Tybee Breeze

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The City of Tybee Island gives the YMCA the opportunity to breathe
some new Life into the Tybee Gymnasium
At the Tybee City Council meeting Thursday, February 22, 2007, City
council voted in a change of the contract between the YMCA and the
City of Tybee Island. The new contract basically defines a new
direction for the two entities wherein lies a collaboration that should
help in solving some of the problems that have been daunting both
parties for some time now. For the City, this new deal will not only help
to offset some of the financial burden of staffing and maintaining their
somewhat controversial yet beautiful new Solomons/Youmans
Complex, it promises to make better use of the facility to the entire
community. By allowing the YMCA to use the facility, the Gym will be
staffed by YMCA employees and will therefore reflect the same
hours of operation as the YMCA. When the Contract goes into effect
sometime within the next month, the gym will be open to the public
from 5:30 in the morning until 9:00 pm, as opposed to the 10:00am to
6pm weekday hours for the last two years. For the Tybee Island
YMCA, it is a dream finally come true. To finally have the use of a real
indoor sports facility, will make a big difference in what the YMCA will
be able to offer to it’s members and residents. The YMCA will now
have the opportunity to offer more Youth Sports and Seniors
programs than ever before, and for the first time in a safe, and clean,
climate-controlled environment.
Embracing the concept of a special relationship to better the
community and the lives of its citizens is nothing new to the City of
Tybee or to the YMCA of Coastal Georgia. For it was a very unique
and special relationship between the two from the very beginning that
made it possible for the City of Tybee to have the YMCA come in as
a ready-made recreational department for the city. A deal was struck,
and a contract was drawn up that allowed The City of Tybee to help
supplement the cost of bringing a chapter of the YMCA to a
community as small as Tybee Island. By helping to offset the
expenses of what it would cost to bring in the YMCA as the City’s
Recreation Department, the contract laid out a plan where the City
would help supplement the costs associated with such a venture. By
supplying the YMCA with a building, and providing various
community facilities needed for the many programs the YMCA has
Tybee Breeze
to offer, and sharing in the salary of the Director to run the programs,
the City is able to provide the community everything the YMCA has to
offer for a fraction of the cost. For the YMCA of Coastal Georgia, for
whom without the support of the city, they logistically would never had
been able to justify the cost of coming to a community as small as
ours. While on the other hand, it would have cost the City of Tybee a
fortune to supply the many sports, fitness and childcare programs
that the YMCA has been able to provide to the children, families and
seniors of our community.
To create such a unique and beneficial relationship between both the
City of Tybee and the YMCA was a brilliant move from the very
beginning. Many residents are unaware of how fortunate we are to
have had all of the benefits that the YMCA has provided as the
recreational department for the City of Tybee over the past 9 years. A
cost analysis was made a few years ago that calculated what it would
have cost the city of Tybee to have all the programs that the YMCA
has provided since becoming the City’s rec. department, and the
figure to date would be in the millions. It is a staggering figure when you
take into account how much it would have cost to create and run a
community recreation department, fitness center and all of the
childcare programs available to the residents as members of the
Tybee YMCA. The YMCA combined with the city has provided
invaluable programs such as day care, after school Fun Club,
summer camp programs and the teen center for years. The YMCA
hires all their own staff including instructors needed for the many
fitness programs such as yoga, palates, aerobics, senior aerobics,
water aerobics, personal fitness trainers, boot camp instructor, and is
responsible for providing and training the Coaches for all the seasonal
sports programs and camps for basketball, soccer, gymnastics,
basketball, surfing, volleyball, and baseball, as well hiring the swim
instructor, swim team coach, and childcare workers.
It could be said that the brand new contract between the City and the
Tybee YMCA is a direct result of some concerned citizens on the
Board of Directors of the YMCA who voiced their concerns last year
about what they felt was a decline in the relationship between the City
and the YMCA over the past few years. As members of the Board of
Directors before and after the building of the new gym, they had been
involved with the decisions as to what to do with and where to move
many of the YMCA programs when the hopes of using the new gym
fell through and the Y was no longer able to have use of the old
cafeteria. But being residents of Tybee as well, they were also aware
of the burden that was put upon the city to try to make the new facility
as profitable as possible. And like many other citizens, they remained
patient while the City attempted to turn the new facility into a profitable
venture. All the while, with the City busy trying to offset the expenses of
their new facility by hiring a new Director and staff their new gym, and
possibly creating some new community programs while also