Urban Recreation

I come here to play volleyball about twice a week. It's a nice place to practice beach volleyball, it's a little bit out of the way but once you're here you have a lot of space to practice and play with friends. I would rate it down one star because there are some trash bins that are not emptied out regularly and cause the course to smell up when it's windy.

I would not recommend Urban Rec for individuals not part of a team. I joined Urban Rec for indoor volleyball this season as an individual player (no previous team) and became a team captain to the team of individuals put together by the league. I have found getting into this sport challenging because it is so popular, and as a relatively newer player to the sport, my mission has been to build skill and find a reliable tribe to grow with. Unfortunately, this was a non-committal team, with two members dropping out altogether after two weeks and rarely 6 players showing up each week thereafter. This has led to defaulting a handful of games due to lack of players, including the first round of playoff games. I contacted Urban Rec three different times in the first half of the season sharing my concerns about the team and the challenges I was having as team captain, but the organization did nothing to help me manage my struggling team. I’m pretty surprised that an organization offering to put teams together does not check in with them over time or assess the team’s viability. Hands-off policies may work fine with existing teams, but brand new teams sometimes need more support. For example, for new teams formed through Urban Rec in their first season, give a maximum to the number of individual absences in a season, say 3, or those individuals are removed from the roster and replaced. On a positive note, I will say that at least those that showed up played and practiced. Overall, for the money I paid, I’m left bummed out by the experience.

Sadly the only reason they get 2 stars instead of 1 is that they are the only option available for organized recreational sport leagues in the city. Maybe some of the blame lies with the Vancouver School Board (who knows, because they will never tell you exactly why scheduling snafus happen or what they will do to avoid such situations in future), but there have been two instances now where they have cancelled games 3 hours prior due to scheduling conflicts with gyms. One time was due to a provincial election called 5 weeks before, so they knew what day it was to occur, and where voting places usually are in school gyms, but they failed to follow up proactively until panicking the day of and telling us in a boilerplate email, "we are at the mercy of scheduling for the provincial election". By that point in the season we had played 2 games in 6 weeks. Urban Rec to their credit acknowledged the error, but then took months to refund the team leaving our captain out hundreds of dollars. The second time was just yesterday where they "only just found out" that day that the gym was prebooked for a Christmas event. They emailed our team (no, they did not dare call the captain or the rest of the team in such an urgent situation, presumably to avoid conflict), and to put the icing on the cake, a couple of our teammates showed up anyway and found the gym empty. A colossal failure in organization and logistics. Again, this is probably one of your only options in the city for recreational sport so you'll have to go with them - but be persistent if there's any issues, email often, and insist on accountability.