Anyone who drove by the Auburn YMCA-WEIU last week probably noticed a lovely white frame waiting for a sign to to be attached to it. This sign will allow everyone to know where the YMCA is since we are constantly being asked for directions to the building.

This is one of the ideas that the Happy Committee has been working on in order to make the Auburn YMCA more accessible to people. The Happy Committee is made up of Beth Arnold, Nancy Henderson, Dawn Lubasszewski, Dorothea Hughes and me.

We went to training in Syracuse, called Welcome By Design, to learn more about how to welcome people to the YMCA and provide the most enjoyable experience. We want the Auburn YMCA to be more user-friendly. We hope to accomplish this with the sign out front identifying our building, to signs inside the facility and name tags that identify those who work here.

Each week we get together to discuss any issues that we feel are pertinent to our members and the general public. If we feel it is important, we will try to implement something at the YMCA.

It seems as if there are many things that we can do here to make your visit a positive experience. We are also looking into some sort of cafe or hospitality area for our members.

We call our group the Happy Committee because we all enjoy working together and sharing our ideas. By Thanksgiving, we are hoping to have the frame filled in with a wonderful new sign to direct you to the Auburn YMCA.

-

Steve Komanecky and I traveled to Auburn High School on Friday to work on an interactive health fair for the students. We brought along our vertical standing jump and also a bosu balance ball.

The vertical standing challenge jump has the person stand and reach to find their length of reach. After that is measured, the bar is adjusted to measure what they reach when they jump straight up.

We had a lot of young adults try to jump as high as some of their peers.

The winners for the vertical jump were Manny Brooks (33 inches) and Diamond Wingate (25 inches). Malcolm Bryant had a 32-inch jump.

For the bosu ball, we asked participants to stand on the ball on one leg and balance. This sounds easy, but it involves a lot of concentration. Students tried it more than once to go for a better score.

Kristen Long balanced the longest with 9:22:43, Marissa Slayton balanced for 6:05 and Gabby Petrosino balanced for 5:16.

Marcus Gaffney led the boys with a time of 3:50.

We also had a three-question quiz for everyone who stopped at the table. If they got the answers right, then they were put in a bucket and were eligible for a free three-month membership at the Auburn YMCA. Megan May was the winner.

Congratulations to everyone who came to visit our table and participate in our different tests.

It was a fun time for both the students and for us.

Hansinger is the assistant fitness director at the YMCA.