After a successful resident registration day on Saturday, December 7, Winter programs will soon be underway. The registration event was the first to take place in the Park District’s new software, ActiveNet.
Thank you to all participants who were proactive and verified their account prior to registration. Looking to the future, staff wants to remind all participants to make sure to add an email and phone number for every member of your household, including children. Also, if you are having trouble getting into your account, you only have five attempts at your password before ActiveNet will lock you out. Click “forgot password” to reset it, please do not create a new account.
In 2022, a decision was made to search for a new software vendor after repeated system failures during high volume registration days. ActiveNet was partially chosen because they demonstrated an ability to successfully process a high volume of registrants at one time. Staff throughout the District spent countless hours in the past year preparing for the transition to ActiveNet.
Saturday’s registration day was even busier than last year’s, with more than 4,000 registrations in just one morning compared to 2,975 registrations spread over three days in 2022. Staff are now reviewing wait lists for programs to try to accommodate as many participants as possible.
While the new software addressed the high volume of activity on the first day of registration, it does not help address the large demand for programs the Elmhurst community continues to have each season.
According to Jim Rogers, Executive Director, “We’re very pleased that the new registration software worked so well last Saturday, but over the last few years, registration numbers and wait list numbers have grown significantly. Our Board and staff have done a great job of developing creative solutions for programming expansion, including most recently adding Sunday classes for Dance and Gymnastics, but we can only accommodate so many participants within our current space constraints. The fact remains that we simply don’t have the facility space or funding to address the types of numbers we’re seeing. Our facilities are aging and at capacity, and we frequently compete with our own programs for space. At some point soon the community is going to have to decide to increase funding to the Park District if it wants this issue to be addressed.”
If you have not done so already, check out the Winter Brochure for upcoming programming. Before registering, make sure to verify your account in the new registration software. Instructions for doing so can be found at epd.org/news/get-active.
