AQUATICS MANAGEMENT

Our staff has 32 years of experience working with local parks and recreation departments. Our team has taken those experiences and developed a true Aquatics Management program to serve local, state, and federal government agencies that need more than a typical Swimming Pool Management program. We created this package around a simple strategy:

Reduced Operational Cost + Increased Participation = Successful Aquatics Operation

The dynamics of budgets for government agencies has changed greatly over the past 10 years. Throughout the country, most parks and recreation departments and agencies are facing budgetary constraints. These agencies can no longer afford to fund operations within their agencies that do not have the participation levels to justify the continued funding. As budgets decrease, these agencies are looking for ways to decrease operating expenses. This leads to less staff, less programming, less hours of operation, and ultimately, less Participation. Over time, the reduction in participation has led to numerous closures of aquatic facilities across the country over the past five years due to budget cuts. Most of these facilities were unable to provide the level of participation needed to justify maintaining funding for these facilities. The solution to this cyclical problem is a comprehensive Aquatics Management Program.

Swimming pool management companies have had some success working with local municipalities over the years in reducing the operational costs. However, most of these companies fail to provide the additional services needed that actually increase Participation. Providing staffing and pool maintenance is a vital part of an Aquatics Management Program, but they fail to create and offer any additional programming and integrated services required to increase and manage Participation at these facilities.

Our team has worked with over 100 government agencies over the past 15 years. We have taken those experiences and developed a program that has all the necessary and essential services to provide a safe and efficient operation, but also utilize all aspects of the each facility to maximize its value and Participation. Increased Participation not only helps justify the budget set aside for its operations, but it also means increased revenue to help fund the operation.

Our Aquatics Management Program utilizes the following services to provide a complete plan that achieves reductions in Operational Costs and Increases Participation:

• Complete Aquatics Programming – The fastest way to increase participation is to offer more reasons to come to the facility. A full Aquatics Program guide will offer activities for all user groups and age demographics. Offering a balanced program guide with multiple choices for all user groups increases the user Participation.
• Staff Management – One of the easiest ways to reduce the costs of any operation is efficient management of staffing required to operate the facility. A quality staffing plan also makes sure that there is a right balance of positions needed to not only operate the facility in a safe manner, but having the right positions employed to handle the overall management of the aquatic facility is just as important. Many operations fail when there is not enough management staff employed to handle the different aspects of the facility’s operation.
• Facility Maintenance – Not all commercial aquatic facilities are made the same. Swimming pool management companies do not have the staff to manage large commercial equipment required to run large aquatic facilities like water parks, natatoriums, year-round operations, integrated filtration equipment and automated chemical feed systems. Our team has more experience in working with the equipment required to operate these types of facilities than any company in the Aquatics Management industry. Our complete Facility Inspection Analysis is the most comprehensive in the industry. Our reporting will identify both immediate and long term facility needs for each facility.
• Aquatic Programming Management Software (APMS) – StandGuard Aquatics has developed our APMS to handle all aspects of programming for our facilities. APMS provides patrons the opportunity to view, schedule, register, and purchase all programming offered at each of our facilities. Our APMS is cloud based and allows patrons to access the information from any computer, pad, or smartphone that has internet access. Having a fully operational APMS system for your facility will increase Participation by 25% alone. APMS provides patrons immediate and easy access to our programming. Since our APMS is also a POS system, we use this same system to manage daily admissions, provide seasonal/yearly passes, and memberships. This APMS also allows us to collect the digital data that is the basis of our Marketing Strategy for each facility. Our APMS has numerous reporting systems that will allow us to provide our clients with detailed financial data of the operation.
• Marketing Strategy – One of the most important aspects to a fully operational Aquatics Management Program is the ability to market that program to as many users as possible. Our team will create a digital marketing plan that uses both direct contact and social media. Our marketing plan will be tailored to the programs offered at the facility. Our APMS collects the data we need to reach most users digitally. We will use social media and create a larger web presence by creating a splash page specifically for the operation of each facility.
• Concessions/Retail Sales – Many facilities have the ability to offer concessions and retail sales. Concessions and Retail sales are a great way to provide an additional revenue stream to any operation and also provide value to each patron’s visit to the facility. Our APMS also serves as our POS System. Selling concessions and retail through our APMS will make monthly revenue reporting easy and simple and it also allows us to track inventory and reduce costs by effectively managing our inventory.
• Revenue Share – Any successful Aquatics Management program must manage revenues in a way that benefits both the owner and service provider. StandGuard will set up a revenue share for all programming to ensure that ALL costs of those programs are paid through the revenue collected from those programs. We do not pass along any additional costs to our clients for programming. We make sure those costs are 100% covered through the revenue collected in our revenue share plan. Our management fee is the only price our clients pay on an annual basis for services.
• Risk Management/Safety Assessment – Safety is of the utmost importance for any aquatics operation. StandGuard will develop risk management plan for each facility we manage. This plan will cover areas of liability exposure for both clients and our team members working. EAP’s (Emergency Action Plans) will be developed for all operations and all staff members will receive training on each EAP. The safest facilities are the
  most prepared facilities.

Our Aquatics Management program is tailored to meet the needs of each client. No two clients havethe exact same service. We use all of these services and more to create a program that will maximize the Participation of your facility.