Perspectives: lessons to be learned: the education needs of the association's members are constantly changing.

As the cities of Houston and Galveston were bracing for Hurricane Rita, I received a call from Norm Merrifield, director of Parks and Recreation in El Paso, Texas. Norm said he was driving to work that morning when he received a call on his cell phone telling him to prepare to house about 1,000 Gulf Coast evacuees in the city's recreation centers that evening.

"Houston is a 12-hour drive away!" Merrifield commented. "I had no idea we would be involved." Nevertheless, he said members of his department were scrambling to find food, water, cots and blankets for the unexpected visitors.

"Frankly," he told me, "we as park and recreation professionals have little experience or knowledge in how to provide emergency evacuation services."

In another instance several months ago, at a luncheon at the Great Lakes Regional Council meeting in Indianapolis, Ind., I asked those sitting at my table to suggest new topics for NRPNs education programming. Dianne Hoover, then the director in Fort Wayne, Ind., and now the director in Bakersfield, Calif., said she didn't have time to think up new topics because she was mired in labor negotiations. "And let me tell you," she said, "all I learned in park and recreation school did not prepare me for negotiating with the Teamsters union."

Then, a few months later, I was in Florida where many park and recreation departments were shoulder-deep in debris left by four major hurricanes. One director told me that he had managed to quickly clean up his town by getting his staff to work, but they had put in extensive overtime. Later, he found out that his community was going to have to bear the entire cost of this overtime, because he said the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) reimburses only for contract work and not for permanent staff overtime. "I wish someone had instructed us in how to deal with FEMA," he complained.

Emergency evacuation services, labor/management relations and disaster relief are just three suggestions for new education programs that might be extremely useful to NRPA members. And there are sure to be many others.

An Education Task Force, headed by Texas Recreation and Park Society (TRAPS) Executive Director Michal Anne Lord, has been engaged in a major project to evaluate NRPA's current education programming. In addition to the 250 education sessions at NRPA's Congress and Exposition, NRPA facilitates more than 15 major education programs around the country each year.

In addition to evaluating our current programs, the Education Task Force is assessing many new program ideas. In order to select the best new possible programs, we need members to submit their ideas for consideration. (Visit the NRPA Web site for the submittal form at www.nrpa.org).

As NRPA grows we want to have the best possible education programs for our members. To accomplish this, we will constantly evaluate our education as well as consider new programming. The park and recreation field is changing on a daily basis, and there are still many lessons to be learned.