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GBRC held monthly meeting on Monday
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There were a few new items on the agenda at the Great Bend Recreation Commission meeting on Monday.
These items include: My BackYard Playground. Additional purchase of hardwood mulch from Athco, LLC will be purchased for the playground. Anticipated delivery will be coordinated to utilize Great Bend High School students on April 27 with their Community Volunteer Day. The playground will be closed when the mulch will be distributed.
Eight new aluminum backless benches for the dugout areas will be installed at youth baseball and softball fields this spring.
Fields receiving new benches includes: Westfall field-2 fields, Brit Spaugh South and Veterans West.

In other business
Megan Hammeke, GBRC Program Coordinator of Seniors, Special Needs, and Aquatics Director has completed training and received Red Cross Lifeguard Instructor certification. She will complete her AFO Certificate in April. And Chris Umphres, GBRC Assistant Director/Sports Director has completed his recertification with the National Recreation & Park Association as a certified playground inspector.

GBRC program directors report
Megan Hammeke said bowling continues to be popular with the special needs clients, with 95 participants in February and the Valentines Dance drew a large crowd. The dance had 111 participants. The king and queen of the dance were Larry Clements and Pam Babcock.
Hammeke also reported on programs for senior citizens, February saw people participate in Fit for Life classes, they met 12 times with 327 participants and three different levels of Tai Chi instruction that met 20 times. Gentle Yoga exercise class met 8 times with 68 participants
Chris Umphres reported on sports programs, noting that the youth indoor soccer leagues started practice Feb. 20 and games are scheduled to start March 5-6.
The soccer program is scheduled to end late April.
Youth soccer games will run on Saturdays and Sundays this year. Soccer leagues will begin at 9 a.m. on Saturday and finish about 9:30 p.m.
He also mentioned that adult volleyball is still going strong with games being played every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Monday’s and Wednesday’s are still being played at the Panther Activity Center. The Friday league starts after youth indoor soccer practices scheduled on Fridays.
Garet Fitzpatrick reported on leisure programs, noting that they are setting up the Imagination Playground on the first and third Wednesdays free of charge at the Activity Center for children ages 2 and older accompanied by an adult. The morning session meets from 9:30 – 11 a.m. and the evening session will meet from 6:30 – 7:30 p.m.
He also noted that they held their spring Kansas Hunter Education course on Saturday, March 5 from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at the Great Bend Police Training Facility.
Once again Tim Boxberger was the head instructor along with 3 other instructors. They had 19 students register and 15 students show up and passed the course. The next class will be offered in the fall.
GBRC Director Diann Henderson reported that for the month of February, there were 3,008 people enrolled in programs sponsored by the Recreation Commission. The total participation for the month was 9,933 of that total 3,416 were spectators. This month the Commission offered a total of 1045.5 hours of supervised activities.