DIDSBURY -- A recent fundraiser for the Didsbury Figure Skating Club raised over $15,000 for the club, say organizers.
The Valentine's Gala and Fundraiser was Feb. 9 at the Didsbury Memorial Complex and featured dinner, drinks, duelling pianos and plenty of fun events. There were about 170 people in attendance.
Organizing the gala were board members Pam Israelson and Irene Whitehead. Both agree that the event was more successful than they could have ever imagined.
Israelson said they wanted to do a fundraiser that was a little more upscale and different from previous efforts.
"It was just over the kitchen table over coffee that we came up with the idea," said Israelson. "We took it to the board and it evolved from there."
Whitehead said one of the highlights was the RCMP showing up and "arresting" six people and taking them up on stage to "jail."
"We had the orange jumpsuits and everything so they were complete jailbirds up there," said Whitehead. "They were given their 'charges' and 'bail' so they had to come up with that before they could leave the stage. They were all really successful and it went very quick."
"They were all prepared," said Israelson. "They knew what they needed to do. Matt Mantai from TFW did some pushups and a bit of a muscle show. Carolyn Massel, our Westglen principal, was texting people for help. People in the audience were bidding on who they wanted to get out of jail. A lot of them had a strategy going in."
Israelson said they were all "blown away" by the support from everyone.
Whitehead said the money raised will help keep fees down for the figure skating club members. She said that it's important for the board to make the club accessible to families.
"It's hard to run a club in a small town," she said. "Our expenses are quite high. Renting the ice is our biggest one. We do get a casino every three years but we have to make that last for three years. We just want to make it affordable to people who want to come and skate. That's why we have to do so much fundraising."
"We want to keep our fees affordable," said Israelson. "If we're forced to raise our fees our kids can't skate and we don't want that to happen. We're just starting to get our numbers back up.
"The numbers were pretty low last year and they're just coming back up. It takes a lot to keep our club going and we don't want to shut our doors. So this was a big part of why we were doing that (fundraiser)."
The Didsbury Figure Skating Club has around 50 skaters from age 2 1/2 to 16 years old.
"Most of our younger kids are in the CanSkate program and are just learning to skate," said Whitehead. "We have our Intro to StarSkate program, which is quite an age range. Then we have our StarSkaters, which are our senior members and are more competitive."
In the last few weeks, skaters from the club attended competitions in Cremona and Olds. The club is now preparing for its year-end carnival on March 23 at the Didsbury Memorial Complex arena.
