CA Offering Inexpensive Incentives to Bring More People to Columbia Pools

Columbia Association officials are hoping their already popular pools will soon be welcoming those who aren’t coming there as often—or at all.

Officials are hoping to reach those residents through discounted one-day passes, cheap swimming lessons, and free rides to CA’s membership center.

“Almost everyone that wishes to use our pools is using them,” said Rob Goldman, the association’s chief operating officer. “Are there maybe some small pockets that aren’t using them? Sure, and we’re going to continue to do everything we can to identify those people and get them involved.”

This push to reach out to more Columbia residents comes at the same time as a larger movement to decide what improvements to make at its numerous aquatics facilities. One goal is to bring more people to the less-used pools while taking some of the burden off the most popular facilities.

Such long-term goals that is in the early stages of being developed. The discounted day passes, lessons and rides are more immediate methods of attempting to get certain groups of residents out at the pools this summer.

The discounted one-day passes are vouchers that will be sent out to people who have signed up for CA active resident cards. The cards, a free privilege for those who don’t have full memberships but live on properties that pay the association’s annual charge, allow people to use CA facilities for a daily fee that is less than what non-residents pay.

With the vouchers, a family of four can get in once to any of the outdoor pools for $10 total, a large discount over the $26 it would normally cost two adults and two kids. Individual resident cardholders will pay $3 with the voucher.

The vouchers are intended to add a fourth, inexpensive day for cardholders to use the pools, Goldman said. On the second Sundays of June, July and August, the pools are free of charge for them.

Also this summer, one-hour swimming lessons that cost $2 will be held Tuesdays and Saturdays at the Talbott Springs pool in Oakland Mills.

Talbott Springs is the least used of the 23 outdoor pools. In the past five years, it has averaged 5,817 visits a year, or 58 a day. Not including people there for lessons, classes and swim team, the number of visits drops to an average of 2,898 a year, or 29 a day.

The most popular pools, in contrast, average hundreds of people each day. In 2010, the outdoor pools had 31,450 people visit a total of 517,000 times.

CA officials believe two groups of residents near Talbott Springs—those earning below-average income and those who don’t speak English as their first language—are not necessarily aware of or interested in the pools, Goldman said.

“We’re working with the village manager and the community organizer and the principal of Talbott Springs Elementary School to get the word out to that whole community,” he said. “We’re doing communication in both English and Spanish. We’re making every effort to make sure that particular community is aware of the pool and the low-cost ways to get involved in swimming.”

Columbia Association also wants to use free taxi rides to make it easier for people to sign up for memberships or active resident cards.

“A number of the villages believed part of the reason people don’t get the free resident cards and take advantage of using the pools on a daily basis, or even come to the three free Sundays a year, is it’s difficult to get to the membership service center” in downtown Columbia, Goldman said.

Rather than set up in Columbia’s 10 villages on certain days to issue cards and sell memberships, association staff feel it is easier to pay for cab rides to and from the residents’ homes and CA headquarters, Goldman said.

CA already has several other programs that help make using the pools less expensive, including discounted pool memberships for a family of four earning $65,000 or less a year, according to Goldman. That discount drops the price from $320 a year to $80 a year for a family of four. An individual would pay just $52 to use all 23 pools for the summer, he said.

More than 5,000 Columbia residents are part of that program, Goldman said.

There is also a “points club” for elementary- and middle-school students whose families might not be able to afford memberships. Kids earn points for academic work and redeem them for pool and facility passes or even memberships.

About 700 kids were involved in that program this school year, Goldman said.

CA has a $4.1 million budget for the outdoor pools for the 2011-12 fiscal year; the pools are expected to bring in $1.8 million in revenue.

For more information on the vouchers, lessons and rides, click here.