City moves parks and recreation registration to Web

Newport Beach, Calif., residents are surfing indoors since the city’s Recreation Division launched an online registration system for community recreation activities. The system has saved time for residents and city employees.

Encompassing more than 300 acres of parks and beaches and serving a community of 74,000, the Recreation Division offers a full program of youth and adult sports and special community events. It also offers lessons in swimming, cooking, karate, dance, aerobics, dog obedience, tennis, yoga, pottery, quilting, sewing, music and gymnastics. “For supporting a small community, we offer a recreation program that is pretty diverse and comprehensive,” says Andrea McGuire, senior recreation manager.

Prior to providing Internet registration, the division handled registration for all of its activities in person or via touch-tone phone, fax or mail. While those methods worked well, the division looked for ways to use the Internet as another registration tool.

“Newport Beach is an educated, upscale community and very technology-savvy,” McGuire says. “We’ve had requests for Internet registration and felt we were taking a safe leap by going online.”

The division staff already used recreation management software from Sacramento, Calif.-based Active.com to automate tasks such as activity registration, facility reservation and financial management. In December 2000, the division upgraded to a more advanced version of the company’s software to allow residents to register online and receive confirmation of their registration.

“We now have a completely integrated system. That means if I am in the middle of entering registrations, and a customer calls wanting to know if a park is available, I can easily check without having to close down one program and open a different program,” McGuire says.

McGuire and her staff launched the online service in January so they could solve any problems with the system before their busy summer season. Realizing not everyone in the community would have access to computers and the Web, the division identified four library branches that offered free Internet access. “We trained the library staff at each branch, showing them how to help everyone set up an account and register for classes, teams and activities,” McGuire says.

“We’re hoping to see 50 percent of our customers registering online,” she says. “People like the fact they can go online and view our offerings. Our instructors love it because they can instantly check enrollment for their classes right from the Web site.”

For more information, visit Newport Beach’s Web site at www.city.newport-beach.ca.us.