Richmond Hill Recreation Association, our city’s own youth sports non-profit, has undergone some exciting new changes in the past few months.

David Minning became president of the association in October after volunteering for three years with RHRA in various capacities. The Gulfstream engineer began as a volunteer coach, then gradually became more involved, taking on the roles of board member and vice president before stepping into his current one. 

Minning, the board members, and the many volunteers of the RHRA are pleased to unveil to the public their newly-updated website, www.rhrasports.org. The idea is to improve communication and further engage the community.

“We want to make sure that we get information out there as early as possible and as clearly as possible– registration information, game scheduling, things like that– communication with the community is absolutely what this is all about,” said Minning.

Via the new site, athletes, families, coaches and volunteers can view picture galleries, link to video clips, and check scheduling and field closing information.

“People will be able to get emails and texts regarding field closures,” Minning said. Simply by visiting the main page, users can find out how to sign up for these alerts.

Updating content on the new site is easier for RHRA, so users receive up-to-the minute news and information.

“We have the ability to manage content ourselves rather than send it off,” explained Minning. “It allows us to update within a matter of minutes. We're looking to expand the online coverage to have scores, standings, photo galleries, and we'd like to link to video for the folks that are doing video of their kids at the games.”

RHRA welcomes feedback from website users.

“What we really want are ideas from the public about what they'd like to see,” said Minning. “We're very interested in making the content as rich as possible.”

He also stresses that the RHRA is always seeking volunteers so that they can continue to provide opportunities for local youth.

“You don't have to be a sports person,” Minning explained. RHRA provides free training for coaches and volunteers.

“We need people with administrative backgrounds and people who just want to help out with youth sports. We really want to provide as low a cost structure as we can to provide opportunities to as many people as possible, and the way we keep it low is through volunteers … we wouldn't survive if we didn't have people filling these roles.”

To volunteer or learn more, please call RHRA at 756-4075.