WESTLOCK – The Westlock Curling Club is looking for funding and approval to move forward with some needed upgrades for the Westlock Curling Rink this fall.
In a presentation to councillors at the May 8 Town of Westlock regular council meeting, club president Erin Wiese and board member Rachel Clark told councillors about the much-needed renovations to the facility, that is dealing with aging infrastructure and lower membership numbers. Ultimately, councillors accepted the presentation as information.
The club is hoping to complete the ice surface upgrades this fall, that include painting and lighting that will cost about $25,000 (combined) as outlined in their presentation. Wiese shared some user stats and data from the 2022-23 curling season that included numbers for leagues, school curling sessions, annual bonspiels and rental bonspiels, as well as detailing other accessibility and energy efficient upgrades they would like to complete.
In addition, the club will need to replace the ice plant in 2025, which comes with an $840,000 price tag, which they said they will need to partner with the town, who owns the building, as the club cannot fund the entire bill.
“We’ve been working on that and trying to figure out a strategy to cover the financial costs of that (ice plant) and how we’re going to make it work,” said Wiese. “We’d like to update you on our marketing plan that we have, what we’ve been working on to go along with that,” she added, noting it was “really important that if we are to invest in this infrastructure going forward, that we increase our users at the facility and make sure it’s being well used by the community.”
Club members broke down the required upgrades into goals and phases, detailing several areas for this and future years.
In explaining the process to councillors, Wiese noted they are looking to obtain provincial and federal grants to assist with the proposed upgrades, and additionally via contributions through municipalities, donations and some fundraising as well.
“Again, our end goal would be to attract more users to the facility and in turn, I think these upgrades will allow us to host more events and bigger events going forward,” said Wiese.
Details of the three different phases, starting with Phase 1 that is currently being implemented with help from the community recovery grant, includes improving social media reach, rewriting curling club bylaws, redefining board roles and improving club operations. Phase 2, expected to be complete in the fall,includes ice surface upgrades such as painting, $12,000, and lighting, $13,000, with the focus of Phase 3 the ice plant replacement in 2025.
Wiese also noted several other building upgrades needed this year include roof repair, solar panels, a lift and a general layout update.
“We’re hoping to receive funding for both of these projects (painting and lighting) and we have applied for that already,” said Wiese, noting the Family and Community Support Services Agrispirit Fund and the CFEP grant. “If we don’t get funding, we are prepared to pay for it out of our curling accounts but ideally, we’d like to ask for some funding from the town as well.”
To help attract more users, Wiese noted the club has looked to several strategies including creating a website, using a Facebook page, sending out monthly newsletters to the club’s membership, adding new events, targeting new curlers including youth curlers this year and will also focus on sponsorship and incorporating information from a Business of Curling Canada program consultation earlier this year.
In their closing remarks, Wiese noted the club will need approval from the town as owners of the curling rink before they begin work on the upgrades later this year and hope to get the ball rolling as soon as possible.
“Two years seems like it’s a long time but it’s not really when we’re looking at a project of this scope,” explained Wiese. “We’d like the support from the town to go forward in working with Polar Engineering on the ice plant and building upgrades.”
