Hadwen Park, Worcester, MA

[Titan Bariloni]

wowzer

[Jason Southwick]

Drats. Foiled again.

[Jeff Burrows]

Drats. Foiled again.

Great job grabbing some publicity for the Hadwen Park course. Maybe some of the people who read this thread will send an email to the parks dept.

[Mark Valis]

Email sent

[Jim OConnell]

Email sent.

[Andrew_Bottcher]

E-mail sent as well.

[Jason Southwick]

Tomorrow seems to be the day. at 6:00 p.m. At the Hope Cemetary Administrative Building the Worcester Land & Use Commission will once again hear my little presentation (bought Marshall Street its own projector this week), and the Hadwen Park proposal is the only item on the agenda. Neighbors of Hadwen have been invited to come and do whatever people do at meetings, depending on their pro and con brain leanings.

I could really use some frisbee players in attendance. My trophy wife has reluctantly agreed to come. Six at night for a single agenda item meeting. Should take half an hour. It won't be so bad. Last time Rick Mahoney and Barry Sherman showed, and were very helpful.

Moral support. It's a general plea, but tomorrow I'm gonna call a whole lot of people and invite them personally. It'll take an hour and a half out of your life, plus you'll get to see my little Powerpoint presentation.

If they say yes I'll do a really good job. If more frisbee players come I think our chances are better, but who knows? It could be a foregone conclusion. It's hard for me to read the powers that be. But I went to a meeting all [bleep] once (once recently that is), and left with my tale between my legs, so all guns in with no presumptions of success.

There are about eight good workers who have said they want to help build it.

Just waiting and wanting the go-ahead. Then it's stage three, creation.

This middle stage of getting permission always takes so long. The Powers always gotta be sure you're not full of crap, which, if considered calmly, makes a lot of sense.

Plus if they say yes after deliberating their yes will be stronger. They'll be able to deal with neighbor complaints with the arguments we've drummed into them. The game has so many positives -- an environmentally friendly tone, extended moderate exercise, fun in the outdoors, inexpensive, inclusive, relaxed, high-end big name organized AND completely recreational. With tremendous variety.

What I never put forth at any of the meetings so far is a great line from the PDGA's literature, which mostly consists of dog poop that the cat pissed on, that expresses well the thing that truly tugs at our G-string: "the game of disc golf begins with the essential fact that throwing a flying disc with power and accuracy is a marvelous sensation."

"Marvelous" is a bold adjective, and one seldom used without some level of Matt Heenan irony, but here it's used perfectly. "Fantastic" doesn't do it unless you're a teenage girl, and "Awesome" sounds like a 20-something boy. And "Essential," "Mahhhvelous" and "Sensation in a single sentence? That's some strong, bring in the pipe organ verbiage. I would have lobbied to include the f-bomb, and would have been voted down like a pouty Mikey Kernan.

There's power in words. Come tomorrow, and say some. And don't start cracking up like you just remembered the funniest joke in the world right where you're explaining how great I am.

[Dave Hickson]

I'm working till 6 but this is worth getting out early for so I'll be there!

[Andrew_Bottcher]

Wish I could attend to show my support. Unfortunately I just work too darn far away and wouldn't be able to get there until 7:30ish anyway.

Good luck, Jason. Here's hoping it all works out.

[Jeff Burrows]

Hopefully the parks dept said yes and Jason, all juiced up, went to walk the fairways and move his little surveyor flags around in the dark. I'm dying for an update on how that meeting went.

[Trent Solomon]

so am I. i think he said 20 DG'ers showed

[Jason Southwick]

It looks good. There will be two more meetings. The biggest concern is parking, and after the meeting the commissioners suggested to me the solution of having parking on the other side at Hadwen Middle school, removing holes 1 and 2, adding two holes, and renumbering everything. Great idea, I said.

It seems to be head in the right direction. Two more meetings, the second one with a final vote, on November 18.

Now's the time for redesign. Will post more thoroughly today. The fact that about 20 disc golfers were there saying great things was huge.

[Jeff Burrows]

Good work. I hated old hole#1 and #2 anyway.
I won't be working Thurs Nov 18th. It's in my calender. I will be at the meeting.

[Jason Southwick]

I originally tried to post here right after the meeting but it got really late. This is the edited version, along with some added thoughts written this morning:

Two more meetings, culminating, I hope, on November 18. About 20 frisbeeites along with I think exactly 17 neighbors. I can't do it justice how important it was to have a whole lot of supporters in this town-hall meeting like room.

My presentation, while sincere, sucked in the fact that our new little projector against the wall, the way I had it set up, was like being in the back seat of one of those big football stadiums where you can't tell who's being tackled.

But many disc golf supporters showed up and spoke their minds, or just filled a seat. It was so important to have so many of you there. Some of the things people said in favor were awesome. I'll try to name all the frisbee players who were there, and then fill in the people I'm forgetting later.

David Stidham. Very persuasive about the positive sides of disc golf.
Joe Yaskis in tie introducing himself as a teacher relating the joys of teaching kids disc golf
Matt likewise in tie Heenan, another teacher’s message of the joys of disc golf.
Barry work the opposition BEFORE the meeting Sherman. I saw who you were talking to, then heard what they said at the meeting. Pull out a cigar cause that’s got Red Auerbach written all over it. Nice job.
Ed Fletcher. Ed never did get to talk. A pity. Ed did weld the Newton Hill baskets together.
Mike still trying to figure out your heritage Polenski. Thank you again. You are a good man.
Brian Anderson. Your speech was spot on but you never mentioned the neighbor who checked us out cause your course used to be a gay rendezvous spot.
Gary Cyr. Thank you, like all of you who came, for the backup. You were particularly suave somehow.
Mike and his daughter were there, and she spoke a beautiful piece linking the two of them to the sport and this spot for it.
Belhumeur was there, said nothing, never felt the opening to burst into song. (People were dying to talk). Belhumeur, not workhorse of the year. Workhorse of the decade. And he always puts the tools back.
Rick thank you for supporting me every step of the way Mahoney. It’s great that you’ve played several hundred rounds at Newton Hill.
Brad Ayotte, thank you again. We had them outnumbered.

Who ELSE?

Matt Grayum! Holy cow. “Hi, my name is Matt Grayum. I’m 25 years old and live a mile from Hadwen Park. I play disc golf and have a new baby, and the thought of being able to bring my boy to Hadwen Park to teach him disc golf…
Was that REAL violin music?

I’m sure I’m not remembering everybody.

Jeremy Binley was there, actually mostly in the hall calming a small baby, presumably a relative.

Remember the woman who said we wouldn’t pick up the trash that people throw in her yard? She lives near earlier proposed and bad Holes 1 and 2.

After the meeting I went and shook hands and was actually pretty happy and finally understanding the process with commissioners and they were all excited and obviously trying to motivate me.

They suggested – and let me remind you these are the real Powers – that we have holes 1 and 18 on the OTHER side of the park nearest to Hadwen Elementary School farther up Heard St, where we could arrange disc golfer parking. This addresses the biggest concern: What to do with parking? cause baseball uses a lot of it a lot of time. Plus the originally proposed Holes 1 and 2, which actually sucked in general as an idea, are really close to the biggest complainer’s house on Heard St.

Brilliant idea, I said, cause it is.

So I’m now tasked with redesigning sixteen holes into 18, and there is extra space so it won’t have to be a cram job. Plus it will now be possible to have a figure 8 that goes around clockwise around the upper half, and counter-clockwise around the lower half.

Anyway, thank you again all who’ve written emails in support and showed up for meetings. Without that kind of support Hadwen Park Disc Golf would never happen.

[Jason Southwick]

Billy Mac, Brent Sanderson and I went out there Saturday morning and completed the 1st draft of the "new" design. Those guys are good.

[Jeremy Binley]

Awesome, can't wait to see the new proposed layout. And yes, that was my 1 yr. old son Trevor I had with me. I'll be there for the final showdown on the 18th, alone this time, ha.

[Jason Southwick]

Just to let everybody know this thread remains a huge goal. No letting up. We just have to make all the right moves for the next month. No slacking off. No premature ejocularity. Waiting for the Powers to say "Make the course." I think this will happen.

Yeah Jeremy, I appreciate Trevor's complaints. He was just saying, "Let us make the course already." He knew. One of the classic British poets' contentions was that you start at full knowledge when you're born and then start getting all confused. We're born into a state of perfection, and then we start reading NEFA Discussion.

[Brad Ayotte]

the next meeting, november 18th? if so, i will do everything to be there...

[Davis Johnson]

Wordsworth's worthy words wore with age.

[Jeff Burrows]

This Thursday Nov.18th for the Hadwen Park meeting? What is the time and place for this? I plan on attending.

[Jason Southwick]

I apologize for not announcing this earlier. Hadwen Park as a disc golf course project looks very good, as my dialog with the powers that be has turned into a way to make this happen. The meeting has been postponed, but the project should be approved by year's end.

It simply takes a long time so that the permit isn't rushed, so that everyone involved has time to digest the facts and we have time to counter reasonable concerns with reasonable solutions.

I have been tasked with approaching the principal of Heard Street School about the parking both during school hours and not during school hours, and somehow I have procrastinated on that simple task for a whole week already. Don't look at me like that.

I'm on it. There's just a whole lot of stuff I'm not completely in charge of. Plus it naturally always takes time.

Who wants to bet a thousand bucks against the forces of good making it happen? We'll put it toward tee pads.

[Mike Dussault]

I had a dream Jason Southwick was showing me and a couple of other guys a new piece of land for a disc golf course. It was a wierd sloping small park land, almost completely open. There was one part where you had to play down to this old farmhouse and play through the open window. There was a really old guy living there that I remember all hoping he would die soon so we could have run of his house. As if playing a disc golf hole through his window was not run enough. He actually seemed ok with the arrangement. The rest of the course had ob, mostly in the form of three foot high hurricane fencing. It was actually a pretty cool course. Had a decent vibe despite the guys living room we were playing through.

[Brad Ayotte]

so the vote has been postponed but the other info that jay needs to hop on is needed first.. i will look at you that way... and if you need anything done that you think i can help with just let me know.. i believe i know the principal at heard st.. he was my old 6th grade teacher

[Jason Southwick]

Here's an update. During our December 23rd party, I get a call from Rob Antonelli, Assistant Commissioner of the Parks & Rec Dept of Worcester. I tell him that there's a whole bunch of legal parking outside of the Hadwen Park parking lot, which itself comprises 36 parking spots.

The Heard Street School has ample parking as long as it's not during school hours. Neighbors were concerned about irresponsible parking along the hill there on Heard St, especially during baseball games on the weekend, when sometimes overflow parking has cars all over the grass across from the baseball field -- inside the park.

He told me to write it up, and that there would probably be two more meetings, so I'm thinking (hoping) maybe we can start work by spring. And I'm groaning inwardly at the thought of more delays. Y'all are probably groaning, too, and wondering why can't the powers just say yes immediately.

Well, here are a couple counter-thoughts that put things in more in a positive light. Let's consider these thoughts a feeble attempt to look at the entire universe as not necessarily something that revolves around disc golf. I know that sounds crazy, cause, well, disc golf is right here, clearly right in the middle of the universe. It's not like there's some OTHER center of the universe. So there is a modicum of suspension of disbelief required.

But here goes.

One: While it's easy to view any person or organization that impedes our desire to be out in the woods building the next disc golf course as illogical and evil, there exists -- maybe -- other perspectives that, while clearly off-center in a universal sense, may not necessarily be illogical and evil. It's a hard concept to grasp but our collective furrowed brow means we're trying.

Two: While there is strong evidence that the Parks Commission, and its subcommittee, the Land & Use Commission, are primarily concerned with tormenting us, thwarting us, and in general making our lives miserable by requiring (some of) us to attend a series of evening meetings, in their spare time -- the few minutes of each day not devoted to kicking us disc golfers right in the nuts -- they do maintain Worcester's public parks. And they have to attend the same damn meetings, some of which they wouldn't have to go to if it weren't for us stoopid disc golfers.

Three: It's gonna work. They're gonna eventually say yes, and soon we'll be turning the Hadwen Park woods into a place that a lot of people enjoy. And if circumstances prove insurmountable, we can use the Marshall Street mini-projector to view porn on a screen ten times the size of our computer monitors.

In summary, there's ALWAYS a bright side, and one way or another, we will prevail.

[Jeff Burrows]

I was just thinking of Hadwen when I logged on to NEFA. Thanks for the update Jason. I wish they'd approve the stupid thing so I can bust my ass all winter and then play it all Summer, rather than the opposite.

[John Williston]

Hope we haven't forgot about this awesome piece of land hopefully the city will give in soon we just have to be prescient this land is too beautiful to go to waste

[Jeremy Binley]

So what's the latest news on this proposal?

[David Backstrom]

also very curious on whats happening with this. as a lifelong Cherry Valley resident living less than 5 minutes away I think this would be an awesome addition to the local disc golf scene

[David Hoey]

Last I knew there was another meeting coming up. Due to the winter, it kind of got pushed onto the back burner, boy are we getting some nice days though lately.

please refer all actual information though to Jason.

[Jason Southwick]

Dear Assistant Commissioner Antonelli,

I think you've decided to block my proposal to build a disc golf course at Hadwen Park because of your friendship with Rick Miller. Here's why.

On May 28, 2009, Marshall Street (my company) and the Friends of Newton Hill (Rick Miller's organization) presented a proposal to build the Newton Hill Disc Golf Course to the Parks & Rec Board. One Board member said if we were going to build it and fund it, then it was a no-brainer for the City. A few months later, after you, Rick and I walked the land, final approval was granted.

In other words, after one meeting in front of the Parks & Rec Board, and a single walk-through of the land, we got permission to build Worcester's 1st disc golf course.

Over the next six months, I designed and, with much help from Rick Miller and many others, raised the money we needed and built the course. It successfully revitalized Newton Hill, and provided free recreation to the general public.

After we finished the course, I began asking Rick Miller about the money we had raised. He said it was in the Park Spirit bank account. Rick's answers were always vague, and he never did produce an accounting. I kept asking to see the money; he never showed it to me. He manufactured a feud between us, and refused to respond to emails and phone calls.

The frisbee players involved with Newton Hill still have no idea what happened to the money we raised for the course. We have no access to it. I investigated the Friends of Newton Hill and Park Spirit of Worcester, Inc. Rick Miller is the president and de facto treasurer of the Friends of Newton Hill, which claims on its website to be "a member organization of Park Spirit of Worcester, Inc; a non profit 501C(3) park improvement organization."

Rick Miller is also the co-treasurer of Park Spirit of Worcester, Inc, which, as it turns out, had its authority to transact business in the Commonwealth revoked by the Secretary of State because it hasn't filed the necessary documents since 2003.

Park Spirit nevertheless claims 501C(3) status on its online donation page. And Rick continues to collect money for the sale of tee sign ads, and is still "holding" the money raised from last summer's Newton Hill disc golf tournament.

People who know both Rick and me reported that Rick has been ranting with great vehemence about what a bad guy I am. Rick also threatened to complain to you about me, and apparently he did.

Hadwen Park

Following the successful completion of Newton Hill, I applied for permission to build another disc golf course at Hadwen Park, a similarly neglected Worcester park, and another excellent location for a disc golf course.

My proposal was essentially the same. We'd build it. We'd pay for it. All we needed from the City was permission.

On July 24, 2010, I presented my Hadwen Park Disc Golf Course proposal to the Worcester Parks & Rec Board. Right before the meeting, you said to your fellow Board members that my proposal would have to be heard by the Land & Use Commission. I asked why this wasn't required for Newton Hill, and you said, "Because of my friendship with Rick Miller."

On August 12, 2010, you and I walked my proposed layout at Hadwen Park. I asked how to get a permit to hold a tournament at Newton Hill. You told me to ask Rick Miller, as if he were an employee in your department.

On September 27, 2010, I presented my Hadwen Park proposal to the Land & Use Commission. You said we needed another meeting to which the residents living near Hadwen Park would be invited.

On October 19, 2010, I presented my Hadwen Park proposal to the Land & Use Commission, about 25 supporters from the frisbee community, and about 20 Hadwen Park neighbors. It went well. A show of hands among the neighbors indicated that roughly two-thirds of them were in favor.

At the close of the meeting, it sounded like a done deal. The two remaining loose ends were relocating Hole 1, and exploring additional parking options (though, as I pointed out in a subsequent email to you that went unanswered, Hadwen has sufficient parking with 36 parking places, and overflow parking on the grass is already used during Little League games). You and I were tasked with working together to find these last few solutions.

You cancelled the follow-up meeting scheduled for November 2010, one of several delays during the overall process.

On December 23, 2010, you called in the evening to say "one -- no -- two" more meetings would be necessary before the Hadwen project could begin.

Since then you have repeatedly failed to reply to emails or return my calls. By the spring of 2011 I became discouraged, and shelved my Hadwen Park aspirations when the opportunity arose to build another course, my 5th, at the Webster Fish & Game.

So what do I want? I'd like to build a disc golf course at Hadwen Park. I've cc:ed the City Manager and Dianne Williamson -- and posted this at nefa.com -- in the hope of getting more people involved in the decision-making process over which you seem to have a monopoly. I sense your lack of cooperation may have more to do with cronyism than a genuine desire to improve the parks under your stewardship.

Sincerely,

Jason Southwick