New Policy on Athletic Field Cancellations

Wednesday, April 29 marks the beginning of an experiment regarding athletic field cancellations. Historically, if one field at a particular complex was too wet to play, all games at that complex were cancelled. So if the Blue and Orange fields were too wet, all games at the Rainbow Softball Center were cancelled.

This policy was largely created due to the problems relating to the player/parent notifications. For many years, the department relied primarily on the "P&R Hotline" a single line phone answering system where all of the department cancellations were verbally listed. Additionally, the local radio stations were called and they notified users over the air. Of course, not all radio stations reported cancellations as accurately as one hoped. There were many times that users heard "All parks and rec leagues are cancelled" when it fact only a specific complex was cancelled or it might have been a radio station based out of Jefferson City and they really meant that all Jeff City P&R leagues were cancelled as Columbia leagues were playing. Anyway, it was too difficult to try to cancel on a field by field basis so cancellations were made on a "complex" basis, ie, Rainbow Softball Center, Antimi, Albert-Oakland, American Legion, Hickman and Atkins.

Now, the department uses a combination of verbal and text methods to notify users. For the past few years, parents and players have been able to sign up for an email listserve which notifies users via an email whenever a game decision is made. Recently, the department added "texting" as an alternate method to receive cancellations notice. If you would like to sign up for one of these two options go to our "cancellations" web page and follow the easy instructions.

The ability of the P&R department to send you detailed information has made it viable for us to cancel games on a field-by-field basis. Wednesday, April 29 was the first time this was tried as the Orange and Blue fields were too wet at Rainbow but the other four fields were playable.

This experiment will continue throughout the 2009 season and will be evaluated to see whether or not to make this policy permanent.

So, as you receive your emails or texts, make sure you read them carefully!

How many games got cancelled this summer?

That's a question that we usually never get asked....until this year.

Check out these stats as provided by Carol Riney, Sports Supervisor.

Depending on whether Friday gets rained out (as this will increase Rainbow stats because that's are last summer league games):

For summer leagues only:
- 5.5 tournaments were canceled due to the rain
- 36 different league nights were affected by rain

During these 36 nights there were:
- 28 hours of rental time for practice at Rainbow during the week prior to season
- 430 games at Antimi were rained out - 236 of these games were not made up
- 665 games at Rainbow were rained out - 174 of these games were not made up

This is the first time we have never made up all games for the adult leagues at Rainbow. Those teams that were impacted were given several choices such as playing make-up games on other nights, playing in a tournament, or receive a letter of credit for the missed games. Overwhelmingly, the teams wanted a letter of credit.

Fall leagues are not starting off any better. So far, 32 games have been cancelled at Antimi.

In looking at the Old Farmer's Almanac long range weather forecast for our area, they're calling for alternating weeks of sun and rain.

Let's hope things improve for the remaining of the season.

It's Raining so it must be Thursday

I could not believe it when I woke up this morning to the sound of rain, especially when the forecast was for rain later in the day. If the rain keeps up as it appears and we have to cancel, this will be the fifth consecutive Thursday night that has had soccer, softball or baseball games cancelled. Each year it seems that Mother Nature selects one night of the week to pick on. Unfortunately, this year it has been Thursday followed closely by Friday.

For those of you that play on Thursday/Friday, this is the last week of summer leagues for our adult softball program. Once this is week is over, we'll calculate the actual number of games that have been rained out so check back later to see the results. I'm sure the number will set all new records. We have never had this many rainouts.

If you haven't signed up for our email listserves, please do so on our webmail page. It's easy to subscribe and easy to unsubscribe. This email is only for City use and you will not receive any advertisements or spam. You may sign up for any number of cancellation notices or information on our recreation programs. It's the easiest way to receive notifications on sports cancellations.

Our tried and true hotline phone number is 573-874-7663. Press "1" for cancellations....don't wait on the voice message. Just press "1" as soon as it answers.

Anyway, for those of you that play ball (or should I say, "played ball?") on Thursdays, thank you for your patience and understanding. If you're playing in the fall leagues on Thursday night, let's just hope that Mother Nature decides to fairly distribute the precipitation.