Reply to Arlington proposing to close county gymnastics program

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Not every gym in the area has open gym for children. Some insurance restricts it heavily. Common sense should restrict it as well, but not my circus I guess. Maybe they are just lucky so far. I’m personally not in favor of open gym but I think the county could hire more staff to teach more instructor led gymnastics programs if they really wanted to. [/quote]
I love all these opinions from folks who haven't been and observed.  Lots of arm chair warriors making tons of wrong assumptions.  They're not a circus and gymnasts are well behaved.  Usually the staff mostly help to make sure the kids have the mats and equipment adjusted properly.  I've never seen a behavior issue.[/quote]

I guess our opinion just differs because I’m a professional gymnastics coach who has been to and observed nearly every type of gymnastics program for more than 30 years. Including the program in question. This is besides the point but I was just pointing out that there could be an insurance barrier.

I don’t think they need open gym and I don’t agree that every gym in the area has open gym for children. You have a different opinion on that, and clearly some gymnastics professionals do since some gyms do have it. But other profitable gyms don’t. So it’s certainly not the only path forward if there are barrier. Other than that we’re probably on the same side. [/quote]
Look, I don't feel strongly about open gym either way (though having been to many of these, I think the hysterics on this thread about them are pretty strange).

What I feel strongly about is that DPR hasn't been trying to find ways to fully utilize the gym. And there are options they need to be considering beyond regular rec classes if they truly can't find gymnasts coaches coaches to teach them.  I also think they need to look for ways to bring in higher margin fees during periods when the gym isn't currently being utilized. Not because those are necessarily the things that serve the county, but because it enables the facility to self-fund so that it can stay open for all the activities that do serve County residents broadly.  [/quote]

But surely you can see this is all naked self-interest to keep the thing you want going.   And I get it.  If my kid was doing this I’d feel the same way.

When you take a step back, our government should be looking at how best to use the space to benefit the most people across demographics.  That’s what the rec centers should be for. I don’t think a cheer team and a birthday party venue and less structured gym time are priorities for this community or what anyone’s local government should be focused on offering.  Even if they recover fees to support this work, this is space and staff doing something and therefore we are not doing something else.  Sure, possibly there are ways to keep this particular facility going.  But is that the goal?  To me, it makes sense to re-evaluate the facility at this point.  [/quote]
I strongly disagree. Arlington has put money into building out this facility because it was something that was demanded by residents. There is still demand for the program. There are still 1,300 people on the waitlist. And all other local gymnastics programs have long waitlists too. I really think this is about investment Arlington has made in an amenity for its residents being mismanaged by DPR. Shutting it down is a waste of taxpayer resources. When if folks who are getting paid full-time salaries did their actual jobs, the facility could be self-supporting. I am not asking for Arlington County to dump a bunch of money into gymnastics.  The proposal here is for them to make use of a facility that exists for the benefit of residents in a responsible way.

For services that don't benefit residents broadly the goal is not to recover fees but to charge market rate. It's to make a profit that then can be used to subsidize fee reductions and other programs that support residents more broadly. If you look at the DPR pyramid In their presentation it even says that individual activities should be charged at market rate and not subsidized. They're to make a profit.

The way to close the gap here is to bring more revenue in and to cut costs. They should look and see if there's management they don't need given the current size of programming. And they should look for every opportunity they can to bring in revenue and utilize the gym. Some of those like cheer classes may actually broadly support the community. There are lots of kids interested in cheer and that's not any less deserving than soccer or basketball or swim.  [/quote]

So it’s back to DPR is just doing it wrong and the employees are lazy and incompetent.  And they are lying about struggling to staff it.

No need to argue these points.  You believe that or you don’t.[/quote]

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