Although the Fort Frances Gymnastics Club has not been running for the past year, it doesn’t look like there is any hope to be able to bring the sport back and keep it alive.
“We’ve pretty much exhausted all of our options that we can think of,” board president Diane Boustead noted. “We wanted to see if anyone else has any suggestions or ideas.”
The local club started to lose funding when the Fort Frances Bingo Hall closed and it no longer could rely on that as its prime fundraiser.
“Without that [Bingo], it really put a crunch into everything,” Boustead explained. “And without income, it’s hard to find a coach and without a coach, it’s hard to generate income, so it’s a big catch-22.”
Boustead said only if they come up with some major funding ideas—and quickly—would they be able to start looking for a coach to reopen the club.
“Not that [coaches] are easy to come by, but we’d at least have the means to be looking,” she explained. “Whereas right now, you can’t offer someone something if you don’t have it to offer.
“I know we lost our coaches, but coaches can be replaced,” said club secretary Sylvie Matthews. “It’s not easy, but it’s not impossible.
“But you need a wage to pay them,” she stressed.
The gymnastic club, at one time, was running with up to 300 kids.
“That’s a lot of kids who are out of something to do,” Boustead lamented.
“Many kids have invested years in gymnastics . . . and we had a phenomenal program,” echoed Matthews. “It’s really a shame because it’s the kids that are going to suffer.”
In order to keep the club alive, the board tried several fundraising ideas, but Boustead said it wasn’t bringing in what they were getting from the Bingos.
The club also applied for some funding. But even though it received a few grants, including one from the Ontario Trillium Foundation and one from the Moffat Fund, they had to turn them down because the club wasn’t open.
They also had some of the gymnasts take their Level 1 coaching to try and keep running that way, but Boustead explained they still needed to have a Level II coach on the floor.
She noted there also seemed to be a decrease in volunteers, which didn’t help.
Boustead warned if they don’t come up with an idea to save the club soon, they will put the entire club up for sale, advertising with Gymnastics Canada.
“Maybe someone out there in Canada would want to purchase it privately,” she noted. “But we’re only going to give it a short period of time because the chances of that happening are slim to none.”
“We’d prefer to sell it to someone who is willing to come to the community and run a gymnastics club,” agreed Matthews. “Hopefully we won’t have to go an alternative route . . . because of all the years of hard work that everyone has put in to establish the club. All the fundraising just to purchase the building.
“We hate to see that all go down the drain.”
If the club doesn’t sell as a business in itself, the board will sell the building and the equipment, and have the remaining cash go into a fund that could go to organizations in the non-for-profit sector.
“We want people to know that we’ve done everything in our power. We’ve run out of ideas,” Boustead admitted. “It’s very difficult to devise new ways to make things work.”
“We’re just going to keep our finders crossed,” Matthews added.
If you have an idea to help save the Fort Frances Gymnastics Club, contact Boustead at 274-3809 or Matthews at 274-0535.
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
