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By Jim Mosher
Friday April 08, 2005
Interlake Spectator — Winnipeg Beach council may be given carte blanche to march into the town’s recreation centre, and claim it for its own. One way to stave off that eventuality is for the people the centre serves to rise up -- and take charge of a regional asset that must be kept at arm’s length from elected officials.
There is no reason to believe that town council can do a better job of addressing the challenges faced by the rec centre than its elected board. Town council has given every indication that it cannot handle its own affairs in a democratic and transparent manner. Handing the volunteer-managed rec centre over to town fathers is certainly a worst-case scenario.
The volunteer board of Winnipeg Beach Municipal Recreation Centre, Inc. has managed the affairs of the Hamilton Ave. rec centre for 25 years. Its various boards have prevailed, as 10 different town councils have come and gone.
People like Larry Moore, a fixture for as long as the rec centre board has been incorporated, have held steady in the face of the fancies of councils now and decades ago.
What looms large for Moore and for the rec centre is an approaching annual general meeting. It’s set for Wed., April 13 at the rec centre. The meeting will be called to order at 7:30 p.m.
But the AGM cannot proceed if fewer than 15 people attend.
That’s the clincher. People have to go to the AGM -- because it represents a sort of straw poll.
Stay home and you accept the option of municipal control.
Or get out and fill the centre to acknowledge you support its integrity as a volunteer board.
Anyone in the vast catchment area served by the rec centre may attend and can vote. The catchment area includes Sandy Hook on the north, west to Rockwood and south to embrace Dunnottar and a good chunk of St. Andrews. And, says Moore, you are automatically a member of the eligible electorate if you have taken part in recreation programs offered by the rec centre.
(You may be an adult hockey player from Selkirk involved in rec hockey. You’re a voter, too.)
Each and every Beach citizen is also a member, by virtue of residency.
It’s clear, then, that there are hundreds of members; as clear that most didn’t even know it.
So in what may be a do-or-die for autonomy, all those hundreds have an opportunity to be heard.
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.
Before adjournment, the 2005-06 board of directors will be elected. Its current constitution allows for up to nine people to fill the board’s ranks. That can -- and should -- include representation from a cross-section of the region’s demographic, from young adults to parents to seniors. All can have a say.
It’s your rec centre, after all.
Moore, who says he’s 90-per-cent sure he will not let his name stand after a quarter century, hopes others come forward for the good of recreation.
Time commitment is minimal. Directors can expect to spend two or three hours a month on centre business.
The payoff may be far greater -- at so many levels.
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