January 11)

Scenes from Events: Holiday Fun Director Jim Garges was caught doing good at the Sugaw Creek Recreation Center 2nd An-nual Christmas Program. Kids enjoyed arts & crafts, musical games, refreshments, gift wrapping, ginger bread frosting and Santa's activity stations: parachute games, soccer, basketball and more.

A special thanks to our Director, Jim Garges, for taking the time to greet the par-ticipants, parents and staff during the event.