Tennis and Pickleball Commission - Regular Meeting

All right, thank you so much for your patience. We'll go ahead and call the meeting to order of our September 17th meeting of the Tennis and Pickleball Commission. The first thing we have on here is to see if we have any public comments on any items.

No one called it or sent anything in.

All right, okay, so we'll entertain a motion to approve the minutes from our meeting on June 18th. Is there a motion? Sure. Second. All right. We have a motion and a second to approve the June 18th meeting. Any further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, like so. Okay. Ready for our facility update.

Sure. Dana was going to present back today, but she fell ill for the last couple days. I'm going to just pass this out real briefly because I...

I'm more of a visual than an auditory person. Okay, I might have to talk. I just, in terms of like listening, I'm not good at listening.

I'm like you, Eric, go ahead. All right, so this is a summary of our activity over the summer. I would say it was our smoothest running summer that we've had in terms of camp. I know Nick's not here, but he really liked it when he saw a bunch of kids playing outside. You know, we used to do summer camp inside, so it's grown to the point where we have to be outside. We also continue to do our junior afternoon classes on top of that, and then we had our mixers. And specialty clinics, which are like doubles and chart of the day and ball machine class, et cetera. One of the additional information that's on here that might not make a lot of sense, one wait list registration. That simply means that we feel like everyone really got what they were looking for. People weren't really left out or unable to access our programs. Let's see.

What is the 3,875 and number of benefits that you see? Yes, I'm glad you brought that up, Chris.

So bump, mixers, those things that people get the value out of by retaining their membership, if we put a monetary value on their participation in the mixers, because if you're a member, you don't pay additionally for the mixer. If you're a member, you don't pay additionally for a bump. I did not calculate that number, so I'm not sure how deep it went into in terms of the discount between a member and a non-member for the ball machine, for example, because members get a much reduced rate for ball machines. Is that something that Dana calculated? No. I think Thomas put that together for her. But we try to capture the value of the... of using your membership versus not having those other benefits. I hope that answers your question.

Is that why the mixers, the fees versus the revenue are different? Yeah, I was going to say that.

Why the collective fees, collective revenue? Oh, the difference between those two?

Yeah. It's because some of these people aren't, they're getting their benefits. Yes. And they're paying for that. So that's why that's lower. Because all the others, it's like fees and revenues.

So why would you list it there as a fee for a member, just so you can just keep it consistent? If it's not technically an additional fee for a member, why would it be listed? I assume that those are additional fees.

So you're asking why are we listed as collected fees?

Oh, that's total fee. Is it just showing as a waived fee for a member of benefit?

No, well, you know, I... I can't answer that honestly, knowing how that was put together, but I would, it's the registration. So, I'll have to get back to you on that, but I do believe, based on how this is collected, we do collect money from people playing in the mixer, okay? So, I can delineate that for a little further, so I'm sorry I don't know that answer. But I'll find out. I'll definitely find out.

I guess... A couple questions is that they don't align. Like if you take $42.85 minus $38.75, that's $410 instead of $390. Just make sure that those numbers align a little bit. And then my other question is how many members do we have? I guess what I'm driving at is if 3875 are member benefits and if it's divided by whatever, 100 members, then we can say, yeah, your membership, the average added value to your membership is this. And so I just think that would be a nice thing to put in front of people.

Yeah, we have between 900 and 800 members total. That's including each person in there. My strategy is very simple to, you know, during block time when it's difficult to get a court, to have these other programs that people have access to that enables them to continue to play, so it's not simply that. And then, you know, obviously all year is not block time. Our most... participated program is still bump. We have 60, 70 people over the weekend still playing it up. That's on the high end. It probably averages around 50, which is still a lot. And we actually make money on that.

Chris, I think I see what you're saying. Let us clean this up just a little bit and maybe tell a better story. Yeah, Thomas has put it in.

It's a good story.

Yeah, I think that's been cleaned up.

And what would I find fun out here? You just don't include fault and charge in all these? Or is it in which category?

There's revenues involved. Yeah.

Bump isn't delineated. I think it's somewhere condensed in that. I'll tease that out better. We're proud of that, so we will definitely highlight that.

Because it sounds like you make money. You know, Bump as a benefit and Bump as a revenue maker as well.

This is for summer only? Yep. This isn't a year long.

This is over the summer because we didn't meet much. I would like to tell a little bit more story about Bump because we talked about the high school memberships. And actually the school memberships, which includes middle schools. So as far as ways, Cookville, teachers are getting their students to come over here and participate in both. We are not just getting Murfreesboro schools, but some of the satellite areas, you know, buying memberships, you know, and I know that there was a fear like, oh my gosh, there's just going to be so many kids who'll never get cords. They're utilizing it for bump, and they don't have, the membership benefit is not so that it can overpower, but just create access. So my goal is really to create more member benefit for them, to have like a junior match play, maybe a junior mixer, because mixers are part of your benefit. So giving kids more than just simply bump and court time is my goal. And so that's kind of what I want to know. It's really not... Something I always think about in terms of dollars, but just in terms of access. If I were a kid, I would love to play. How many chances do I get to play? It's great that there isn't a number. Hopefully we'll tell a better story next time on how that's reflected.

That's the goal. So as the leader of this building, what... Those numbers you presented, what really pleased you? And then also, is there room for improvement in other numbers as you view this?

Sure. What really pleased me was just the summer camps, you know. Because our camps aren't like Darnell's camps or other facilities camps necessarily. They're not like all day. They're just early morning and early afternoon type of classes. So it's not a program where you just drop your kids off and just go about your day. So to see that run very smoothly with our really qualified pros. They really worked together as a team really well. The instruction level was, I think, top notch. We were competing with MTSU, Farm and Forge, Smyrna's got some. There's a lot of choices and we were able to offer a very attractive choice with that competition because this was a great opportunity for people to come inside when it was too hot. We just really regulated that well and the retention was great. And I think what I'm most proud of is just how smoothly it ran this year. I mean, I don't know how to really articulate that any better. It just was wonderful to see firsthand the quality was there. I think the competition or offering of the choices actually makes us better because we want to strive to be better. So yes, we can always be better. When you think about where can we be better, I would say just continue to communicate more. Our curriculums, the experience our pros are getting, like Regina Go, for example, she was new last year. This is her second year. I see her developing as a person so much better. Her doing the classes as an instructor is like, wow, you're so much better than you were last year. I think keeping people as motivated to stay here because they have opportunities to thrive. Talk about staff. We can retain that staff and that creates relationships because tennis is what It's such a funny sport to me because I still can hear my coach in my head, things that he taught me. We're really building a very lasting, meaningful impact. I don't want a lot of turnaround. That stability, I think, is so important to me for those reasons. Well, I think we were pretty aggressive. We did sell block time. We had our mixers. We did tournaments. I do regret not doing one tournament that I did last year, so I actually reactivated it for fall instead of summer. I'm always trying to make more money as a reflection of our success, really, and participation. As I think about your question, Chris, I feel like we can most certainly improve. If you notice, we're completely full right now. So that's NALTA and USTA. We need to continue to have our own summer leagues. I did have a summer league. Only a few people participated. They didn't know what it was. We tried really hard to educate them. So I throw things out there and they just don't always stick. We had a level four, which is a national tournament. Very few people participated, but the people that did come, they had a great experience. So there's a lot of new things, a lot of new things that we're trying to build, but people don't know what they are. So really getting the word out, making phone calls, educating. early planning, marketing, because I still think we can thrive a lot more, particularly with our own leagues, day tournaments, and things that you all have approved, really getting those online. So that's where I'm inside really trying to push hard, but I have to present it in a collaborative way, right? So that's where I want to improve the most.

Yes, that was my question. Is there a profit?

column here, if you pay your pros?

Yeah. There is. You have to break it down in a different way than how it's done here. But you pay the pros, the expenditures will come out for that, and then also they're paying us as well. We probably need to break that down in a comprehensive expression.

But your collected revenue is not your profit, right? The collected revenue column is not your profit. No. How much, what would be a guess, out of the total 39,000 fees collected, revenue collected, how much would you say is the profit of that? 50%?

We have payroll. is it 60%? We probably collect like 60% of that, so 40% goes back to the pros, but of course That's such a simple answer. There's obviously the balls. There's administrative. So it's like, how deep do you want to get that? If we just do the simple answer, we're doing a lot better than we did last year. Last year, we did make a profit. This year, we made more profit just looking at those two variables. That helps.

It's a microcosm of the facility as a whole, though. It's probably breaking. I'm okay with nurturing someone along the way and getting them started. Again, some programs don't really take, but if you just keep shutting the door on people that want to engage us,

because we're going to lose $20, then in the long run we're really going to lose a lot more than that. We're going to lose a person that could participate in a lifetime sport, potentially get their circle of friends and family involved. I just want to share the sport with everyone because it really is amazing the people that you meet. But that's not a big loss. Those small losses are easily absorbed by our bigger classes.

I can say my granddaughter came to the tennis camp this summer and I tried my best just to be very incognito because I just wanted to watch as a bystander and see how it went and I was very pleased. You know, I had to make her come the first day that she wanted to go to the Boys and Girls Club. And I said, no, no, we're going to go to tennis camp this week. And after that first day, she was loving it. And by the end of the week, she didn't want to leave. She thought, we're going to come again the next week.

She's 10.

And so she had nothing but great things to say about the instructors. She remembered the names. She talked about how they encouraged the group. And so kudos on the tennis camp.

We don't celebrate enough just our camps in general. We have a total of camps of about 30 something. The work that goes into just the camps in general, I know it's not tennis or pickleball related, but our staff just works hard to get all the quality experience.

That's such a service that you really, really need. It is.

I think we were 100% full. Only a couple didn't have a way to live. The first day of registration, we collected $106,000. Don't quote me. I got over $100,000 on the first day. 97% of that was online. calling they can't get on they won't work yeah there's so many people yeah

That's a wonderful problem. It's a great problem.

It speaks to the staff. Summers are long, they're hot, they're tiring, they're emotionally exhausting, but from facility leadership down to camp counselors, it's just to have a safe and fun summer is something we all celebrate about. What's the biggest camp you have? I have a sports camp. I have 50 kids a day. Wow. And they swim half a day. One week we don't do camps is a week before the tournament. Janelle's got her youth development camp that happens every single day with these kids and stuff like that. The diversity of what we have is just wild. My daughter participated in a heater camp.

Hello? Okay. Yep.

It was a cab. It really was. You're talking about bringing energy to this facility all summer.

I love their dress code. The dress code was very intentional, if you know what I mean. Yeah, yeah.

Well, great. What do you think, when you mentioned the pickleball indoor facility, Williams County. You know, they've added a second facility right near us. Are we seeing any kind of comments from members or do you, how do you think that's going to affect us?

You're talking about Williamson County is going to build a pickleball? No, the tennis. I thought it was already built because they came on visit us like four years ago, and then they said they were having issues, so I haven't been keeping close tabs on that.

Well, no, it's actually right there. They're almost like beside each other. There's two of them. One's going to be like an academy. Those are private, correct? Yeah, those are private, like an academy.

Well, you know, Farm and Forge is universe class. I wouldn't say world class. They have a $90,000 sweeper that sweeps the courts at night by itself. But what they don't have, that we do have, is... location location location location and so we really serve not just murphy's world but just nashville uh most of tennessee everyone likes to come here people kind of like don't even want to go to memphis for example although they have a wonderful facility as well um you know and so i think again that just makes us stronger so it just it forces us to really you know keep up with what they're doing but we always still have that advantage that no one else has i know people A lot of people play tennis in Spring Hill, but again, we are an inclusive facility. It doesn't matter if you have a membership or not, we still serve you. And I think that's a great advantage that we have. And also just our culture here is in a great way.

Any other questions about the summer ATC activity report? All right, if not, do we have anything on programming?

Programming, well, with block time coming up, this will be a very interesting year as Veronica and Jasmine just love to look at each application and say, well, people with low numbers aren't even applying. People that have low numbers that didn't apply are now applying. They're changing their times. Mixers really play a big role in that. But we still put block time first. We really try to balance that out. We do let some of those people that have been having block time during our junior time still have that ability to do that. So we want to kind of minimally disrupt that while we continue to grow our junior program. You know, we ended with MTSU, so it really is MTSU, believe it or not, number one. Block time, number two. Juniors, number three. And they're very close together. There's not a big gap between them, but that's how we have to kind of prioritize those things. Schools, of course, are outside, so we don't really worry about that too much. But programs are a little bit at the mercy of those things. So we have to really be creative and responsive and flexible to try to put those in. We have added Friday junior classes and the afternoon and Saturday classes because I'm very... sensitive to people that might not be able to bring their kids here during the day. Maybe they're a working family. They can't even take their kids on stuff during the weekend. So it's really just making sure that we have access to not the low-hanging fruit, but people that have different lifestyles and challenges to try to capture them as well. So it's just an aggressive mindset, but we are kind of having to balance those other three priorities. So we're not shrinking a lot. The mixers, we're trying to just keep as many of those as we can online. But we don't have a solid answer yet because we have to kind of wait and see. We are trying to put a new wheelchair national tournament in, and there's one weekend, the first weekend in March, the MTSU doesn't really play here. KO does, but we can have it play in the morning. So that's an opportunity to have a wheelchair tournament, which I've been working with them on. considering their circle of competition. Because I tried to do one last year that was too close to Nashville's time. And so they want to spread that out. So really kind of working with them and really getting their input. And again, trying to figure out where can we plug them in. So that's kind of where we're at. We're really trying to plug everything in. And it's like a puzzle that sometimes moves.

So I hope that answers your question. It did. Any other questions about programming? If not, is there any other business? I'd like to make a couple of updates. Okay, great.

I'd like to give an update on the repairs that we're making with the outdoor pickleball courts, outdoor courts at Hatterson. So we are currently working on repairing the fence. I think initially we were thinking to just do a totally new fencing for the court, but now... We're working side by side with our city facilities project manager, and his recommendations are for us to make repairs, because the fence is in good shape, but there's repairs that need to be done.

The holes are in good shape. The holes are in good shape.

Yes, that will be definitely repaired, and also adding an additional gate, because our goal is to have a seating area for our pickleball players with a shade structure. So that is possible and we do plan to do that. Then from a resurfacing of our court, we also, I'm sorry, repairing our court, we realized that resurfacing is not the way to go. We actually need to do major concrete repairs with the court. So we are working again with our city facilities manager on those recommendations. So our goal and plan is to have our repairs continue this year.

So when you say repair, does that mean repair then resurface?

Yes, repair then resurface only the areas that... And with that one, I mean, we still could argue that we have the warranty issues, but it's probably... So there are structural issues with it as well. We're waiting on the recommendation from the city's facilities.

He's pretty much our project manager, so we're following his lead. Our goal is this fiscal year.

We definitely want to get that taken care of.

You know, maybe once that progresses, you've got to get an email out to this commission, just this update, because I know there's a lot of people that are frustrated with what kind of drag they're having. And I get it, but it's one of those things. We're trying to figure out exactly a line of funding with Discovery that actually will probably be good. So it's kind of, I think we're closer to, you know. When they did resurface the last time, yeah, it was like cracks were showing up like a month later.

That's why the whole thing needs to be worn down, regraded, compacted. We're going to have this issue as long as we keep it there. In the long run, that'd be the way to do it.

And so they still feel, knowing that they're going to basically have to redo it. that they'll still have it done this fiscal year?

Because like they said, it's been an ongoing problematic issue.

That's a good update. Any other? Veterans Park, I said earlier, not officially, but we were looking at November supplies, some other things that pushed us back. They're saying now, end of December, but I can see how we can push back a little bit. It looks great, but I want to go out there. It's something fun. Yeah, I need to drive out there. Okay.

We did get new windscreens, and then we got some new shade structures. We're still working on getting shade structures for the very back, and then some of those blue benches. So we're going to, I'll request that money for next year, but we've made a lot of progress. And I mean, this park is so amazing and beautiful. You're putting atoms, but if you just look at the whole area, it's just really cool.

So you said December? Yeah.

January. I was thinking January.

I was thinking like 1999.

We're to the point, and you know it Chris, where we're not going to be able to plant 8 days. We're going to have substantial depletion and it's not going to look great until we actually plant everything. I mean, it's going to look beautiful, but it's cool all the native grass fields and all the landscaping that you installed.

Great. Any other questions? Well, then you're done. What's up? Then you're done. We've got a website going to develop.

We just, this is not official, but we just submitted our CIP to the council, and we'll give you a little follow-up as soon as there's Yeah.

Really did. I was up in Johnson City yesterday, and they were complaining about traffic on one of their busy roads, Billings Creek Road. I drove by there and I saw that traffic and I thought... I said, come on to Murfreesboro. If you want to see traffic, come to Murfreesboro.

Our administrative office is off Thompson Lane.

They're riding Thompson Lane, right? Looks like it.

Right, Mitzi?

Yes.

Ten minutes to get out of there. I didn't realize they were doing that. It's going to be bad. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I guess we'll have to widen that bridge there on the river walk.

So we're doing this back to, this is not related to this commission, but they called last week and said, hey, we're ready to shut down that trailhead, Thompson Lane Trailhead. Our second busiest trailhead. Yeah. So we got to shut down the whole trailhead and send the construction documents in. What's the busiest part here? I would, I mean, Old Fort as a bar field that everyone, I'd say Barfield Road is a really busy one as well. Yeah.

In case the trailhead. So I'm just saying, is Thompson Lane going to be widened all the way to Memorial? That's the plan? And you're thinking that's going to be 2030 before that's all completed? I appreciate everyone being here.

Is there a motion to adjourn? All right. We adjourn. Thanks a lot. Appreciate it.