By Thomas Smith
We are blasting past fall and already thinking of the cold winter ahead.
On Thursday, Oct. 9 Candace McGuigan, director of community services brought the topic of moving the Dawson Hamilton Outdoor Rink back to the Minden Hills Cultural Centre.
The Dawson Hamilton Outdoor Rink is named in honour of Dawson Hamilton, a young resident who had chronic myeloid leukemia and passed away 13 days before his tenth birthday. Dawson spent five of the nine years of his life battling cancer at Sick Kids hospital in Toronto.
In years past, the Dawson Hamilton Outdoor Rink was housed at the Minden Hills Cultural Centre. Last year, the rink was relocated to the baseball diamond behind the S. G. Nesbitt Memorial Arena. The change was due to the proximity to the water supply.
The community reported that the large volume of snow last year did not make the baseball diamond a viable location for the skating rink.
After staff evaluation of the water supply and early planned preparation for tarp and boards, McGuigan reported that they hope to move the outdoor rink back to the Minden Hills Cultural Centre.
“Hopefully Mother Nature doesn’t give us a dumping of three feet of snow to begin with,” said McGuigan
“I remember back when I was in school, forty or fifty years ago,” said Councillor Ivan Ingram with a laugh. “We had a rink larger than the one we are talking about. It was at the school and what we did as a class was go out and stomp the snow down.”
“It would give them something to do during the day and give a photo op for Bob,” he said.
Mayor Bob Carter said they would take that into consideration.
Deputy Mayor Schell said that the volunteers helping the Dawson Hamilton Memorial Rink is a wonderful idea, but questioned whether or not they should need police checks.
“There could be the possibility of them being close to minors,” said McGuigan. “That is why we have that vulnerable sector check.”
Clerk Vicki Bull said that if a volunteer already has a check, it would not be required again. However volunteers would need a vulnerable sector check.
Councillor Tammy McKelvey questioned if Minden Hills staff had maintained the rink in the past.
“Staff puts it up but once it was up, it wasn’t maintained by staff,” said McGuigan. “The reason why we were moving it back to the baseball diamonds is that it is a closer proximity for the team to get to the rink.”
McGuigan says that they are supportive of moving the rink back to the Cultural Centre and will have a staff member oversee it. However, amongst their tasks, they might not have time to go out and get the rink cleared. To get help, volunteers will be available to fix cracks and help clear the rink when needed.
“We flooded it as we needed it and shoveled it as we needed it,” said Ingram, referring to his time working with the township.
“I am glad to see it going back,” said Councillor Bob Sisson.
“I still have trouble with staff not doing this,” said McKelvey. “They are there to shovel the walkways going through the museum right next to it, I don’t understand why we are not maintaining it as we always have.”
“I like the idea of volunteer engagement in this. I think it will bring more people to the rink,” said Councillor Pam Sayne. “I get calls from people wanting to volunteer for various things around the community that they see needing done and we normally can’t have them do it because of insurance, because of all sorts of things.”
“I think there is an advantage of having this off the plate of our full-time staff on a regular basis and then having volunteers maintain it on a use basis,” she said.
“I think we just let staff take a look at it and come back and tell us which way they feel is best to go,” said Carter. “We’re not going to spend a whole meeting here going back and forth on volunteers.”
“I want the Dawson Hamilton Memorial Rink maintained and if that means staff, that means staff,” said McKelvey.
CAO Cynthia Fletcher said that they understand that there are volunteers who are interested in getting involved and that staff will take a look at how they can involve them. She assured that however it is done, the rink will be maintained.
