Manson Park to give online booking a try

MANSON – The Manson Park and Recreation board unanimously voted to authorize Director Robin Pittman to negotiate a purchase agreement for Leffler Field’s acquisition.

“It has been interesting to see how this has come about to get to this point,” said chair Rob Campbell during the March 14 meeting. He suggested to look carefully at the timing of the project and to ask questions, “maybe we can use the money for matching funds of an RCO Grant,” he said.  Campbell shared how surprised he was on the outcome of priorities from the community during the public forum on March 6. “After hearing what terrible shape our playground at Singleton is in, it was the number one voted to get it repaired,” he said. The development of Leffler Field came in last, which to Campbell is good since he mentioned the Park District currently has a lot of issues to address.

Pittman informed the board that so far 29 kids have registered for the ice skating event Manson Park is holding at Town Toyota Center. In terms of chaperones, they have a handful ready to go. “We are doing really good on chaperones which is usually a hard one to find,” said Pittman.

She also mentioned that the district was approached by RoverPass, a company that manages campground reservations. “Basically they would set up a system where we would put up a little button on our website saying ‘Reserve Now’,” said Pittman. If the customer decides to reserve online, RoverPass would charge them a $6 fee she explained. Park wouldn’t need to enter a contract and they would open up the possibility to online booking. “It gives us a lot of flexibility and we still have admin stuff on our side we still have to input, but we are not spending 15 minutes on the phone with a costumer,” she said.

Commissioner Tyler Quigley, showed support to giving online booking a try “sounds like a good idea specially if takes a load of your back,” he said. Park has been looking into adding online reservations to their system  but that would take changing the whole website said Pittman. “Try it for a year and see how it works out,” said Campbell. The rest of commissioners also said to give RoverPass a try.

The next Park meeting is scheduled for April 11, at 4:10 p.m. 142 Pedoi Street in Manson.