FORT FRANCES—The Fort Frances Gymnastics Club may be shutting its doors for good and almost certainly will sell its building next to The Beer Store, according to board members.
The move to mothball the club is one no one is happy with, said president Diane Boustead, but faced with a myriad of organizational issues, there is little else to do.
“Right now, without any major fundraiser, which would’ve been our bingo before, and without any parental fundraising, and without any coaches, we’re at a standstill,” Boustead lamented.
The club’s funding came almost solely from fundraising bingos at the Fort Frances Bingo Hall, which closed last year.
It only kept itself afloat through the latter half of last year by using half of a Trillium grant awarded by the province for equipment costs that they allowed to be appropriated for administrative costs.
Ironically, the province has pledged to award them another grant of equal value to upgrade their facility, but their coach has since left the province and without any guaranteed income, the club can’t hire one from outside town.
Only the lowest level gymnasts can train without a properly-certified supervisor.
“Bingo definitely paid the coach’s wage,” Boustead said, adding they have a couple of coaches lined up in Brazil who would be ideal, but they have no way to pay taxes and utilities on their building—let alone a coach’s salary.
“Can’t put the cart before the horse,” she said.
Attempts to spearhead other fundraising initiatives so far have been fruitless. A cash draw the club held last year even lost money.
“To have an organization like this and keeping our fees down, you need to have a lot of fundraising, and with that you need a lot of volunteer hours,” said registrar Darcy Parsons.
“And we didn’t see that.”
The sponsorship program, which saw local businesses support the club, also has dried up.
“With hard times in town . . . we were getting less and less and less response from letters,” Parsons lamented. “People just get tired of you knocking on their door.”
The club’s only real hope now is to move their operations to the Memorial Sports Centre, and they will speak to Community Services manager George Bell tomorrow.
Bell couldn’t guess at a timeline for what will be worked out, but he said initial discussions have been “very positive.”
“I would hate to see the gymnastics club fold,” he said. “The Town of Fort Frances needs a gymnastics program, so hopefully we can work something out.”
But even the move only may be a temporary solution. The sale of the club’s building could pay for rent, insurance, and staffing for a year, but they’d still be without a source of revenue for next season.
As for what the club is doing right now, Boustead said, “Absolutely nothing. The doors are closed, the lights are off.”
“There’s no money in the bank now at all,” Parsons added. “In fact, we’re probably at a deficit.”
And that means some disappointment for the children at the club. A total of 63 were enrolled last year, and as many as 100 have been with the club in better years.
Parsons said her own 10-year-old daughter, Kate, cried most of a car ride home after she told her the club may be closing this season.
The youngster said she was upset when she found out, and that she misses gymnastics already. She said she and her friends loved “just being able to go there, and now we can’t go there anymore.”
“My little one went 16, 18 hours a week,” said Boustead, “and I have no idea what she’s going to do.”
“There are other things to do, thank goodness,” Parsons said. “But if a kid likes [gymnastics], they don’t have to play hockey, or swimming . . . it’s a shame that they can’t move on without having to move away.”
Talks about moving into the Memorial Sports Centre have “sounded positive,” Parsons added, but leaving the club’s home will be a tough pill to swallow.
“It would be sad to lose our building just because the last participants, the parents in gymnastics, they worked so, so hard.
“I would just hate to be the one to just say, ‘We just can’t keep this building anymore.’”
(Fort Frances Times)
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
