Center to undergo needs assessment; build strategic plan

With the New Year comes a new evaluation of the Cheyenne County Community Center, according to center director Michael Namuth.

“This past spring our community center board started a strategic planning session to develop a vision statement for the next three to five years for the community center,” Namuth said.

Namuth said that board members decided that they needed to do a needs assessment of the community and surrounding areas of Sidney to see if the center is meeting the public’s needs.

The survey is the result of board members wanting to know if there are any aspects of the community center that the community would like to be changed, he said.

Namuth said that three surveys would be distributed. One type of survey is designed for members of the facility, while another type is created for non-members that sometimes come in to the community center and pay a daily fee to use it rather than buying a membership. The last type of survey is designed for community members who have never visited the center.

Also included in the surveys will be questions regarding the new pool that is to be designed for the citizens in Sidney.

“We got our surveys developed and we went to the council and asked them if they wanted to incorporate some pool questions in it. We inserted three or four questions about the pool to each one of those groups,” Namuth said.

Namuth said that surveys were first sent out this week. The survey can be found online at the Cheyenne County Community Center website and all community members are encouraged to provide input.

January 3 was the first day the surveys were available and Namuth said that they will continue collecting them into the first week of Feb., giving local input five weeks to progress.

Namuth said that starting next week postcards will be mailed out to all community center members informing them on where to fill out their survey. Members will also be reminded when they visit the center.

The survey will mostly be conducted online via the SurveyMonkey link, but some paper surveys will also be distributed, he said.

“There will be some paper versions because though a majority of people are online there are some people that aren’t,” Namuth said. “We will have paper versions here so they can come down to the community center and pick one up and fill it out.”

This is the first time since before the opening of the center that surveys have been conducted to reevaluate what the community needs from the facility, Namuth said.

“We’ve been around for 20 years now so we figured it’s probably time to see what direction people want us to move in,” he said.

“It’s going to give us a vision of the next five years and what we need to do as far as facility wise.”

He said that this survey will hopefully answer questions regarding whether or not the facility needs to expand to accommodate more programs.

“If there are needs to be met we will try to address those needs and go from there,” he said.

Namuth said that if community members’ needs are still yet to be met that the size of the project will determine how long results will take.