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Recreation centers provide the perfect setting for families and friends to meet and have fun. They also provide individual benefits, like promoting an active lifestyle and enhancing mental health.

However, for your recreation center to be successful, it is important to create one that the local community will want to visit. What are some of the best ways to ensure you are creating a space that provides the benefits your community is looking for?

 

Talk to the Community

The first step is understanding your community’s needs. This will help you identify gaps, which you can use to create goals and strategies to fill them. One of the best ways to know what your community wants is simply to talk to the people. Meet people where they gather, such as places of worship and schools, to sell your vision. Another method is to conduct surveys. Ask community members to give their suggestions and input to help you improve your vision. Additionally, talk to local government, business and community leaders to draw support and help you sell your vision.

Study the Demographic

In addition to speaking with your community, it is important to take a hard look at the demography of the area and their preferences. Since it can be difficult to talk to every member of the community, this can help you determine the features that most people will likely want in the recreation center. After this study, you might decide to have:

• Picnic areas – If your community has social clubs, sports groups and families, a picnic area would be ideal to offer a lovely place to gather and dine together. This would call for aesthetically pleasing and comfortable benches and picnic tables, park grills and trash receptacles.
• Playgrounds, gym areas and sports fields – If there is a need to attract families and corporations, playgrounds, gym areas and sports fields can be great for both family fun and team-building activities.
• Dog areas – Are dog owners common in your community? They might want a recreation center that they can visit with their dogs. A dog area may feature climbers, hoops, tunnels, trash receptacles and more.

One of the best ways to improve a business is to look at what the competitors are doing. Likewise, finding out what other recreation centers in the community are offering can shed some light on what the community wants.

Keep Improving

If you are to consistently offer what your community wants, your best strategy is to keep track of the community’s changing needs. Focus on collecting data on your programming and event offerings, as well as tracking activities and visitors’ feedback.

With updated data, you can tell which programs and activities are popular so you can capitalize on them. Additionally, feedback from users can reveal weaknesses that can be improved upon.

Recreation centers can bring health and economic benefits to a community. But, you will want to make sure it is what the community genuinely wants. Talking to the community, looking at the demographics and studying other centers can provide insights on what the people want. Additionally, striving to keep improving and maintaining the center is crucial in constantly delivering what the community wants.

Nicole Crawford is a Freelance Writer.