AN ASSOCIATION REPORT

The members may be interested in a report made by Arthur L. Schultz, Executive Vice President before the National Council of the National Recreation and Park Association meeting in Washington, D.C. on March 6 and 7.

Inasmuch as this was the first meeting of the Council at which the Association was represented, Mr. Schultz asserted that the Illinois Association of Park Districts was organized in 1928 as a corporate membership body to support the park district movement in Illinois which first began with legislation passed on February 8, 1869. Although the dominant role of the Association has been fostering park districts, in recent years its interest has broadened to cover recreation and conservation.

In addition to park districts, its membership includes cities and villages, forest preserve and conservation districts. There is an Associate Member classification for commercial firms and businesses interested in the public support leisure. The Association has headquarters in Springfield, Illinois, with a full time staff of four persons plus legal and legislative counsel.

WASHINGTON—Park and recreation problems, issues and goals were discussed here March 6-7 at a meeting of the National Council and the Council of State Presidents of the National Recreation and Park Association, the largest private, non-profit service and education organization in its field. Conferring with Dr. Sal J. Prezioso (center), NRPA president, are Joseph Bannon, Chief, Office of Recreation and Park Resources, University of Illinois; John E. Lindberg, Director, Parks & Recreation, Skokie, Illinois; Arthur L. Schultz, Executive Vice President of the Illinois Association of Park Districts; and Charles Pezcoldt, President of the Illinois Recreation and Parks Association.

It has been referred to as a "board-member" organization. Individuals participate in association affairs upon being delegated by the member corporation, and due to the large number of districts without professional aides, the percentage of participating board members is large. Nevertheless, the interest of the Association is in all areas of management—legal, finance, planning, personnel, public relations, et cetera.

In Illinois there are approximately 1,250 cities and villages of which some 170 levy taxes for parks, playgrounds and related recreation activities. There are now 260 park districts that may have boundaries encompassing more than one city or village. Of these municipalities there are approximately 1,000 board members, attorneys, executives, and other management personnel active in the Association program.

Accomplishments

The most outstanding accomplishment of the Association is its legislative leadership that has produced the Park District Code. The need for cohensiveness and effective communication to support a continuous legislative effort has opened the door to other program possibilities as by-products.

As an outcome of the legislative program there has emerged a board-member education program. This too expands into a program of education for attorneys, accountants, and other management officers of the park district. This has led to the development of certain publications, consultation services, and other objectives of common interest.

Most recent of some of these common interest projects include a Group

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Insurance program; the creation of a Foundation to receive voluntary gifts; and an institutional public relations campaign in anticipation of our Constitutional Convention which is now in session.

Ongoing Programs

The above outline of our accomplishments suggest what our program includes. Some of the more routine activities are:

Publications—Illinois Parks, bi-monthly, 36 page printed magazine; newsletters monthly; and manuals and brochures as needed.

Meetings—Committees are organized for common goals and to plan concerted action. There are a number of seminars or training meetings offered as needed. An Annual Conference is conducted jointly with the Illinois Parks and Recreation Society, our state professional organization.

Consultation—Consultation on a wide assortment of problems is facilitated through the Association staff and headquarters.

Public Relations—As deemed necessary public relations activities are conducted by the Association either through offices of counsel or with force labor, or a combination of both. Complete press mailing lists are maintained, releases periodically distributed, and good liaison is maintained with all media.

Liaison—The Association staff maintains contact with state government, and those Federal agencies actively serving parks, recreation and conservation in Illinois. There are also links with other public, and semi-public lobbies that may have a concern for the leisure resources of the state.

Surveys—The questionnaire type survey and others are an ongoing part of our program covering all aspects of park management. Presently there is in the design stage a survey of law enforcement in parks and recreation areas.

Honors and Awards—The usual program of citation for merit and con tribution to the field.

Compendium—Files and statistics are kept for public relations, consultation, and research purposes. Coverage is again for a wide assortment of data on parks, recreation, conservation, and public administration.

Placement—The Association maintains a file of both districts looking for individuals to fill vacancies plus qualified persons looking for job openings. A column is also run each month in Illinois Parks for job opportunities.

Problems

It may seem that the older and stronger an Association gets, the fewer its problems. Actually the reverse seems more factual, with our problems spiraling as we grow. Perhaps that's another corollary of Parkinson's Law! To be brief some of our problems are sketched as follows:

1. New Growth. Although we are adding on the average one (1) new park district a month, we are still a long way from covering our market as the statistics cited bear out. Part of this reason is that the new units being formed are usually small, and while the number is a significant increase, actual geographical coverage is not yet large enough. In a number of cases, the area of the district as defined by its boundaries is not only too small, but its resources in terms of taxable assessed valuation is too small to do an effective job.

2. Opposition. These conditions are due to certain organized forces that oppose us either to save money, to use the land for other purposes, or for other reasons. The opposition must be met in the legislature where even though we on many occasions have been shown much favoritism, there are instances where we collide with the farmers', the manufacturers' or the utilities' lobbies. Another center of opposition is the

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Association Report

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local polling place where park district referenda determines the future of a program. While the character of the opposition varies, the issues are often the same: money, land-use and perhaps competition from another agency.

3. Efficiency in Community Supported Recreation. We cite this as a problem because there is competition between agencies viz. the private vs. private (or voluntary) ; between public and public (tax supported); and between the voluntary and the public.

The YMCA has its supporters but many of our park districts would not have zoos, museums, horticultural features, and other attractions without assistance from private donors. The campaign for funds, the struggle for the audience of a medium size city, can become a very wasteful competitive effort unless good community planning is exercised. With the termination of the war, the leisure field will attract much exploitation and measures should be taken now to prevent wasteful competition.

4. Areawide Planning vs. Home-Rule. With the very rapid development of suburban areas surrounding central cities, good planning demands a plan for the Metropolitan Area. Good recreation programming calls for a high degree of local self-direction or home-rule. This problem is how to achieve good areawide planning and yet retain all of the values of home-rule, and at the same time develop a plan in a period of time to permit practical' development.

Recommendations

These recommendations are not intended to be direct solutions to the above problems. But it is the writer's belief that if some of these suggestions can ultimately characterize our movement, the solutions to the problems will arise.

Recommendation 1—That on all levels of our movement we advance our cause with more aggressive spirit and less modesty, or sense of guilt, because it is play, recreation or community amenities that we offer. We need a bolder and "more punchy" attitude toward our purpose.

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Recommendation 2—Our present national movement was the outcome of many mergers. As a result we still speak with different accents and viewpoints. We desperately need a greater central tendency in our idealogy if our message is to carry a sufficient impact.

Recommendation 3—We must not be bound by our old idealogies when our communities desparately need innovation and new programs. Today the environmental problems are as urgent as problems of juvenile delinquency were forty years ago. Are we prepared for both?

We must keep "ahead of the fleet"; we must lead rather than "govern by complaint"; we must advance the new idea, the new proposal before the professional reformers have a chance to think of it!

Recommendation 4—The foregoing calls for creative, talented personnel, capable of reversing the field, fast on its feet; able to read, comprehend and communicate fluently. This calls for better recruitment, and rigorous examination and reevaluation of our training institutions.

Recommendation 5—As urgent as the need for talented personnel, is the need for a vast expansion and upgrading of our public relations — local, state and national.

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