Where did the idea of the Pumpkin Pickler originate?
Plymouth Pickleball officially formed less than two months ago, and as we were in the middle of organizing our first official event my wife had an idea. She just saw online that the city of Plymouth was advertising submissions for the scarecrows in downtown Plymouth. If you don’t know what the scarecrows are, it’s where local businesses, programs, and some individuals setup homemade scarecrows in the park of downtown Plymouth that stay up through the Fall to add a festive feel to the park.
Each scarecrow has their own unique design and often represent the creator’s business or program in some way. They can be funny, scary, silly, or abstract even, and it’s up to the creator to make something local residents will enjoy as they walk the park.
We were sitting on the couch discussing how we could market Plymouth Pickleball, and she thought that if we got a scarecrow it would be a great way for local residents to learn about us. The next day, I filled out the form and submitted it. Here’s the thing, it’s a lottery. Just because we submitted a form doesn’t mean we would get a spot for our scarecrow.
We won a scarecrow lottery spot!
Sure enough, a few days later we learned that we won a lottery spot for our scarecrow! At first we were really excited but then we realized that we had a lot of work to do. We had two weeks to not only plan and build our scarecrow, we also needed to do a lot more for Plymouth Pickleball.
What did we need to get done before we made the scarecrow?
There’s nothing like a tight deadline to get your butt in gear. Luckily we had two weeks but we had a lot of work in front of us so that when people saw our scarecrow, they had somewhere to go (a website) and something to do (sign up for a session). This was our laundry list of things to do.
- Land the plane on our official branding. Prior to Plymouth Pickleball, we were operating under a different brand but we learned that we were making things too complex with requiring our players to know more than on brand at a time. We made a decision and we doubled down on Plymouth Pickleball.
- Get our official website up and running. Up to this point Paul and I had some prototype websites working but nothing was finished. Two weeks is not a lot of time to get a website up and running but the good thing about deadlines is that it forces you to make quick decisions and cut scope. Luckily, Paul and I have a background in web development so we were able to pick a platform and knock this out just in time.
- Redo all of our branding. Remember, we had an entirely different brand so we needed a new logo, we needed to migrate our content, update the content with the new brand, update our legal papers
- Design a process for registering a player for an event. This meant that we needed to find a tool where users can discover and sign up for our sessions. The solution also needed to play well with our website platform, email, and social like Facebook.
- Setup email, DNS, and lead forms. We needed to do all the small details of not only building our website, but also make sure it’s published on the internet with DNS settings as well as get our official email working. Then, we needed website forms that could accept inquiries that routed through the DNS to our new emails so we could respond to clients.
- Confirm gym-time. We had a dialogue going with PARC in Plymouth for more gym-time throughout the end of the year but it wasn’t locked down yet. We needed to get confirmed gym-time so that we could market it and host sessions for new players.
- Create sign-in and waiver documents for players. Well, when players show up you need them to sign-in, pay, as well as sign a waiver so that we’re covered. This means researching and finding good legal documents that can be used for a sports program, printing them, and organizing them for the event.
- Setup payment methods. Accepting cash at the door is an obvious route for people to pay for their session but we needed multiple options to ensure payments were easy. This meant we needed to pick a digital payments solution like Venmo (that’s what we picked) and set it up.
- Choose the type of sessions we would offer out of the gate. We have big dreams to host all types of pickleball sessions. Lessons. Drop-ins. Leagues. Tournaments. DUPR Ratings Sessions. We plan to host all of these one day through Plymouth Pickleball but we’re just getting started and we can’t offer all of this right away. We need to grow into it so we needed to choose where to start. This is why we currently offer Learn and Play sessions geared toward new players learning pickleball, and we don’t have other session-types available (yet).
- Choose the pricing, how much will we charge? Well, this meant we needed to learn how much others charge nearby for the type of session we would host. We also needed to make sure we could cover our gym-costs as well as other expenses (website hosting, design fees, equipment, etc) so selecting a price that made sense for the type of session, our location, and supported our costs was critical to figure out.
- Setup a Social Presence. One of our good friends who specializes in marketing gave us great feedback that we needed a social presence before the scarecrow was up so that people saw a history, not a blank social page. To achieve this, we needed a few of those previous things figured out. Branding. Content. Etc. In the end, we have a Facebook and Instagram page for Plymouth Pickleball.
- Practice and learn more about pickleball. Paul and I are like many of our players, we’re learning the game too. We needed to polish up our knowledge of the rules, and practice playing more than we have before we would host an official event. I took an online coaching course to learn how to introduce the game of pickleball to players. We hosted some friends-only sessions at PARC prior to our first public event to practice setting up the space as well as practice teaching the game to others. Prior to our first public event, I joined a friend at a local park in Canton who’s been involved in pickleball since 2017, and he’s played with some of the game’s best. He showed me the ropes and I learned how public courts operate so that I can bring this back to our community. These steps helped us know how to teach others who were learning the game themselves.
- Market our first public event! We had a goal to host our first event before our scarecrow was up. Why? Well, we thought of this as another round of practice. My wife once again had a great idea to ask our neighborhood if anyone wanted to join our first session, and we hit our goal of filling two courts of doubles and one court of singles, and everyone learned how to play. This was a great way to dip our toes into hosting a public event with a smaller group before we fill the gym.
- THEN, we needed to figure out how to build our scarecrow! Yes, we had to accomplish all of the stuff above before we even contemplated building our scarecrow, which in and of itself was it’s own endeavor.
How did we build The Pumpkin Pickler Scarecrow of Plymouth, Michigan?
Well, we didn’t build the scarecrow alone, we had a lot of help from friends! Upon winning the scarecrow lottery, we sent a text to all of our local friends letting them know we won a spot. At first our friends were confused, and I am pretty sure a few of them thought we were crazy, and they’re not wrong.
But, like great friends do, they started to help us by brainstorming on all fronts. Some friends helped us think through the long list of to-dos above. From branding to marketing, and the process itself, all the way to how we could design and build that physical scarecrow. The consensus was that it needed to be a pickleball player.
Next, we started to gather materials. My wife is awesome and she went out and bought the pumpkin head, some ribbon, zip ties, hay for stuffing, and a few other goodies. Our friends supplied a headband and the sweat pants. Luckily, Paul, had already purchased a fun pickleball shirt that was purple with a pickleball smiley face. He bought this for me to wear to events but it was a tad too small so we repurposed it for the scarecrow which was perfect.
Prior to building, I also spray-painted a wooden paddle to donate to the cause and it turned out fantastic, orange and black. Upon walking back into the garage, I spotted our skeleton that we use for Halloween decorating and had an aha moment to use it as the scaffolding of our scarecrow. Thank goodness because I am not sure it would not have held up without it. (Pro-tip, use a skeleton if you’re building a scarecrow).
Then we got to building!
Paul, myself, our entire families, and some of our friends arrived to help. The kids wore some work gloves and loved getting their hands dirty. Paul and I creatively engineered the Pumpkin Pickler on the fly by utilizing a lot of zip ties to hold everything in place since this pickler needed to withstand wind, rain, and storms.
We stuffed the pickler full of hay, attached the paddle, balls, and shoes making it look like a real pickler. Toward the end, the pickler didn’t yet have his pumpkin head and only wore the skeleton head. We made the decision the skeleton needed to wear pumpkin so I broke out my multi-tool to cut a hole in the bottom so we affix it like a helmet.
The Pumpkin Pickler was Complete!
Well, almost! We almost forgot to make a sign! Thank goodness for our friend (also named Katie) who has a background in marketing, and whipped up a great sign for our scarecrow. This was truly a team effort and we’re so grateful for our friends, family, and support.
After an hour of building and an hour of kids “helping” the Great Pumpkin Pickler of Plymouth was finished! Since built, The Pumpkin Pickler has been noticed by the Southeast Pickleball Facebook Group and was recognized by the Plymouth Farmers Market. Our kids and family love The Pumpkin Pickler, and we hope you do too.
If you get a chance to visit the scarecrows, snap a picture with #ThePumpkinPickler and make sure to mention us @PlymouthPickleball on Facebook and Instagram.
As always, thanks for playing with Plymouth Pickleball!
Plymouth Pickleball doesn’t happen without the players and the community. We started to build this community less than ninety days ago, and to see a full gym of enthusiastic players open and willing to learn makes us more motivated to keep going. Thank you for your support as we grow Plymouth Pickleball and bring this sport to the residents of Plymouth, Michigan!
Thanks for playing with us!
October Learn and Play Sessions Now Open!
October 1st, and 29th are now posted on our website for registration. We are working on finding more availability in October and November dates are in the works! If a session is full, join the wait-list and we’ll let you know if space becomes available.
If you have any questions or feedback, please email us as info@plymouthpickleball.com.
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