M UNICIPALITY OF L EAMINGTON “C HILDREN IN M OTION ” P ROGRAMS FOR C HILDREN U NDER 6 YRS Amanda Smith Manager of Culture & Recreation Services

O VERVIEW Leamington Kinsmen Recreation Complex Community Need Project Description Sharing our success Sustainability & Future Potential Questions

L EAMINGTON K INSMEN R ECREATION C OMPLEX To improve the quality of life of the people who live in, or visit, Leamington and the surrounding area. To provide quality recreation services to the residents of our community, and to provide the services and programs that foster healthy lifestyles and lifestyle choices. Multiple-use recreation facility – pool, arenas, gymnasium, weightrooms, fitness studio, indoor cycling studio, squash/racquetball courts, track An in motion community partner since 2007.

C OMMUNITY N EED Program evaluation forms, customer comment cards and customer service survey, the results indicated that we have a gap in our program services - recreation programs for young children, ages 3 years to 6 years were not offered. Specifically in November 2012, a Customer Service Survey asked for Program Suggestions and more programs for children and youth were identified in these comments. Our project partners, who are local champions of sports do not offer programs focused directly on sport activity programs for children ages 3-6 years. A review of programs offered by other community agencies showed no similar programs were being implemented in Leamington.

W HY DID WE NEED F UNDING ? Address the programming gap for young children ages 3-6yrs old that focuses on development of movement skills through active play and teaching children a wide variety of fundamental skills, as they participate in a variety of sport activities. To train program instructors/volunteers to develop, implement and evaluate the Children in motion programs, including "Parent & Tot Indoor Soccer", "Teeball", "KinderGym" and "Sporty Tots". Purchase quality equipment that is age appropriate to implement the recreation programs. Create the Children in motion Training Toolkit as a training and implementation guide for future programs.

P ROJECT S UMMARY Hire a Project Coordinator and program staff. Partnerships with Leamington Minor Soccer Association, Leamington Minor Baseball Association and Winstars Gymnastics Club. Purchase equipment and develop resources and marketing materials to support the new programs. In-kind Contribution = $42,125 Cash Contribution = $11,312 Grant Funds = $32,891 for

C HILDREN IN M OTION P ROGRAMS Parent & Tot Indoor Soccer (Ages 2-4) Teeball (Ages 4-6) Sporty Tots (Ages 3-5) Kindernastics Ages 18mths-3 – Parent & Tot participation Ages 3-5 and 6-7 – Child only New Fee $35.00/10week session

S HARING OUR S UCCESS Fall Session – Total participants 62 children 47 registrants in Kindernastics P&T Indoor Soccer & Teeball – 6 part in each Sporty Tots only 3 participants. Learning experience! Winter 1 Session – Total participants 70 children 48 registrants in Kindernastics Increase in Sporty Tots to 8 participants Winter 2 Session – Total participants registrations in Kindernastics – new age groups were defined P&T Indoor Soccer grew to 20 participants Sporty Tots increased to 10 participants

S HARING OUR S UCCESS New revenue = $5,969 The most popular program is Kindernastics! It’s all about timing! Kindernastics is successful on Mondays at 5pm, but not 6pm! And definitely no interest on Thursdays at 5pm Sporty Tots had low reg. on Thursdays at 10:30am, but did well at 9:30am All Saturday classes have excelled Unexpected results in other program areas Youth Karate – increased participation Youth Indoor Soccer – increased participation

S USTAINABILITY Hire and train staff who will be able to continue with the programming Own the equipment – need to budget for replacement and new equipment Children in motion Training & Toolkits (1 for each sport) SWOT Analysis and Program Evaluations Low cost programming Model the Children in motion 10 week program for other sports (ie: lacrosse) in order to develop fundamental sports skills for children ages 3-6yrs

A CKNOWLEDGEMENTS Funded by the Government of Ontario Dave Orshinsky – Recreation Coordinator for the Municipality of Leamington Jessica George – Project Coordinator Nicole Allison- Schmidt & Bryanna Hunter

Q UESTIONS ?