Archive for "Community"
Senior Services of Wichita
Posted on July 28, 2021 by Ching under Community.
My friend Matt Mayfield, PR Coordinator for Senior Services of Wichita, recently talked to the Andover Rotary Club about the services that the agency provides, the Meals on Wheels program, and their upcoming fundraising events.
I knew about the Meals on Wheels program but I really didn’t know about their other services. And, even though I was aware of the various senior center locations, I really had no idea about all the activities offered to members.
In addition to their well-known Meals on Wheels program and the lesser-known Roving Pantry (grocery delivery service for home-bound seniors 60 and over who cannot shop for themselves and have no one else to shop for them), Senior Services of Wichita offers senior employment assistance, fitness classes, specialized programs like Spanish classes, educational programs like legal and financial advice or help with navigating Medicare, foot care and other health screenings, in-home support services, information and outreach.
Matt’s presentation to our club was quite enlightening in that it opened my eyes to all of the great things that Senior Services of Wichita is doing for older Wichitans. And, on top of that, Matt had the opportunity to promote their upcoming fundraising events to the members of our club – namely their 5K Run and Walk on Sunday, September 12, and Picklepalooza from September 18 to 25. I will be participating in Picklepalooza on Thurday, September 23, as part of the Evergy team. We will have six players: Sarah Pearson, Chris Wilson, Paul Haas, Jeff and Anita Harris, and me. I love pickleball so I’m super excited for this event.
I’m grateful to Matt for coming to speak to our club. I learned a lot and I’m sure the other members did as well. Until next time. GNG.
1 Comment
Making New Friends
Posted on July 23, 2021 by Ching under Community, Hobbies.
|
My morning pickleball play group recently hit an all time high. We broke records this morning when we had enough players for all six courts at Edgemoor. Actually, there were 24 confirmed players and, at one point, we had two more in the waiting list. When I started my early morning play last year, I never imagined that there would be this many people wanting to get up super early to play. I thought I would be lucky to get three others to play with me. Last year we often did get eight players but never in my wildest dreams did I think that I could fill up all six courts at the park. Morning play has not been without its challenges… |
 |
Play last year at Seneca Park went relatively smoothly but this year our group grew to an average of 8-12 players and some of the players at the park didn’t understand. Because we would often run past the 7 AM hour, even though there were empty courts, they felt like they should be able to rotate in. The challenge with that is because we play a ladder or king of court format, we need an even group of players so we can’t just have random people joining and leaving. There has to be a set number of players for a specific period of time.
First, people complained that I was hosting “private” play at our public parks but, honestly, the only reason that it was private was I was mainly only inviting the people who I knew were open to playing that early in the morning. Since people complained about the games being “private,” I decided to open them up to everyone on Playtime Scheduler. But even that wasn’t sufficient. Please were still unhappy that we were playing at the park. Probably because we were having such a good time and they weren’t because they had to wait for games to finish because they didn’t have an even number of people? Who knows?
Anyway, making the play public is when things really exploded. We ended up with an average of 12 players and sometimes 16. This morning, we hit a record-high of 24 (although I did have three no-shows so we really could only fill five of the courts — which worked out because there was a group of ladies that showed up and they needed the remaining court and, had everyone who wanted to play shown up, there would not have been an empty court for these ladies to use).
Since making the games public, I have met so many new people who I have never met or played with before. Y’all know how much I love meeting new people so I’ve just been eating it up. And then sometimes you meet someone so amazing that you just want to be part of their growth.
EXHIBIT A: Tony Mathews (left) with me and Cameron Tucker and Tyler Smith (in the matching shirts)
This picture was taken at the Wichita Metro Crime Commission benefit tournament at Chicken N Pickle last Sunday, July 18. I had only met Tony a couple of days before but the morning that we met was the same day that I found out from Erica that she couldn’t play with me in the tournament. Tony just happened to be at the right place at the right time and I had a lot of fun playing with him that morning, so I invited him to play in Erica’s place and, as luck would have it, he just happened to be available. It turned out to be a good thing too because he raise way more money for our team than I did.
Anyway, Tony is going to be amazing. He’s only been playing pickleball for two months and he is already really good. It won’t take much to get him to the highest level. I expect his progress to be a lot like Meredith’s, where she basically learned to play the game and within months was competing with highly skilled players.
I’m going to get on Tony’s good side now so that, when he hits the big time, I can say I knew him when. LOL.
On Monday morning, I had the opportunity to meet and play with a young man from Hutchinson, Kansas named Bo Tolbert. This guy is amazing and so much fun to play with. He was looking at getting some pickleball instructor certifications but most of the programs require you to be 21 or over so he can’t do it until next year.
This kid is going to be on his way up, too. He’s a great player now and I can tell that he’s still growing and has the potential to get even better.
Now that I’ve been playing pickleball for a couple of years, I’ve met all sorts of people — all ages, genders, race, people from various backgrounds. I’ve been people who have been playing a long time and others who have only recently picked up the game. I’ve met a lot of players who started playing and immediately got really good (Cody and Meredith) and others who have taken some time to develop their game and others who are still at the same skill level as when I met them a couple of years ago (and there’s nothing wrong with that — some people are content to play with their same play groups and don’t desire to play in tournaments so once they get to a certain level there is no longer that same need or drive to improve).
I am particularly enviously of people who pick up the sport and are instantly amazing at it (ex-tennis players and other really athletic people whose previous sports backgrounds translate well to pickleball) because my progress has been long and arduous and slow as molasses. However, I try to remind myself that it’s not a race. Some people will get there first and some people get there later but, if the desire is there, they do get there eventually. I think the key is to continue to make progress and I feel like that’s what I’m doing. Every day that I play I feel like I am better than the time before. I may not be exponentially better but even the slightest bit of improvement is progress.
So anyway, I’m just going to keep on truckin’ and eventually maybe I’ll wake up and all of a sudden I’m awesome. Ha! Not likely to happen but that won’t stop me from trying. Until next time, GNG.
1 Comment
Picklemania MMXXI
Posted on July 1, 2021 by Ching under Community, Events, Hobbies.
My Rotary club held our first pickleball fundraising tournament a couple of weeks ago at Terradyne Country Club and it was a huge success. We had a goal of 64 players (32 teams) and we actually had 70 players sign up.
Here are some pictures from the tournament.
We had eight courts for the tournament so we had two brackets going in the morning and also two brackets in the afternoon. In the morning, we had a competitive bracket and also an all women’s bracket.
I loved how some of the ladies wore matching outfits like Michelle Pease and Lesli Toubassi (aka Tou Pease in a Pod).
Karen Fox and Jody Vinson (aka Drop It Like It’s Hot) won the women’s bracket.
As you can tell, we love our Electrum paddles.
After a long championship battle against Kim Knotts and Chris Heck (aka FSU) that ran all the way past lunch, Lori and Dave Belew (aka Notorious D.I.N.K.) won the competitive bracket in the morning.
My friend Erica and I won our bracket in the afternoon, which felt a little silly to me. I think I won’t play in the future. Mostly I signed up because I wasn’t sure if we could get enough players.
Erica and I wore our matching BIA shoes for Steve. LOL.
Mike Ellison and Adam Korfhage (aka Mike and Adam) won the all men’s doubles bracket in the afternoon.
I am so grateful to everyone who played, volunteered, and came out to support our event. I’m look forward to making this an annual fundraising event for our club.
No Comments
Rotary Luncheons are Back
Posted on June 23, 2021 by Ching under Community.
It’s so great to have our in-person Rotary meetings again. The past year has been a real challenge. It was difficult to engage club members without meeting on a regular basis. I hope with regular programming, everyone will start coming back.
Last week we had a great presentation from Jenny Shipman with the Alzheimer’s Association. She shared information about the diseases and helpful tips on how we can reduce our risk. While no one is immune from aging, there are several things we can do now like exercising, eating well, being social, and stimulating our minds by learning new things and doing brain puzzles.
We have several great speakers visiting our club over the next couple of months. I’m hoping that we will start to see our members at the meetings again. Here’s to a great Rotary year.
No Comments
Wichita Pickleball Now Has an Official Website
Posted on May 3, 2021 by Ching under Community, Hobbies.
Meet Bill Mitchell. The man who inspired the new ictpickleball.com website.
I met Bill while checking out McAdams Recreation Center a couple of weeks ago. As with all the new people I meet, I encouraged him to join the Wichita Pickleball Facebook group to connect with other pickleball players in the area. There’s only one problem. He doesn’t have a Facebook account. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this response. A lot of people these days are not Facebook. It got me thinking, how do we reach people who, like Bill Mitchell, are not on Facebook?
I came to one logical conclusion: we needed a website. And so ictpickleball.com was born. I had a couple of hours to spare and unused hosting space on brubakers.us so I made a simple website using WordPress. I purchased the ictpickleball.com domain from Go Daddy for less than $20 and then just forwarded the domain to the new WordPress site on my existing host.
Along with this, I also started an email list for those who want to stay informed. So now people who do not have Facebook accounts will have a way to keep up with what’s happening in our pickleball community without having to become part of the Wichita Pickleball Facebook group.
I don’t know why it took me a couple of years to do this. I think mostly I was too busy before and only recently had time to really think about things. Anyway, it’s live now and I hope that people find it useful.
No Comments
