It took a while for construction to get finished but since reopening the pool at the Memorial Sports Centre in Fort Frances has seen lots of activity.
Recreation and Aquatics Supervisor Ria Cuthbertson says that there has been a great uptake for all of the programs offered at the pool.
“We’ve received excellent community response and participation,” she said. “We’ve done one and half rounds of lessons and we had 66 kids enrolled in the first session of classes, and now we are on our second one which we’ll be completing this Thursday and we have 70 kids enrolled in that one.”
Cuthbertson says everyone using the pool seems to be quite happy
“It has been quite exciting to see how enthusiastic everybody is to participate and get back into the regular activities, and see the kids learn their water safety skills and improve their swimming,” she said. “It’s been quite rewarding to see everybody back in the water and enjoying it.”
They also received interest in adult swimming classes which they added to the schedule.
“We’ve done the Swimmer One and Swimmer Three so we can offer a wider range of skill levels,” Cuthbertson said. “So the first one is more of an introduction to the water, learning how to do basic front and back floats, starting to develop that into front crawl and orientating yourself in the water, jumping in from the side, retrieving objects from the bottom. Then Swimmer Three is more like working on that front crawl if you already have that foundation, doing a 300m swim and 50m sprints and that kind of thing.”
They have also had people taking the bronze cross course, which is the last step before being able to teach swimming lessons and taking the Lifesaving Society National Lifeguard course.
In the near future they’ll be announcing a swim instructor course followed by the national lifesaving course.
Cuthbertson hopes to be able to cycle through the courses required for lifeguarding and swim instruction which include Bronze Star and Bronze Medallion in addition to required first aid courses.
The uptake in lane swims and aquafit has also been positive.
“One of the other things that has been really fantastic to see is the attendance in our Aquafit and our lane swim sessions,” she said. “It’s really been an excellent outlet for people of all ages to stay active. I participate myself in the lane swims and it’s always nice to show and grab a lane and get my lengths in and see that there’s people interested and attending.”
For more information about programming around the pool at the Fort Frances Memorial Sports Centre you can check out fortfrances.ca/sportscentre and access the summer recreator. You can also reach the Sports Centre at 807-274-4561. The recreator holds information regarding membership fees and day pass costs. The fall recreator with new pool scheduling will be out as the fall season begins.
