OXFORD — Three years, hundreds of volunteer man-hours and tens of thousands of dollars later, the town will soon have a new girls’ softball field at Pismo Beach.

At the Board of Selectmen meeting Thursday night, Town Manager Michael Chammings updated the board on the progress of a snack shack that modular home manufacturer KBS Builders Inc. in South Paris constructed for the field. The snack shack is one of a few items left on the checklist to complete the project. Once the concrete footers are poured, the building can be moved into place.

“Everything’s already in place, so once they pour the cement, it will be ready to set right on,” Pam Lovely, chairwoman of the recreation board, said.

Chammings recommended that the board direct the Recreation Department to draft regulations regarding use of the new snack shack.

“We need to ask the rec department to make some rules . . . so people will know what it’s to be used for, who can use it and so on,” he said. “I just don’t want to put a $20,000 building on that field and have no regulations for it.”

In addition to placing the new building, Board of Selectmen Chairman Scott Owens said the field should be weeded, graded and sodded this month. All that’s left at that point are some final touches, like building new dugouts and installing fencing around the field.

Even though the new field will be officially in use next spring, Chammings said he hopes to host a barbecue there as early as this fall.

“Hopefully, we can get it up and running once (this year) because there’s been so many people volunteering, I’d like to have a big barbecue to thank them,” said Chammings, who has coordinated the volunteers.

Work already completed on the field includes an irrigation system and much of the initial ground work.

Selectmen also discussed an issue the Recreation Department recently ran into regarding its new electronic sign and a resident’s request to place a personal message on it. Lovely said the recreation board had instituted a policy to use the sign to communicate official town business and Recreation Department announcements. When the Recreation Department refused the request for a personal message welcoming an Oxford boy’s return from military boot camp, a few people took to social media to complain.

“Everybody’s message is important to them,” Lovely said, adding she understood the request, but the department was simply following policy.

Lovely said the Recreation Department purchased the sign with money it raised, not taxpayer funds. The department’s concern is it would be unable to accommodate personal requests for messages without the possibility of missing someone.

“We did contact the American Legion and asked them to put up a message on their sign, which is a very appropriate place for that to be,” Lovely said.

The department also offered to hang a banner in front of the community center to welcome the soldier.

Chammings recommended that if an individual had a personal message they’d like to see on the sign, they might come to selectmen to petition for an exception to the policy. That way the board could decide on a case-by-case basis, considering all the circumstances surrounding the request.

The sign is just one example of what the Recreation Department has been able to accomplish with its fundraising efforts. Lovely said they’ve also purchased swings and installed horseshoe pits and a bocce court for the town. The department hosts a variety of fundraisers, including a pizza challenge and its popular annual duck race, according to Lovely.

“We like to do some fundraising to show the town we don’t just like to ask for their money,” Lovely said.

This year’s duck race will take place at 10 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 12. Individuals can purchase a numbered rubber duck for $5, which organizers will release at the King Street bridge. The ducks travel under a small covered bridge where they are collected as they cross a finish line. Cash prizes are awarded for the owners of the ducks that place first, second, third and last.

The race will be preceded by a pancake breakfast from 8 to 9:30 a.m. at the community center on King Street.

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