MANCHESTER — A number of residents can expect to receive a survey in the mail next week as the town continues to ask for feedback about what the community wants out of its parks and facilities.
A community interest and opinion survey will be mailed out to random households the second week of November, town officials said. Adult residents will be asked to rank and prioritize items relating to Manchester’s parks, recreational programming, facilities, and areas of potential investment.
Town officials announced that the master plan was moving forward last month, and they’ve already started receiving feedback from the community that they hope will help establish priorities for the future development in the town’s parks system and associated programs.
The weekend before Halloween, parks staff hosted a “Trick or Treat for Parks” event across town where kids and their parents could participate in activities and make recommendations about what they’d like to see in the parks.
The survey and a project description letter will be mailed to a random sample of households, officials said in a release announcing the survey. Residents can respond via an online link included in the letter or postage-paid return envelope.
The goal, according to the town, is to get at least 350 completed surveys, which would provide results with a margin of error of plus or minus 5.2 percent at a 95 percent level of confidence.
The town’s director of leisure, f,amily and recreation, Christopher Silver, said “representative engagement is critical” for the survey, and those administering it are ensuring it reflects a wide spectrum of the town’s demographic composition.
The community survey will run from November through December; survey findings will be submitted to the town in January, and results will be presented to the public in June. Those who are not randomly selected to receive a survey but who still want to provide input regarding the master plan will have an opportunity to complete an identical survey after responses for the initial survey are received and tabulated, town officials said.
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