Agenda - Parks and Recreation Commission - 01/09/2020

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BACKGROUND A general questionnaire was created to determine the types of recreation programs community members would like to see the City of Ramsey offer. The survey was administered via the online website SurveyMonkey and was posted on the City website on the park events page. A total of 57 respondents completed the questionnaire between March and November 2017, with a majority of responses collected in March 2017. This response rate is approximately 3% of the total program participants in 2017. Although the results can be useful in planning the future of recreation programs in Ramsey, it must be taken into account that this data is not representative of the population as a whole. Since the questionnaire was posted on the park events webpage, most respondents were likely previous participants or those that had visited the website to learn about current offerings. All questionnaires were anonymous to aid in yielding honest responses. The first portion of this report shows results for multiple choice questions, with the second portion being the open-ended question, "What would you like to see the City offer in terms of recreation programs?" Respondents were required to answer all 10 questions in the recreation opportunities survey and the open- ended question was also required for all post -event questionnaires. When analyzing the open-ended question, key words where counted to determine the weight respondents put on various areas. The top ten recurring words were: yoga (23), kids (16), parks (14), fitness (12), outdoors (10), sports (10), activities (8), classes (8), art (8), and community (7). Results are visualized on the cover page, with larger words having greater weight. While this shouldn't be a means to determine what to offer, it does provide insight into what people are looking for the City to offer. Q1: To what extent have you learned about the City of Ramsey's new recreation offerings? A tremendous amount Quite a bit A little bit Not at all 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% With a majority of respondents completing the questionnaire in March 2017 (just two months after light programming began), it seems reasonable that just over 35% had learning "nothing at all" regarding recreation offerings, while 12% had learned "a tremendous amount." In the future, it would be beneficial to determine which outlets people have learned about City offerings as well as their preferred outlets (i.e. Facebook, emails, Ramsey Resident, mailings, etc.). Staff could also benefit to see how this data changes over time, especially following various marketing initiatives or special events.