Wrangell is home to a passionate community of outdoor leaders and Parks and Recreation professionals, who are committed to uniting the town by developing public programs and maintaining public spaces. This fall, the parks and recreation department will pool its knowledge with other departments statewide to improve services across Alaska.
In September, representatives from municipalities around the state will visit Wrangell for the annual Alaska Recreation and Park Association conference — an opportunity for the state’s recreation departments to network, share their knowledge and keep abreast of the latest industry trends.
The event, which rotates through Alaska communities, has been held in Homer, Soldotna, Valdez, Fairbanks and others in past years. It hasn’t visited Southeast since 2016, when Petersburg welcomed conference attendees to their community. After Wrangell Parks and Recreation submitted a successful application to the statewide association, the borough was chosen to host the conference for two consecutive years, in the fall of 2023 and 2024.
The conference will start Sept. 19 and will last from two to three days, depending on how many events are scheduled. It will feature lectures, inspirational talks, workshops and possibly a weekend certification course. It will be open to students free of charge, with a day rate for adult attendees.
Wrangell’s current and future Parks and Recreation directors, Kate Thomas and Lucy Robinson, have already begun reaching out to speakers, securing facilities, and arranging lodging for the conference’s estimated 60 attendees.
This year’s theme is “the future is now,” which Thomas hopes will reflect modern trends in the industry and facilitate a conversation about how to more effectively engage with youth. One example of a modern trend, she explained, is e-sports. During the severest years of the pandemic, when the majority of public spaces were shut down and schools moved online, adolescents turned to technology for entertainment.
“That has been very difficult for the industry to contend with, when you consider your blanket staple programming like basketball, summer camps, etcetera,” she said. “Kids just aren’t enrolling in those types of programs at the rates we saw pre-pandemic. How do you get kids out of their houses … for that camaraderie and relationship-building?”
She hopes to invite an expert on e-sports to run an interactive mock tournament for community members. “We have to meet kids where they’re at,” she said. “It’s much healthier for kids to be in a community space … than isolating themselves at home.”
Thomas, who will take over as the borough’s Economic Development Director this spring, is also looking at the conference from an economic development perspective.
“It’s going to give us a sense of what our needs are in terms of hospitality and accommodation,” she said. “There is a lot of opportunity for small-scale retreats, seminars, conferences … where people want to get out and see places, whether they’re in the corporate world, the professional world, health care.” She hopes to collaborate with local tour operators and business owners on the event’s marketing and outreach to maximize the economic boost from conference attendees.
“We’re hoping to engage the community, we want to work with the city and borough, engaging all of the department heads to see how they can play a role, as well as accessing restaurants, engaging retailers, and just saying, ‘hey, we’ve got this happening, is there anything you want to do,’” Robinson added.
Also, since Wrangell will host the conference for two consecutive years, the event will provide the parks department and borough with the opportunity to “really refine how we go about facilitating something like this,” Thomas said. The department plans to “knock it out of the park, twice.”
Though the event is geared toward a niche audience of industry professionals, Thomas encouraged students and career-driven community members to consider attending. The seminars and workshops could be useful for “youth and budding professionals who are trying to figure out what they want to do,” she said.
Educators, people passionate about recreation, and administrators who want to stay up-to-date on their field’s best practices could also glean useful insights from the event.
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