Bristol Borough is about to roll out a new digital effort as part of the “professionalization” of its recreation program to streamline sign ups and disseminate information to the families of borough children.
In February Council approved the hiring of Brian Morris as a part-time recreation director, which officials said was a major step in modernizing and expanding local community recreation opportunities.
Morris serves as the assistant recreation director in East Norriton Township four days a week and in his new role he’s been working in Bristol Borough on Fridays. His focus is on streamlining existing programs while developing new opportunities for both youth and seniors.
Part Time Bristol Borough Rec Director Brian Morris at a recent Council Meeting
Officials have said, Morris has “hit the ground running.”
Councilman Gregg Pezza, serving as a lead liaison between the recreation board and department for the Borough said Morris has zeroed in on an online application called “Rec Desk.”
“It’s a software program basically that is going to help us manage all of our recreation programs” Pezza said.
“One of the goals that we had with Brian coming in here is just to streamline and make more professional some of the systems that we have to offer, which we think will also then eventually help the programs themselves uh, continue to grow and to flourish,” Pezza added.
Pezza said he wanted to let parents, families, and guardians know about the planned implementation of “Rec Desk” before it goes live because it looks like they will be fully able to go live and active at the end of April or the beginning of May. He would like to prep the parents, guardians,… people that have kids that might participate in some of these things. They are trying to encourage everyone to start getting familiar with the system.
Credit: Lower Bucks Hospital
In essence once the application is launched, as long as the person is signed up for it, the person will get scheduling, payment/uniform information, the app developer says.
“We’re going to be able to manage through Recs. It’s really going to it’s going to correlate well with all the big projects that we talked about uh a month ago about what we’re going to be doing.”
Since the Borough announced its plans for a revitalization of the recreation effort dating back just about five years, a significant majority of the activities offered have been free with the municipal government picking up the tab, for gear, equipment, field maintenance, with a number of dedicated volunteers.
Pezza said a nominal fee would be charged to participate because there have been a few issues with participation and the want to hire “real officials.”