Big Toy/Playground Work

Home of a Future Big Toy

The Big Toy/Playground: Well, we are really just waiting on our meeting with the Project Manager and Architects to see if and where a second area for a big toy can be carved out. The meeting is scheduled for this coming week (date and time still to be determined). Since our all-group meeting, we have had two parents showing an interest in being involved in the playground. My current thought is to invite them to our next meeting. One of the parents is Lana Kay from Brouillet. Lana attended our meeting last Thursday and is on-board with the vendors. The second parent is T.J. Navilio. T.J. is a PE teacher at Meridian Hills Elementary in Federal Way and has a preschooler who will attend kindergarten at Carson next year. T.J. will be sending me information on a climbing wall that is being installed in the gymnasium at Meridian Hills. He is wondering if we might be intersted in something similar and is intersted in being a resource. I have added the website of the company that they are using to the list on the right hand column. This can be part of our discussion at the next meeting.

In the meantime...Take some time to see where we can add some tables/benches to the playground for social/activity areas. I am hoping to take some of these options to my meeting next week so we can eliminate those that are not possibilities before we meet as a subcommittee. This means your response on the comments section below is appreciated sometime this week. Some things to consider:

• a full sized fire truck needs to be able to do a full 360 degree turn so we can't plant them in the middle of the blacktop area
• fields will be used for baseball and soccer by the community
• a track is being added to the field that will go around the backstops
• locating them close to the building may encourage vandalism by idle hands during non -school hours/days
• although we want to design the playground as a neighborhood school, which means we need to think of our community use during non-school time, we also want to prioritize the student supervision.

PTA Involvement: On October 5th, I did share where we are with the group that is working to form the Carson PTA. Although they could not commit to any part of the project at that time, I did express that we needed a decision at the start of November at the latest. By this time we will have officers selected.

Big Toys & Sites

Members: Jo Ann, Lisa, Miles, Arturo
Meeting Information: Thursday, September 21, Bradley Lake Park big toy (Behind Super Wal-Mart), 4:00-5:00 PM. I thought that we could at least start at Bradley Lake Park due to the fact that we do have a circle and it is one of the companies that we are looking at. Depending on the weather, we may visit there or we may simply take a look and go to a warmer location in the area (like Starbucks). Please bring your calendars with you as we will have to schedule some time together as a sub committee.

Currently, Guy and I have met with a rep from the three companies listed below. This does not mean that we are limited to these vendors. However, if the group feels that we have sufficient choices and competitive prices then we may choose to focus on these three companies. Below are some places that we may be going to as a group or other locations to be aware of just in case you happen to be in the area and want to take a look :). Please don't make an intentional visit to all of them for the purpose of the work of the sub committee. We will coordinate visits for our purposes.

Kompan Company
Neighbors Park (Tacoma Metro Parks)
McKinley Park (Tacoma Metro Parks)
Powell Barnet Park (352 Martin Luther King Way, Seattle)
New Adventures/Multi-Care Children's Center (1310 S. 4th St. Tacoma)

GameTime/SITELines
Spinning Elementary
Stewart Elementary

Northwest Playground Equipment/PlayWorld Systems
Maplewood Elementary
Bradley Lake Park

Notice that the reps we met with may have been representing more than one company. On the right hand column are the website links to the companies listed above if you're interested in doing some perusing.