Advocating for Pickleball

By June 23, 2019 Announcements

Pickleball Enthusiasts,

This past Tuesday evening thirty-three of us (with our paddles!) attended a routine committee meeting of the Parks, Recreation and Greenways Committee. During this session we were introduced to the new Director of the CH Parks and Recreation Department, Mr Phillip Fleischmann.

At the meeting, we were also given the opportunity to speak for ten minutes before the commission and Mr Fleischmann in support of the expansion of pickleball in Chapel Hill. Brad stood and spoke for all of us at this meeting. The rest of us spoke with silent eloquence with our presence, our enthusiasm and our paddles. For your review Brad’s presentation notes are attached below as a PDF file.

A big Thank You to those who showed up at this meeting to advocate for and to represent the interests of all of us who want see pickleball facilities expanded in Chapel Hill. As our numbers increase so must our play opportunities. But budget money is tight and there are many demands for limited resources. There will be future Parks and Recreation meetings requiring still more of us to show up and to stand up for our pickleball passion. Our numbers at these meetings is critical as highly visible advocates for our sport. Commission members are especially attentive to and appreciative of groups such as ours who organize and present with clarity, conviction and the data-driven confidence inspired by our rapidly growing game.

So, if you love pickleball please consider volunteering as an advocate in the future for upcoming public meetings when we’ll need additional expressions of our group’s growth, solidarity and support on behalf of the game. If we each give a little, we all gain a lot.

See you on the courts.

JB Marr
Brand Hemminger
USAPA Ambassadors

Leave a Reply