The Staunton Parks and Recreation Department will be releasing their Winter 2012 Program Brochure on Saturday, December 10th, 2011.   The interactive version of the brochure can be viewed on the award-winning “Revolution” website at http://www.stauntonparksandrecreationrevolution.com or you can log on to http://www.staunton.va.us/recreation to view a straight pdf version of the brochure  on the City’s website. We will begin taking program registrations on Monday, December 12, 2011 at the administration offices in Montgomery Hall Park. The print version should be delivered via direct mail to all Staunton residences and Stars (current customers) by December 16th.

This brochure is a continuation of our trend setting ways.  The visual appeal, the quality and quantity of programs, instructor expertise, continuity between brochures and theme development maintains the high standard previously established by our department. This is an incredible amount of information organized in a systematic and attention grabbing fashion. The goal of the brochure is to inform all of our City residents about parks and program offerings available, with the end game of converting interest into a call to action. This call to action is also know as program registration or in broader terms, customer acquisition. In the conversion process we use the table of contents, program titles, program descriptions and photos to build interest and deepen the readers desire to participate.

What’s new?  The department brochure has a theme whether subtle or overt.  Themeing a brochure beyond season or time of year is something invented by our small department but is now mimicked by much larger departments. Trailblazers and risk-takers we are.  For this brochure, we tapped into another of our unique selling propositions.  For those unfamiliar with the term “unique selling proposition” these are the aspects of your product or service that are deemed better or what makes you different or stand out from your competition. Upon viewing the brochure cover (winter booklet), inside photos and special content, it won’t be hard to figure out the theme or feature of this brochure.  Athletics – of our anchor programs, athletics is the program area that continues to grow.  In considering all the Staunton Recreation programs versus our competition, our athletic league offerings have grown from 4 leagues in 2002 to 23 leagues today and overwhelmingly exceeds the offerings of our competition.

To accommodate for the incredible amount of information about our leagues, athletic facilities and outdoor spaces, a 24- page layout was in order. This 24- page document includes a spotlight on veteran employees who have worked over 25 years with our department, specifically in adult and children’s athletics.  We have included a “Did you know” aspect to this brochure to impart knowledge of past large capital expenditures on athletic facilities and outdoor spaces as well as the broad scope of services our department offers with respect to promoting healthy active living in Staunton.  Located on page 20 of the brochure listed under the “community centers” section, is a table of year-round athletic offerings with league fees, roster deadlines and roster limits.   This showcases in an organized way, the 23 leagues and when they are offered by our department.  One of the coolest things in this brochure is Montgomery Hall (MHP_Final_85x11_ls_400) and Gypsy Hill Park (GHP_Final_85x11_ls_400) maps.  They are actually perforated so the reader can pull them out for immediate referral or save for posterity.  Having accurate maps has been an ongoing request from our community and we finally had the means to satisfy  this need.   The maps and the year-round league table are “keepers”.

Though the brochure is produced by the Staunton Parks and Recreation Department as a whole, the focus of the brochure is 95% on the recreation division. This marketing piece is what all other aspects of our marketing and web 2.0 leverage. The community programs contained within the brochure are our estimation of trends, our agenda of promoting a healthy balanced person, expressed community interests and is a reflection of our diverse community. The brochure is the recreation division’s Holy Grail while the website (both of them) features both the parks division as well as the recreation division. In the world of parks and recreation, the department brochure is the single best way to communicate the department’s image and message to the community. Hence full throttle on the staff energy and effort.

We hope to make Stauntonian’s proud of their parks and places.  The brochure is so far beyond what even much large recreation departments produce that it is a sure fire bragging right.  Through this department brochure we encourage our community to get active, involved and stay healthy by offering affordable interesting programs that develop the whole person.  Let’s Make Staunton Great!

The brochure hard copies will be direct mailed to all Staunton residences after December 12th. They can also be picked up Friday, December 9th at all area libraries, Staunton City Hall, Montgomery Hall Park, Gypsy Hill Park Pool, and most area coffee shops.

A special shout out to James Corbett, the Athletics Specialist, who with the help of great facilities, staff support and marketing, has developed unprecedented athletic league offerings for a community population of 25,000 or less.

This Staunton “Parks and Recreation Blog” was posted by Jennifer Jones, Superintendent of Recreation.

To find us quickly on Google, try typing any of these relative expressions into your search engine; parks and recreation + “parks and recreation blog” [:parksandrecreation/.*] [:staunton/.*]

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