INNISFAIL – The town's new legion branch manager will be stepping into a part-time role for the foreseeable future.
Don Harrison just started in the job at the Innisfail Royal Canadian Legion last spring, but due to personal family matters in Hinton he will be managing from a distance and coming in person every few days to the branch.
“It will be a transitional role,” Harrison said. He said a board member will supplement the job for him while he essentially takes a leave of absence.
Eventually he'd like to return to the job full-time, but it will depend on some personal factors.
Legion president Ed Rieberger said the preference was to keep Harrison rather than start the hunt anew.
“It's not unusual. A lot of branches don't have a full-time manager,” he said. There have been nothing but accolades for Harrison, he said.
Members and other legion users shouldn't notice a difference day to day, Rieberger said. The staff will be the ones more impacted, but Rieberger noted that technology will be able to close the gap and the board will be around to help.
“If any crisis arises there's a full executive to deal with it,” he said. “I don't think anybody's going to really notice much of a difference at all.”
It's about to get busy at one of the largest legions in the country as the fall seasonal activities get underway.
Harrison said a summer experiment of allowing minors to stay past 8 p.m. as long as they are accompanied by an adult will continue as part of an attempt to draw more families and young people to the legion.
“We trialled it over the summer, it worked very well,” he said. He encourages Innisfailians of all ages to come to the legion to check out amenities like the games room.
Ed Rieberger, legion president
"It's not unusual. A lot of branches don't have a full-time manager."
