Recreation Coordinator report - July 2008
We had our 2nd annual 3 on 3 tournament in Hampden. This has been a co-venturewith the Hampden Recreation Department. This year the turn-out was not as expected going by last years success. The teams that did sign up faught hard and the championship game ended up between Hermon and Islesboro. Islesboro proved to strong in the end and took the championship trophy. Next year I may have one division covering all high school grades and add an adult division. The idea of doing the event next year and promote it as a fundraiser for a charity has crossed my mind, advertise it through a local or statewide radio station. These ideas may bring more teams. I only wish that we had more basketball courts here in Winterport.

This was the first year that the department has offered a camp for the kids of our town. I took a weeks vacation to run this camp and after doing it have decided that it would be the first annual Winterport Basketball Camp. I thoroughly enjoyed the week and by the feed back from the kids and parents that the campers did also. I made the decision to run the camp all day from 7:30-5pm, this way any parents that worked had a way in which their child could participate. I also only charged 25 dollars for the entire week drawing in children and helping parents out in not having to pay the high cost of day care. There were 25 campers that initially signed up, the week was a blast. The days were long, I enlisted the help of two of our older young adults, both are assured to be playing at the highest levels in basketball in this up coming school year at Hampden Academy. I would like to thank both Abby Sherburne and my son Jon Lester in their assistance, without it the camp would not have been possible. The kids really looked up to there help and it was evident that both the campers and these two enjoyed their time together. I will be putting a photo album on the departments web page.

By running this camp and seeing the success that came from it, I will make sure to look into maybe a soccer camp also next year.

Recreation Coordinator
Dave Lester