October 28, 2008

Today Fox West YMCA members joined us in celebrating our 6-year anniversary.  We're looking forward to many more years of serving the Fox West community. Our new addition will enable us to do just that.

We're in the home stretch!

We are just 67 days away from seeing adults, families and children enjoying their new pool and expanded facilities, at our YMCA.

The women's, men's and family locker rooms are tiled and receiving their final coats of paint. They look great!

This week our new parking lot will be poured. This will double our exising parking spaces.  The light fixtures for the pool were installed this week. Today they flipped the switch and the entire pool was illuminated from overhead. It was such a great sight to see.  They will begin to pour the deck and hand trowel the inside of the pool this week. Both projects will be complete by the end of next week.

We've made the final orders for new fitness equipment in the newly expanded Lifestyle Center.  Some pieces we will be adding are additional elliptical machines, treadmills, rowers, bikes, and added strength equipment. You will also find a few new pieces to assist individuals, using our facility, who may be recovering from an injury, have a special need, or looking to do sport specific training.

We will order all of our new signage early next week.  At this point we are just making sure that everything that needs to be ordered has been ordered so that we are ready for January 1, 2009.  You'll be able to join us for a dip in the pool or a workout in the new Lifestyle Center, to ring in the new year!

We held a job fair a week ago and are now working on follow up interviews for lifeguards, swim instructors, fitness instructors, lifestyle staff, childcare staff, member services staff and more.

Construction has gone rather smoothly.  There are the occasional "hiccups" that do occur. Today happened to be one of those days.  We ordered our aquatic equipment and other necessary supplies a few weeks ago with a delivery date set for December 15th. To our surprise a portable lifeguard chair arrived early this morning and this afternoon a second delivery truck arrived to deliver 3 large carts for our new laundry room.

We've become quite creative storing items until we are granted occupancy to the new addition. We have chairs in the basement of one employee, tables in the basement of another, boxes under desks and more.  So far I have no takers on adopting a large portable lifeguard chair or 15 foot bleachers for 7 weeks.

Make a note in your calendar... swim lesson registration will begin in mid-December with classes beginning in January. It feels great to be able to say that!

We look forward to seeing you soon!

Brenda Johnson, Executive Director
Fox West YMCA