The start of the curling season is up in the air as the Revelstoke Curling Club finds itself struggling to form an executive to get things started up. The club has called an emergency meeting for Tuesday, Oct. 1, at 7 p.m.
“We got a group e-mail a couple weeks ago from our secretary asking what’s going on because there’s been no meetings and as far as she knows, there’s no president, nobody’s hired an ice maker and nobody’s done anything to put the ice in,” said Tim Luini, who had to turn down to the role or president due to a lack of time.
The curling club has seen itself undergo a slow decline over the years. It used be a bustling place with league play running nightly but the action has slowly dwindled through the years.
“In the good times we had two leagues on Monday, two leagues on Tuesday, ladies on Wednesday, super league on Thursday and a lot of times we had two leagues going on Friday – a seven and a nine draw,” said Luini.
Now, the Tuesday and Wednesday leagues have merged into a mixed league, and the Friday league disappeared, replaced by a popular drop-in night that has proven to be a boon to the club.
Luini said that an e-mail was sent to club members last week asking for help, but only two people replied.
Work has started on putting in the ice. So far six coats of water have been put down to make the ice. “We’ll probably get ice in but if we don’t get any response from anybody, I don’t know if we’ll be able to salvage the season,” Luini said.
He said they would like to maintain the same schedule as last year, with an open league on Monday, mixed league on Tuesday, super league on Thursday and drop-in on Friday.
“We’re hoping to keep the Friday going, we’re hoping to do everything we did last year, but if we can’t get some more help it’s going to be pretty tough to do,” he said.
The curling club’s story sounds similar to other long-time sports and service clubs that are struggling. A new demographic in town combined with the fact there’s more going on has made it tougher to attract members. He had hoped the influx of new people to town would re-invigorate the club, but that hasn’t been the case.
“I think there’s so much going on nowadays,” said Luini. “People just don’t have the time and they don’t want to commit to a league.”