This Friday was Family Fun Night at the Y!  My son and I spent time volunteering together to help make it a great event. Roger asked if I would mind helping out with a craft project, so I found this easy snowman ornament to make with the kids.

This was a great event to spend time volunteering with my oldest son.  I think it's important to provide these types of experiences to kids and teens to help develop them as responsible citizens and leaders in the community. It was also another great way for me to spend time interacting with children and their parents at the Y.  These types of events are right up my alley, I really enjoy planning and organizing family centered activities. I believe its important for parents to spend time with their children outside the home, not always playing video games or watching television. 

I have considered additional educational opportunities for myself in nutrition and life/family coaching as part of my career path. I am happy that this internship is allowing me to expand on many of the health & wellness ideas/activities I already did. 

One of the priorities for the staff this week was to finalize the schedules for the Winter I Session that begins on January 6th.  On Friday, I was invited to sit in on their planning meeting to hash out schedules and programming. There are two unique situations that occur as the team develops the schedules: first, there are recreation programs from the city that have to be included in the programming and second, as the staff develops more programming the spaces available become overbooked.  The meeting then becomes a strategic battle by each director to make sure their programming is included and on the days and times their staff is able to work. 

It's great to see the facility begin to offer so many diverse programs and activities, on the other hand, it is very difficult to coordinate scheduling of studio and meeting room times.  At some point during the Fall Sessions the Yoga class had to have class in the office area because the Square Dancing Club was using the studio.  This was very distracting to the people participating in the yoga class as people were in and out of the offices at the entire class.  This time, the staff took extra time to be sure there was no double-booking and that all individuals participating in activites would be happy and enjoy their class.

I was able to lend feedback throughout the meeting and my "couch to 5k" program will be included in the Winter itinerary!