ACUI Open Forum

To those of you with Bowling Alleys in your facility, for lane maintenance; Do you have a service contract with an outside company, in house maintenance within the Union's team, or are they maintained through the university's facilities department? Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

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Vaughn L. Myers Myers
Associate Director, Student Union Operations
The University of Akron - Jean Hower Taber Student Union
Akron, OH
330-972-7274
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The Reitz Union has a 14 Lane Alley and we have an in-house mechanic on staff. Let me know if you would like to connect with him to review our operation.

John Duncan
Interim Associate Director of Operations
Reitz Union 
University of Florida
john@ufl.edu
352-392-6592


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John Duncan
Interim Associate Director of Operations
University of Florida
Gainesville FL
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Original Message:
Sent: 10-25-2022 12:54
From: Vaughn Myers
Subject: Bowling Alley Maintenance

To those of you with Bowling Alleys in your facility, for lane maintenance; Do you have a service contract with an outside company, in house maintenance within the Union's team, or are they maintained through the university's facilities department? Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

------------------------------
Vaughn L. Myers Myers
Associate Director, Student Union Operations
The University of Akron - Jean Hower Taber Student Union
Akron, OH
330-972-7274
------------------------------

We do a combo. Our student staff and the full-time staff person who manages the bowling alley do routine maintenance such as oiling the lanes and tightening the strings on our string pinsetters. The full-time person is also pretty good about figuring out minor issues with the technology or the mechanics. If it's a bigger mechanical issue, we have an in-house mechanic (facilities) staff that can do a lot of repairs. We only occasionally have had to get someone from Qubica on the phone or to come out for a fix.

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Kristine Heflin
Associate Director, Memorial Union
Iowa State University
Ames IA
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Original Message:
Sent: 10-25-2022 12:54
From: Vaughn Myers
Subject: Bowling Alley Maintenance

To those of you with Bowling Alleys in your facility, for lane maintenance; Do you have a service contract with an outside company, in house maintenance within the Union's team, or are they maintained through the university's facilities department? Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

------------------------------
Vaughn L. Myers Myers
Associate Director, Student Union Operations
The University of Akron - Jean Hower Taber Student Union
Akron, OH
330-972-7274
------------------------------

We have an inhouse mechanic that handles most maintenance on the machines. He also handles some facilities projects in the building as needed.

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Mic Brunner M.S. Ed.
Associate Director, Atwood Memorial Center
St. Cloud State University | St. Cloud, MN | 320.308.3977
Strategic • Futuristic • Woo • Communication • Positivity
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Original Message:
Sent: 10-25-2022 12:54
From: Vaughn Myers
Subject: Bowling Alley Maintenance

To those of you with Bowling Alleys in your facility, for lane maintenance; Do you have a service contract with an outside company, in house maintenance within the Union's team, or are they maintained through the university's facilities department? Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

------------------------------
Vaughn L. Myers Myers
Associate Director, Student Union Operations
The University of Akron - Jean Hower Taber Student Union
Akron, OH
330-972-7274
------------------------------

We have 12 lanes of Brunswick A2's with Qubica BES X scoring and are running Conquer for our POS that the Manager (myself) maintains. I had the luxury of having 10 years experience maintaining large bowling centers before coming to IU. I also train student staff to do basic calls, cleaning/oiling of the machine and to change machine related laundry.

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Ryan Clemons
General Manager IMU Bowling & Billiards
Indiana University-Bloomington
Bloomington IN
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Original Message:
Sent: 10-25-2022 12:54
From: Vaughn Myers
Subject: Bowling Alley Maintenance

To those of you with Bowling Alleys in your facility, for lane maintenance; Do you have a service contract with an outside company, in house maintenance within the Union's team, or are they maintained through the university's facilities department? Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

------------------------------
Vaughn L. Myers Myers
Associate Director, Student Union Operations
The University of Akron - Jean Hower Taber Student Union
Akron, OH
330-972-7274
------------------------------

At the Wisconsin Union (UW-Madison) we have Qubica 90XLi pinspotters and synthetic lanes.  Our maintenance work is done by the following:

• We have student employees who do the lane oiling.
• Our desk staff (also student employees) are trained to do basic fixes such as bin jams.
• Our FT manager (me) does some repair work (for example: replacing scissors and belts, adjusting the shuttles and pin guides, and so on).
• For more advanced repairs and for routine upkeep, we contract with the Schemm Company in Deerfield, WI.  We are fortunate in that we have a very experienced mechanic who works with us through Schemm.

For what it's worth, I'll throw in one useful bowling repair tool which isn't mentioned often.  We sometimes have intermittent repeating problems on our machines.  These can be difficult to diagnose.  Rather than have a staff person sit on the machine and monitor it to figure what's causing the problem, we purchased a cheap camera (similar to a Go-Pro, but only ~$30).  We use velcro to mount the camera over or on the machine, then let it run until the problem repeats.  We can then watch the video to see what's happening.  It has been a very useful tool.

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Robert Wright
Sett Recreation Manager
Wisconsin Union
University of Wisconsin-Madison
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Original Message:
Sent: 10-27-2022 14:06
From: Ryan Clemons
Subject: Bowling Alley Maintenance

We have 12 lanes of Brunswick A2's with Qubica BES X scoring and are running Conquer for our POS that the Manager (myself) maintains. I had the luxury of having 10 years experience maintaining large bowling centers before coming to IU. I also train student staff to do basic calls, cleaning/oiling of the machine and to change machine related laundry.

------------------------------
Ryan Clemons
General Manager IMU Bowling & Billiards
Indiana University-Bloomington
Bloomington IN

Original Message:
Sent: 10-25-2022 12:54
From: Vaughn Myers
Subject: Bowling Alley Maintenance

To those of you with Bowling Alleys in your facility, for lane maintenance; Do you have a service contract with an outside company, in house maintenance within the Union's team, or are they maintained through the university's facilities department? Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

------------------------------
Vaughn L. Myers Myers
Associate Director, Student Union Operations
The University of Akron - Jean Hower Taber Student Union
Akron, OH
330-972-7274
------------------------------

The Student Centers at the University of Houston has 12 XLi Edge QubicaAMF pinspotters.  Our mechanic of over 40 years retired a year ago in December.  After searching 6 months for a replacement, we went with a facilities person with no experience with automatic pinspotters.  It has been a long haul to date, but he is catching on.  Our mechanic/technician has overall responsibility of keeping the lanes and pinspotters operational with a little help from our student employees.  In addition our Program Manager for the Games Room has 20+ years of working experience in a bowling facility, here at the University of Houston and at commercial center.

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William Schwehr
Assistant Director, UC Leisure Services
University of Houston
Houston TX
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Original Message:
Sent: 10-25-2022 12:54
From: Vaughn Myers
Subject: Bowling Alley Maintenance

To those of you with Bowling Alleys in your facility, for lane maintenance; Do you have a service contract with an outside company, in house maintenance within the Union's team, or are they maintained through the university's facilities department? Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

------------------------------
Vaughn L. Myers Myers
Associate Director, Student Union Operations
The University of Akron - Jean Hower Taber Student Union
Akron, OH
330-972-7274
------------------------------

Hello Vaughn,

This fall we opened the new FSU Student Union at Florida State. We have 12 lanes of Brunswick GSX pinsetters, Anvil Lanes, and Sync Scoring. As part of the installation, we had a week of training for our two full time employees. They have trained several of our students to be effect "C" mechanics. We do anticipate bringing an outside mechanic in twice a year to monitor our work and address any nagging problems.

Hope that helps!
Mike

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Michael Fine
Assistant Director, Arts & Recreation
Florida State University
Tallahassee FL
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Original Message:
Sent: 10-25-2022 12:54
From: Vaughn Myers
Subject: Bowling Alley Maintenance

To those of you with Bowling Alleys in your facility, for lane maintenance; Do you have a service contract with an outside company, in house maintenance within the Union's team, or are they maintained through the university's facilities department? Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

------------------------------
Vaughn L. Myers Myers
Associate Director, Student Union Operations
The University of Akron - Jean Hower Taber Student Union
Akron, OH
330-972-7274
------------------------------