Interlaken rec suffers from lack of volunteers
Council looks at creating event-planning budget
Interlaken’s recreation committee is in danger of cutting down on its events in 2013 due to a lack of volunteers, despite a successful slate of events in 2012.
Committee liaison to the borough council Thomas Morley told the borough council of the committee’s issues at Interlaken’s borough council meeting on Wednesday, Dec. 5.
“We had six or seven people sign up [to volunteer] for the recreation committee this year and four of them never showed up,” Morley said. “So what’re you going to do? If that’s the situation and we find out we don’t have the people we need, we’ll have to cut some programs.”
Programs the recreation committee currently runs include the easter egg hunt, the borough picnic, the 5k run, an Interlaken house tour, and the Halloween parade.
One possible solution is to give the recreation committee a budget with which to hire event planners, Morley suggested.
The recreation committee currently is not included in the budget, although it was given a budget of $3,000 between 2010 and 2011 to assist with the borough picnic, Borough Administrator Dawn McDonald said. Otherwise, the committee receives no funding from the borough.
“Through the years there were the old-timers who stood up and said ‘I’ll do it,’ and did it,” said Councilman Lynn Parry Jr. “If the challenge is that we don’t have someone who’ll stand up and do it, then we should see what’s available and what’s affordable.”
Interlaken used to share events with Allenhurst and Loch Arbour, Council President Keith Miller said. The areas would rotate events so that the same group of people wasn’t required to plan everything.
But the arrangement didn’t always go smoothly, and ultimately Allenhurst’s borough hall said they didn’t want to rotate events anymore, said Councilman Corey Folta.
“You can’t count on Allenhurst, they have their own town and events to run. We’d love to coordinate events, but if it doesn’t work out we can’t count on them,” said Councilman Parry.
Mayor Michael Nohilly said the council would look at every option. The future of the recreation committee will be discussed at the Dec. 19 borough council meeting, at 7:30 p.m. in borough hall.
