Future of Beach centre on the table

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By Jim Mosher
Friday April 08, 2005

Interlake Spectator — Larry Moore may be taking his leave, after 25 years on the volunteer board of the non-profit Winnipeg Beach Municipal Recreation Centre, Inc.
“I’m about 90 per cent sure that’s what I’ll do,” Moore said Monday, indicating for the first time publicly that he may step down. “I think a quarter-century is long enough.”
Moore had stood down as the board’s long-time president last year, but was forced to return after Al Chopp resigned the top spot amid growing controversy last summer about the non-profit centre’s governance.
Beach town council said in a tersely-worded letter to the rec board last June that it may consider dissolving the volunteer board and taking over the rec centre as a municipal facility.
Moore says the town may well have its way if too few people attend the centre’s annual general meeting April 13. The meeting gets under way at 7:30 p.m. at the wheelchair-accessible Hamilton Ave. rec centre. It’s the second AGM in less than a year because the board plans to formalize a move to report its finance’s on a calendar-year basis.
At minimum, 15 people must attend the AGM to form the quorum set out in the non-profit corporation’s constitution.
“The rec centre can only continue to operate as a facility with an independent board of directors if there are people willing to give up their time and effort to ensure that,” Moore said. “If they’re not there [at the AGM], the corporation will cease to exist.”
Moore says the upcoming AGM is an important milestone in the history of the rec centre, which was built in 1979-80. The centre has always relied upon volunteers to maintain the building and recreation programs. But the bingo and break-open ticket revenues that once kept the centre above the fiscal waterline have declined dramatically over the years; particularly since the advent of video lottery terminals in local bars and lounges and other gaming alternatives in Winnipeg.

“I’m getting a little ... I’m not going to say ‘frustrated’ .... It’s just that it’s become harder and harder to raise revenues,” Moore said.
Traditional revenue sources must be backed up by others, Moore acknowledges.
And the rec board has done its share, raising more than $40,000 in 2003 and again in 2004. But it’s not enough.
Hockey and figure skating remain the mainstay recreational programs. Some of have argued that the rec centre, which boasts a concrete floor in the arena, can be used for non-winter activities. And that has happened, but fitfully. The centre has been home to boxing and wrestling matches, family fun nights and at least one highly successful concert.

Expand programming

Board member Tony Pimentel, elected at last fall’s AGM, says the rec centre has to expand its programs and open its doors year-round.
Moore says the AGM at the rec centre next week will have to set out where the facility is headed. “We need to establish a direction,” he said.
The fiscal fortunes of the rec centre look slightly better than when the current hockey and figure skating season began; its debt sitting at about $92,000 after hovering around the $100,000 mark a year ago.
The town, which allocates $30,000 annually to the rec centre, has signed to guarantee the overdraft at the Beach branch of the Gimli Credit Union but limited it last year to a maximum $96,000.
It’s estimated that the rec centre, at minimum, requires $60,000 each year to keep its doors open.
But, says Moore, who’s also a long-time teacher in Winnipeg Beach and is legendary for his after-school curling leadership, the rec centre is about more than the bottom line. As he’s said in the past, it’s the meeting place and heart-beat of the community.
It’s future, now as before, is in the hands of citizens of Winnipeg Beach and surrounding municipalities, he said.
The AGM is expected to be a relatively short affair, with a focus on the treasurer’s report, old business and new business including the appointment of an accounting firm, general discussion of amending the corporation’s constitution and, perhaps the biggest item, some refinement of just where the rec centre should be headed.