Last evening your Board of Directors held their monthly scheduled meeting where, in addition to the usual committee business of running the club, the focus was to assess the current registration numbers and the overall social context in which we find ourselves. I won’t belabour this message with details of the logistics that will have to follow but I need to inform all of you that the difficult decision was made to cancel the 2020/2021 curling season.
The full board was in attendance and this decision was reached only after lengthy and fully inclusive debate. We looked at the registration numbers from both a financial and a league logistics perspective. As importantly, we looked at the current provincial trends, our responsibility to our community and the spectre of reentering a Phase 2 situation with the possibility of having to shut down again.
As of this morning our registration is at 117 paid and 19 unpaid. This compares to an adult membership of 294 for the 2019/2020 season. I am aware that there are a few of you who have been trying to register online but there is a similar number who have contacted us to say that they have reconsidered and wish to cancel their existing registration. So it appears that there would be 136 members, give or take, prepared to curl. That’s barely half our typical numbers putting us in a financial loss position for the year. This would be worsened if we incurred the heavy plant start-up energy costs and then had to shut down.
We are all sorry to have to tell you this but with the financials being clear and too many unknowns regarding the overall provincial changes we feel that this was the right conclusion.
There will be lots of questions. The Board will continue to meet and work through the mechanics of how to manage refunds and membership. We will also need to discuss with you some mechanics of club governance in these unexpected circumstances but that can wait a few days. Please be aware that we typically hold our Annual General Meeting in late October. The details of how we are going to run that still need to be worked out. Our plan is to hold the AGM on Sun. Oct. 25, please put that in your calendar.
I want to thank the board and sub-committee members for all of their focus and effort in working through the spring and summer as we earnestly prepared to be able to open with all of the new requirements imposed on us. This has not been a wasted effort. It was only with that degree of awareness that we felt we could make last night’s tough decision. Lastly I want to thank you, our members, for caring about our club the way you do. I have received lots of questions, suggestions and words of encouragement over the last little while. I am optimistic that our shared love of the game and of this club will get us through.
Best regards,
Fred