'If you can dodge a wrench...'

Malta Parks and Recreation has introduced several new ways for the community to stay active.

Last Tuesday, March 14, in Malta’s City Council Meeting, directors Natalie Judd and Julia Tatafu presented the council with a few things that are happening in the spring months.

One of the events mentioned was the Adult Co-ed Dodgeball League, which is set to kick off on Tuesday, April 4 at the City Hall and will conclude Tuesday, May 9. The starting times will be at 7 p.m.

Depending on the participation turnout, Parks and Rec. may expand to another venue.

“If we have four or more teams, then maybe we will look into other areas to see if we can get in,” Judd said. “But we will be in the City Hall for sure.”

The cost for the event is $15 per player with a team minimum of six, two of which need to be female. The league will be using RhinoSkin brand foam Dodge Balls.

“We want to stress that we have foam balls,” Judd said. “I think it will be really fun.”

If her last plug wasn’t convincing enough, the league is enforcing one very strict rule.

“No head shots,” Judd said. “If you get hit in the head, the person who hit you is out.”

The adult league games will be won by the team that wins the best of seven matches.

The idea for an adult league was not triggered by the Cult=Classic Movie Dodgeball, but rather by the success of the youth league held last year.

“I don’t think they were joking but because of the youth, a lot of people would say ‘you should do adult Dodge Ball,” Judd said. “I know that in a lot of other bigger cities they have lots of leagues for it, so we thought, what the heck, we will try it and see how Malta likes dodgeball.”

Starting Thursday, March 30, Parks and Rec. will begin their Youth Co-ed Kickball league that will feature three divisions. Those divisions will be Minors who will play at 4 pm, Majors who will play at 5 p.m. and Seniors who will play at 6 p.m. The Minors will be grades Pre-K through First Grade, Majors will be Second Grade through Third and Seniors will consist of Fourth Grade to Sixth.

The prices are $10 per child and forms can be turned into the Parks and Rec. office at City Hall or at Malta Elementary Office or Malta Middle School by Tuesday, March 28.

“This will not be a league, they will kind of just show up and we play in the gym like we did youth Dodge Ball,” Judd said.

The idea for kickball came like many other Park and Rec. ideas, through a brainstorm.

“We were trying to think of something the kids could do inside,” Judd said. “We talked about indoor soccer and kickball. We finally decided on kickball because we had done soccer before.”

With the spring weather melting away the snow, Parks and Rec. isn’t above taking the event outside.

“If it is a nice day, we would love to take them outside depending on how our fields are,” Judd said.

Parks and Rec. also introduced a new keyless entry to use the gym and weight room after business hours. This includes the basketball court.

“(With membership) you and your family can come and use the gym whenever you want after hours,” Judd said.

Though a majority of the equipment in the weight room is usable, the Parks and Rec. Directors hope to improve the upstairs facility.

“We want to get more stuff for the weight room,” Judd said. “The guys who work at the City believe that they can fix the equipment up there. We would like to get some other stuff for music and things like that. Slowly we will build up that weight room a little bit more.”

The Gym is still open to the public during business hours at no charge but for those who would prefer to work out after office hours, the price is only $5 a month or $50 per year for city residents individually and $7 or $70 per year for non-city residents to use the basketball court and an extra $3 a month for weight room access.

For Family Memberships, the prices are $10 a month (or $110 a year) for city residents. For non-city Families the prices are $14 a month or $155 annually. Family access to the weight room is an additional $6 per month or a total of $180 annually for city residents and $230 annually for non-city residents.

“The prices are really affordable,” Judd said. “I think a lot of people would just like to come in and shoot basketball with their family or even a group of people could come in and play as long as everybody in that group has a membership, it’s all fair game.”

Parks and Rec. will also look to host their second Color Run in June this summer.