Parks & Recreation

[From my June 24 article in the Colchester Bulletin]

There is nothing constant except change. Once again, our Parks and Recreation family is experiencing turnover. Chris Woodside, our Recreation Specialist for the past two years, is moving on to new opportunities.

When our panel of interviewers first met Chris back in 2008, it was unanimous that he would be an excellent fit for our team. His passion, experience, honesty and humor were just what we were looking for. In fact, we quickly offered him the position that evening, as we did not want to lose him to another town.

Since then, Chris has been a devoted contributor to the Colchester Parks & Recreation Department. Like his predecessors, Chris brought a unique perspective to the position and made it his own. He developed new and exciting offerings to complement the wide variety of programs and events already provided by our department.

From adult sports leagues, such as flag football and basketball, to fun and educational afterschool programs like Sciensational Workshops, Chris sought out new ways to keep the Colchester community active and involved. However, his greatest legacy will surely be the Halloween Trick or Truck event, which was a smashing success in its inaugural year last fall. This year’s event will no doubt eclipse the astounding 90 cars that participated last Halloween.

Over the past year, Chris has been working towards his Master’s degree in Sports Management at UConn. For the upcoming year he has been selected for a Graduate Assistantship, where he will oversee the club sports teams for the school. This will be an excellent opportunity and we wish him will. Our loss is certainly UConn’s gain.

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[From my June 17 article in the Colchester Bulletin]

As the 2010 class of Bacon Academy departs our school system today for the many opportunities that lay ahead, I would echo the sentiment that they will undoubtedly hear from well-wishers many times over the next several weeks: do what you love and everything else will fall into place. Whether the coming months and years hold additional schooling, entering the workforce, traveling the world, or some other exotic alternative, the key is to find something that will be truly fulfilling. Often, this is driven by the feeling that you are making a difference in the world.

Of course, this does not mean that you have to change the entire world. Any impact, regardless of the size, can have significant and far reaching influence. Improving the life of just one person in your community can have a ripple effect that ultimately transforms a nation. It is analogous to the theory that a butterfly flapping its wings in one part of the world can contribute to a weather system that becomes a storm halfway around the planet.

Nor does this necessarily mean that you have to become professionally involved in an organization that seeks to do good work. In fact, independent and/or volunteer efforts quite often can have even more impact, possibly due to their personal or direct nature. This summer my family will once again be taking part in the Fresh Air Fund, where a child from the inner city comes to stay with us for two weeks. We previously had a young boy join our family each summer from the age of 6 to 13; having reconnected with him recently it is clear that our relatively small contribution to his life had a profound and lasting effect.

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[From my June 10 article in the Colchester Bulletin]

On Saturday, June 19 the story of Cody Camp will begin a new chapter. The Cody Camp Memorial Field Foundation and Colchester Parks & Recreation will be opening a very special field, dedicated in his memory, in grand style. From 9:00am until 2:00pm at Jackter Intermediate School, the home of the new field, community members are invited to take part in a bevy of fun activities.

The day’s line up will include free food and refreshments, a bounce house, face painting, opening ceremonies at 10am, a chance to meet Wally, the Boston Red Sox mascot and more. Perhaps most fitting of all, however, will be a special baseball game to be played by kids who would have been Cody’s peers – two squads of children who are just finishing fourth grade.

This journey began a little more than three and half years ago, when Cody Camp, only 6 years old at the time, passed away from Burkitt's Lymphoma. Soon after, family friends decided that a fitting way to memorialize Cody would be to recognize his great love of baseball by building a ballfield in his name. Within no time, the Cody Camp Memorial Field Foundation was born and fundraising took off.

Over the next few years, arrangements were made with the town to provide the site for this extraordinary gift – one that would leave an incredible legacy for all of the community’s children to enjoy. The Foundation planned for, and ultimately built, a first class facility. Cody Camp Memorial Field is now one of the premier fields in town, and the only diamond to have irrigation. When the finishing touches are installed, it will include a solar-powered scoreboard along with many other amenities.

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[From my June 3 article in the Colchester Bulletin]

Since 1993 the American Hiking Society (AHS) has sponsored National Trails Day on the first Saturday in June. Each year organizations and individuals across the country produce events and activities that spotlight the many wonderful trails that meander through our parks, towns and cities. Over the years it has grown to encompass well over 1,000 events on that single day, brining much needed and deserved attention to the campaign to expand the trail system.

According to the AHS web site, this national effort was actually developed as a response to the report produced in 1987 by President Ronald Reagan’s Commission on Americans Outdoors. A key piece of the report’s recommendations advocated that all Americans should be able to reach a trail system within fifteen minutes walking from their front doors. It actually went even further to say that these trails should wind through our cities and towns and bring us home without retracing our steps. This is an incredible vision, and one that is close to being realized in many progressive cities across the country.

With over 200,000 miles of trails already in service, and more being added every day, these trail networks have become a vital part of our country’s infrastructure. Far from simply recreational venues (a critical role in and of itself), trails have transitioned into vital routes for commuting. From serving as bike paths for business people to alternatives to children being bussed to school, the trails are now as valid a route of transportation as roads and rails.

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