01-21-25 - PTRC Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Parks, Trails & Recreation Committee – January 21, 2025 Page 2 under Ramsey County jurisdiction. He manages the sauna relationship. When he received approval for that, he brought up the idea of having an Ice Swim. Ramsey County Parks was open to the idea. He was formally approved to host the 25-meter Ice Swim at Lake Johanna on February 22, 2025. This is just the second event of its kind to be hosted in North or South America. There are only seven similar events in the entire world. This is a global event. There is a 12-year running event in Vermont. The first three years they had 40 participants. They have 185 participants scheduled for this year’s event, which is scheduled for the same date as the Lake Johanna event. The Vermont swim had 10 countries and 44 states represented. Nick Tamble already has 45 people committed to participate in this event. Those commitments came from him personally asking. He hopes to have 120 swim slots taken. It’s hard to gauge how many people can go through the pool at one time. There is a tremendous amount of work involved in hosting an event like this. People are baffled that he received permission. The event includes a 14 x 85 foot hole in the ice. It will look like a lap pool with a center line and line judges. He has a 10-person Steering Committee and over 80 volunteers. An event of this kind usually takes a year to plan. This event is pulling together in four months. There have been twelve Steering Committee meetings. PTRC Committee Member Johnson recently joined that committee. This will be a really cool event. They are in the process of populating the website with all of the final details. There will be information forthcoming, all the way up to the day of the event. Tamble is familiar with the swim scene and races like this. An informative Zoom call will be held the Sunday before this event. This helps make everyone aware of how things will go and what to expect. There will be a lot of questions, the website should answer a lot of them. There is an intuitive bot installed on the website so people can ask it questions and get detailed information about the swim. Updates will be shared on Facebook at MN Ice Swim event page. There is an email list that participants can opt into, through the website, to receive information. The website is live. It is a basic landing page right now. Nick Tamble said tickets will be available for purchase on January 22, by midnight. That is exactly one month before the swim. Typically, people sign up for these events 6-12 months before the event. We aren’t expecting a huge event. If we get at least 40 participants, we will surpass what Vermont did in the first three years of their event. Minnesota has a much bigger target market for this type of event. It should be a huge draw. Nick Tamble originally wanted to schedule the event on the second weekend of the Winter Carnival. This is the type of event that could be adopted into the Winter Carnival. However, this can be a stand-alone, global event of its own, taking place between the Winter Carnival and the Loppet. Nick Tamble said this event will exist in perpetuity. He plans to run this event for another five years. He shared how the idea of this event came about and some history about his counterpart, Seth Baetzold. Tamble is the event director and when he passes it on, Baetzold will most likely take over. Nick Tamble said this is a big event. There hasn’t been anything in Arden Hills in a while. He said Arden Hills has been stagnant when it comes to hosting events.