County's Community Centers Offer Free Leap Day Exercise Classes

Leap year presents us with an extra day this February — which is also American Heart Month.

In celebration, our Parks and Recreation Department is inviting people to do some literal leaping on Feb. 29 with free exercise classes at its three community centers.

Choose from Zumba, Boot Camp, Fitness Fusion or Fitness Yoga. Take the free day to try a fun class — it might just inspire you to return often and keep your heart healthy for many leap years to come.

Please arrive 10 to15 minutes early to register for the class. Anyone under 18 must be accompanied by an adult. For additional information please contact the individual centers or visit www.sdparks.org. 

Free Classes

Spring Valley Community Center 8735 Jamacha Boulevard 619-479-1832. 

Zumba 6 p.m. – 7 p.m. Located outside in the gazebo area. Ages 12 and up.Zumba is the Latin inspired, easy-to-follow, calorie burn­ing, feel-it-to-the-core fitness party. You will get a marvel­ous workout and condition all muscles while having fun. 

Lakeside Community Center 9841 Vine Street  619-443-9176  

Boot Camp Fitness 6 p.m. – 7 p.m. Ages 14 and up. Are you having trouble getting motivated or looking to change up your workout routine? This class is appropriate for all fitness levels, as you can set you own pace. The class will be taught at a moderate intensity, and will include aerobic conditioning and flexibility, strength, balance, speed and agility training.  

Fallbrook Community Center 341 Heald Lane  760-728-1671

Fitness Fusion 8:30 a.m. – 9:30 a.m. Ages 13 and up.Stamina + Strength + Stretch + Serenity!  Come experience joyful low-impact cardio dance with a fusion of strength training, yoga, stretch, and relaxation techniques. This class keeps up with the latest balanced fitness approaches and creates a wonderful community environment.

Yoga Fusion 9:45 a.m. – 10:45 a.m. Ages 13 and up. Yoga Fusion is a wellness journey with a gentle, adaptable approach. The class embraces the traditions of Hatha yoga to strengthen, heal and nurture the body. We also enrich our yoga practice by incorporating other fitness methods such as using light weights, chairs for focused balancing, and other tools that aid our growth and bring about a balanced, whole-body fitness style for life-long wellness. 

Pet of the Week: Will.I.Am

“Will.I.Am” is an 11-month-old American Staffordshire terrier. He loves playing with “Fergie,” his three-legged best buddy! They are like Black Eyed Peas in a pod, but Will.I.Am is ready to make his own music with a family that is just his.

He is an energetic, fun-loving dog that can boogie all night and still go for that morning run! Meet Will.I.Am at the County Animal Services shelter in Carlsbad, 2481 Palomar Airport Road. Please bring his ID number, A1450609, for reference. His adoption fee is $69 and includes which includes, neutering, vaccinations, licensing and a microchip.

By the way, his friend Fergie  is still available at the shelter in Carlsbad, where she’s been waiting for a forever home since  December! (Read her story here.) Her adoption fee is $35.   

Survey Says: IT Satisfaction High

 

Is the Help Desk living up to its name?  Does your technology toolkit have what you need?

In not so many words, those are the kind of questions the County Technology Office (CTO) recently asked all employees in its latest IT Customer Satisfaction Survey.  The results are now in, and they’re overwhelmingly positive. 

On a five-point scale, the County had an average score of 4.08 – the highest since the annual survey began in 2008.  The consulting firm Gartner, which worked with CTO on creating the survey, says when compared with similar Gartner clients, the score puts the County just shy of a Best in Class ranking.

“We’re extremely pleased.  This is a major step up for us,” said CTO’s Patty Carpenter, who leads several customer – that’s you – support initiatives.  “All indications are that customers are really happy.  It’s a very good feeling to know that our customers are satisfied. “

Carpenter noted the survey came after the year when HP took over the County’s IT contract, and the results are evidence of how smoothly that transition went. 

The top grade came for IT support responsiveness: how quickly you get help when you need it.  The Help Desk in particular had the highest score of all services in the survey.  Eighty-six percent of respondents said they call the help line at least once a month.  That would explain why in a ranking of all services by importance, the Help Desk led all others by a wide margin.

A team will be charged with combing through the responses more closely and reviewing all comments.  They will look for trends and come up with specific proposals for improvements.  The same process has been used after previous surveys and resulted in a number of positive changes.

A little more than 10 percent of County employees took this year’s survey.  Gartner says with that level of response, the County can be confident the score is representative of all employees.  But CTO would like to see participation even higher in the future.

“This survey helps us stay in tune with the needs of our customers,” Carpenter said.  “It helps us sharpen our focus on areas that may need improvement and work with our outsource partners to find ways to deliver better services.”

You can get more details on the survey results from this report (PDF).  And you don’t need to wait for the next survey to give CTO your thoughts on IT.  Email the office anytime at cto.feedback@sdcounty.ca.gov.

Civil Service Commission Exec. Makes Charitable Cambodian Journey

Our Civil Service Commission’s Executive Officer Patt Zamary recently journeyed to Cambodia with a local charity that raises money to improve the lives of impoverished villagers in the nation over 8,000 miles away.

The highlight of the journey for Zamary and her 26 fellow travelers was seeing the Cambodia Village Fund’s greatest accomplishment so far: a new school building for the Kaun Khlong Primary School.  Kuan Khlong is a rural village near Battambang, the second largest city in Cambodia.

Zamary, who had donated to the fund for several years but had never visited Cambodia before the January trip, recalled the experience this week with emotion in her voice.

“The children were so wonderful—and there’s so many of them,” she said. “There’s such poverty there.”

Cambodia is still recovering from the devastating Khmer Rouge regime that controlled the country in the mid-70s. Under the Khmer Rouge, millions of Cambodians were moved out of cities and placed in rural work camps. Hundreds of thousands, and possibly millions, of Cambodians were killed by the brutal regime. 

Zamary connected to the far away land’s plight through her friend, a former County employee, Bill Bamberger.

Bamberger, an economist in the Department of Planning and Land Use two decades ago, founded the Cambodia Village Fund with his wife Nancy in 2006, Zamary said.

The Bambergers were inspired by Nancy Bamberger’s Cambodian hairdresser, who described the great poverty and need in her native village.

For Zamary, supporting the fund had been a way to support her friends and a cause close to them. But now that she’s been to Cambodia, she plans getting even more involved.

“It really sealed my commitment to that organization,” she said.  

View a short and colorful video about the trip Zamary, the Bambergers and their group made to Cambodia and the work of the Cambodia Village Fund.

Pet of the Week Darla: More to Love

The great British wit Oscar Wilde once observed, “It's beauty that captures your attention; personality which captures your heart.”

Animal Services staff thinks the quote suits dear Darla. Some people actually find Darla beautiful, but at 17-pounds, this full-figured feline’s never been called graceful or lithe. But once you get to know her, you’ll see it’s her personality that’s really outsized!

Darla’s a 4-year-old spayed domestic shorthair who’s looking for just the right person or family to love her for all she is. Meet her at the Department of Animal Services Carlsbad location, 2481 Palomar Airport Road and please bring her ID number, A1451507. Her adoption fee is $58, which includes a microchip, vaccinations and a free veterinary examination.

Reality TV Inspires Revamped Supervisor Academy

Ever work with an Absent Amy or a Lazy Larry, or on the flip side, a Superstar Steve? All kinds of personalities show up in the workplace and a supervisor needs to make sure they all work well together to get the job done. Easy, right? Not so much.

Help is at hand with the new Supervisor Academy Redesigned. What’s so different about it? Instead of instruction based on presentations, the new Academy students participate in hands-on workshops along with role playing, a simulation, giveaways, prizes and even, yummy treats. Okay, sounds like fun, but how does that help you deal with the Absent Amys or Lazy Larrys?

“Soft skills are hard,” says Human Resources Analyst Shauna Rose-Pfeiffer, “and everybody thinks they’re the best person and all their staff loves them, but there are always things you can work on to help motivate them and get the best out of your staff.” 

First, acting supervisors must get a refresher on the basics. As a prerequisite for the Academy, they need to take the Supervisor Certificate Online Program (SCOP) offered on LMS. The program acts as a foundation for the Academy so when trainees get there they can focus on the soft skills. Some examples of those soft skills? How do I motivate staff; how should I handle difficult conversations with my staff; how do I juggle my workload with my supervisory duties? And yes, find out what’s going on with your Absent Amy and learn how to deal with the problem.

She’s just one of several fake employees who come complete with their own names, their own personalities, quirks, weaknesses and strengths. They’re presented as examples in the workshops. Attendees get the tools, resources and techniques to work successfully with the fake employees and then practice them. Experts give immediate feedback.    

“We use her a lot in the motivation workshop, how to motivate her to be on time. Is she bored? What’s wrong? She doesn’t like her work?” says Rose-Pfeiffer. “We’re trying to fix that kind of stuff.” 

So you may have your suspicions about Amy, but there may be more to it. “It might not be about Amy, it might be about the work environment. If you make the work environment better, Amy may not be so absent anymore.”  

The Academy also puts supervisors to the test in other ways. Do they have the right stuff for emergencies? Enter Supervisors Survival Island. You can get a taste of what that’s all about from this clip. Yes, Supervisors Survival Island comes complete with a simulated disaster, three tribes who find themselves stranded, an upcoming storm and other obstacles. How do you face those challenges, prepare for the tempest, and forge ahead despite the consequences of your decisions? It takes supervisors out of their usual environment and drops them into a challenging one.   

“This scenario takes place on the last day and gives supervisors a chance to practice their skills before they go back to the office.”

Sound interesting? If you manage a staff and want to attend the Academy, contact your supervisor and it goes up the ladder. Each of the five County Groups chooses six nominees for each session and the next one is scheduled for April.  It’s a privilege to be chosen, and a sign you may be groomed for better things to come. At the very least, the Academy gives you a chance to learn how to get better at what you do, a plus for you, your staff and the County overall. And don’t forget bragging rights, you lived through Supervisors Survival Island!      

Animal Services Vet Tech Goes MacGyver

Hungry kids don’t like waiting to eat, and that goes for goats too. When this 10-pound Nubian kid was brought to the Animal Services shelter in Bonita Tuesday, the little thing wanted milk. But the shelter only has to bottle-feed livestock occasionally, and staff discovered they were out of bottles. A quick-thinking employee, Registered Veterinary  Technician Yadira Figueroa, improvised, making a milk bottle from an empty container of Epi-Otic, an ear wash for dogs and cats. The kid gulped happily from Yadira’s bottle and had a full belly for the trip to a foster home later that day.

“Now this is what I call using your brain and getting creative to make things work,” said Animal Services Director Dawn Danielson. 

Pet of the Week: Shiatzi

Puppy love is all well and good. But 9-year-old Shiatzi’s mature and mellow ways have their own attraction. (Almost said “mature, mellow and dignified,” but you’re looking right at the photo!)

This spayed pit bull has lived many lives. Animal Services picked her up as a stray in rural North County. Her microchip identified an owner, but when contacted, the woman said Shiatzi had disappeared two years earlier. The woman owned four dogs now and couldn’t take Shiatzi back.

But it’s never too late to love again, and Shiatzi is searching for her forever home. She’s the laid back type, knows basic commands, and she’s been good with other dogs at the shelter.

You can meet Shiatzi at the County Animal Services shelter in Carlsbad, 2481 Palomar Airport Road. Please bring her ID number, A1452202, for reference. Her adoption fee is $35—the fee for the County’s senior dogs. For more information and shelter hours visit the Department of Animal Services online.

Pet of the Week Update

Good news! The Department of Animal Services reports that an HHSA employee adopted cool-cat Jagger this week after reading about him on InSite. 

Recycling check

The County’s been collecting mixed recyclables at dozens of our buildings for a little more than two years. As time goes on, it looks like employees and the public are getting more and more clued in to the  blue bins. In 2011, the County recycled 52 percent more material—paper, bottles and cans— than in 2010.   

 Mixed recycling—or comingled recycling, if you prefer— has been in place at 128 locations, including libraries, Sheriff’s stations, our County office buildings and public health centers, since the start of 2010. In the first year of the mixed recycling effort, contractor EDCO collected about 1,350 tons of material from us, according to Walt Stepahin, facilities support manager with General Services.  

Last year, that amount increased to 2,052 tons.

As you might imagine, paper accounts for the bulk of the recycling. During quarter of 2011, 68 percent of the collection was paper, 20 percent cardboard, and 12 percent plastic, glass, and metal bottles and cans.

But, again, we seem to be getting more used to this concept of mixed recycling. In the first three months of the program back in 2010, less than 3 percent of the collection was bottles and cans. Some 97.5 percent was paper or cardboard, according to an EDCO report.

Employees who work at the County Administration Center may just be getting used to the concept of comingled recycling. General Services recently  took over the building’s management and has furnished many departments with their first blue bins.

So CAC employees, anyone else who needs a refresher, here’s the drill: You can chuck almost every kind of plastic, glass, and metal jar, jug, or bottle and almost every paper product into  those blue receptacles.

Some commonplace items are exceptions.  These include disposable  plates and cups, milk and juice cartons, tissue, plastic grocery bags, Styrofoam, and light bulbs.

To make sure your department gets it just right, you can post this flyer near the recycling bin.

Pet of the Week: This Cat’s a Rock Star!

This “Jagger’s” moves make cat lovers melt, and he even dresses better than his namesake. Staff members at the County shelter in Carlsbad say Jagger’s the most well-adjusted, social, mellow, affectionate and contented cat they’ve seen in a long time. He’s cool with stretching out on laps, on a desk, in a patch of sunshine—wherever. He’s 2 years old, neutered and looking forward to lavishing languorous love on a new family. His adoption fee of $58 includes a microchip, vaccinations and a free veterinary examination.

 Jagger’s waiting to meet you at the County Animal Services shelter in Carlsbad, 2481 Palomar Airport Road. Please bring his ID number, A1451052, for reference. For more information and shelter hours visit the Department of Animal Services online.

Jagger chills out and helps the staff at Animal Services in Carlsbad.