Council questions soccer camp fees and procedures

Nevada Daily Mail

For the last two years the city has partnered with Challenger Sports to bring a British soccer coach to town to hold a one-week soccer camp for area youth.

The Nevada Parks Department has been planning to hold the event this summer for the third year; however, questions from the city council have put that event on hold until they decide on its future.

Councilman Russ Kemm questioned whether the event, which charges soccer players to participate, should be allowed to use city facilities without charging them a percentage of their fees, just like organizations are charged to hold baseball and softball tournaments as fund-raising events on city fields.

Kemm said that it is a question of treating everyone the same.

Parks and recreation director Carol Branham told the parks board Wednesday that the city currently charges organizations 20 percent of the entry fees from teams plus the cost of lights to use city ball fields. The city charges $10 per hour for lights at Lyon Stadium and $5 per hour at Bushwhacker Field.

Branham told the parks board that they want to be consistent.

She told the board that she is in the process of getting more information from Challenger Sports about the program and that they are aware that holding the camp here depends on what the city council decides.

"We are actually asking them to come in and run the program for us," Branham told the park board.

She said that Neosho and Joplin have also held these camps.

"To my knowledge they don't charge them a percentage of their fees to hold the camps," she said in response to a question from Brianne Fulton.

Challenger Sports brings in the coach and pays the coach, who stays with a local host family, Branham said.

Challenger Sports has three levels of charges for camp participants based on their age: the one-hour camp, $50; the two-hour camp, $70 and the three-hour camp, $88. In addition to the one week of instruction, participants receive a soccer ball and a soccer jersey.

Branham told the board that, in 2004, Challenger Sports collected $800 in fees and if they had been charged 20 percent that would have netted the city $160. In 2005, she said, attendance was down and the total collected was $650. A 20-percent charge would have brought in $130.

"We probably couldn't hire someone to do the camp for that amount," she said.

They use no lighting, just the soccer field at Walton Park, which is not being used for any other program at that time.

"In addition to soccer instruction it allows us to expose kids and the community to people from another culture," she said.

The parks board also voted to approve a request from the Nevada Neptunes to use Walton Pool for their swim team practice three days a week and to hold two dual swim meets there; one with Lamar and the second with Fort Scott. The Neptunes do not pay the city for the use of the pool; however, they do pay for the lifeguards.

"The swim team has been a part of local recreational programming since 1979, when it was first organized through the park department with Rusty Gordon as coach," Branham said.

The parks board also approved the Osage Prairie YMCA holding their annual Camp Osage at Marmaduke Park, July 10-August 4. The camp runs Monday through Friday and they will be using the area around the north shelter in the park. Branham said that the program works closely with the park department and if there is a need for the entire park for some event during that time they work around that need.

Branham told the board that Walton Aquatic Center will open for the summer on May 27.

She also told the board that they fill the pool slowly at night, during off-peak water usage times.