BOYLE – For as bad as 2020 was for the Boyle Fitness Centre, 2021 was not much kinder, as finances continue to be a concern for the organization that is unable to fundraise like many other groups.
Peter Golanski gave a brief overview of the situation on behalf of the fitness centre board for Boyle councillors at their Dec. 15 regular meeting and requested the village’s continued support of $15,000 to keep the facility in operation.
In March 2020, the fitness centre closed its doors when the pandemic and subsequent restrictions were declared. At that time the membership was at 92, but by the time some of those restrictions were lifted in September 2020 and the fitness centre was allowed to open with limited access, membership fell to just 24, nine of whom were board members.
New restrictions in December 2020 closed the facility once again, but it again re-opened with limited access in June 2021. There are now 36 members who regularly use the facility, which Golanski partially credited to the 24-hour cardlock access that is now available.
“Since the 20th of September, we've slowly increased our membership, we're at 36 members now with six EMS and eight punch passes,” Golanski said, noting the facility has been closed for 12 total months during the pandemic.
“And during those 12 months, we still had to pay the utility bills and all the other good things that go with it, so expenses went down a bit, but not that much outside of the fact that we didn't have a manager being paid.”
The fitness centre oversees the Boyle Youth Centre as well, which has also not been in operation due to the pandemic and is unable to contribute its portion of the utilities.
The fitness centre is unable to conduct fundraising activities like raffles and casinos, due to AGLC rules.
“The AGLC has some very strict guidelines, and they're sort of sticking to them and they say we're a fitness centre. So, therefore, we're not eligible, even though we manage both the fitness centre and the youth centre,” said Golanski.
“Quite frankly, we're gonna have trouble paying our bills and keeping the manager employed for too much long longer. We are hoping that as we have seen in past years, we'll have some increase in memberships during the Christmas and New Year's break when people make their resolutions and decide that they're going to come out and try and get fit again.
“We are in some pretty serious financial difficulties as a result of the pandemic. We’re not sure what we can do to attract people to the fitness centre. We have tried different opportunities with reduced membership costs, but we’ve had very limited success and we continue to struggle the ways to improve our financial picture,” Golanski said.
Deputy mayor Pat Ferguson, who chaired the meeting in mayor Colin Derko’s absence, said he recognized the frustrations that the pandemic was causing.
I know it's been very frustrating with all the COVID, and now we've got the new variant coming on board,” he said. “We know you're doing your best to keep costs down as much as possible.”
Coun. Barb Smith asked if the board ever considered forming a society, similar to that of the Friends of the Boyle Library Society, which is the fundraising arm of the library, which itself is ineligible to fundraise much like the fitness centre. Golanski said he wasn’t aware of such a thing taking place to help support a fitness centre.
Council voted to bring the request to upcoming budget deliberations. Athabasca County also usually contributes to the facility’s operations with a matching $15,000, but Golanski said he expects that will also go to county budget deliberations.
