Celebrating Three Years of Open Space Radio — Episode 072

On this episode of Open Space Radio, we’re celebrating our
birthday! We started Open Space Radio a little over three years
ago, and while many of you may have heard us talk about the early
days of finding our podcasting groove — with not a whole lot of
podcasting experience to pull from — we like to invite you, our
listeners, in every once in a while to reflect back on some of
our favorite Open Space Radio moments from the past. And we’ve
had a lot of favorite moments.


Three years later, we still feel so lucky to be able to share
with you the conversations we get to have with park and
recreation professionals and other incredible people who are
truly improving the quality of life for the people in their
communities. Since we recently celebrated our official third
birthday, we thought it would be a good time to look back on our
three most-downloaded episodes to date and share some of our
thoughts, as well as give you a bit of a preview of a past
episode you may have missed!


Tune in to the full episode below to listen to our reflections on
the past three years and hear clips from these past episodes:


1:42: Episode 24, “How Risk Play Can Benefit Kids”





On this episode, we spoke with Tom Norquist, president of
the International Play Equipment Manufacturers Association
(IPEMA) about how risk and adventure play is stepping back
into the limelight and helping kids’ independence and
creativity.







We reflect on how this episode is still really relevant
today – for one, because of the increased awareness we’re
currently seeing around the need for outdoor recreation
during the pandemic, and also because we recently worked with
IPEMA on guidance for safely using playgrounds during the
pandemic.





5:57: Episode 46, “Esports at the Rec Center?”

On this episode, we spoke with Neelay Bhatt, vice
president of PROS Consulting and past NRPA board member,
about what esports are, their impact on parks and recreation
and the potential opportunities they present.







We reflect on how esports and virtual programming can
bridge a gap and reach audiences that haven’t typically
participated in traditional park and recreation offerings,
and how esports are going to increase in popularity due to
the COVID-19 pandemic.





12:48: Episode 61: “How Park and Recreation Leaders are
Addressing Coronavirus” 





On this episode, we talked with Jesús Aguirre,
Superintendent of Seattle Parks and Recreation and NRPA board
member, Brian Zimmerman, CEO of Cleveland Metroparks, and
Adriane Clutter, Division Chief at Montgomery County
Recreation in Maryland, about how each of them was responding
to COVID-19 at the time (March 10, 2020) in their respective
areas of the country.







We reflect on how the stats for this episode are so
shocking to look at now compared to when we recorded the
episode – for example, at the time of recording for this
episode, there were only 432 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in
the U.S., compared to the more than 5 million current cases.
We also discuss our admiration for how well park and
recreation professionals have pivoted to serve their
communities during such a challenging time (be sure to also
listen to the May, June and September bonus episodes for more
on this).





Thank you so much for your support and for listening to Open
Space Radio over the years. We truly love being able to produce
this podcast for you and can’t wait to see what the next three
years bring! As always, if you have any ideas for future
episodes, reach out! Send us an email at openspace@nrpa.org or
connect with us on Instagram!