Olds council asked to cost-share $750,000 field house

^{OLDS — The Olds Regional Exhibition (ORE) has asked the town to help cover the costs to convert two of its barns into a field house so it can help stem the losses it’s incurring.}

^{ORE general manager Tracy Gardner made the request during town council’s Oct. 5 policies and priorities meeting.}

^{She said over the years, and especially due to the COVID-19 lockdown, the ORE has lost between 90 to 100 per cent of its revenue. Meanwhile, its overhead and other costs haven’t changed.}

^{To help solve the problem, the suggestion was to split the estimated $750,000 cost to turn the ORE’s relatively unused stables and Kiwanis barn into a field house to be utilized by local teams and groups.}

^{Gardner stressed staffing and maintenance requirements would be low.}

^{“The whole idea is creating a paradigm that has very little input on a routine basis,” Gardner said.}

^{“It’s a little bit like Wander Wash, right? We’re looking at a way where we can provide COVID-safe precautions for people to gather.}

^{“But it is a facility that you book online and that is ready for you when you arrive and doesn’t necessarily require a tremendous amount of human resources other than maintenance, obviously.”}

• ^{RELATED: Olds Regional Exhibition asks town for $100,000 bailout}

^{Council voted to accept the presentation as information.}

^{Gardner said things have not improved for the ORE since it came before council last November.}

^{At that time, she asked town council to provide the ORE with $100,000 a year  or if not that, then to perhaps take over the operation of the agricultural entity.}

^{During her Oct. 5 presentation, Gardner said exhibition associations across the province are experiencing the same cash crunch and the COVID-19 lockdown made things even worse.}

^{“What we know is we have graduated from a bleeding industry to a hemorrhaging industry,” Gardner said.}

^{She pegged the industry’s collective net loss as of Aug. 31 in the amount of about $8.5 million and said its representatives have approached the provincial government for help.}

^{To cope locally, Gardner said the ORE has cut staff to the bone and is relying more than ever on volunteers.}

^{“We continue to make staff reductions. I don’t know if you can find a leaner organization administratively,” she said, adding ORE has also deferred maintenance to save money.}

^{They’ve also looked at opportunities to rent out facilities such as the kitchen to make extra money.}

^{Gardner said ORE met with representatives of local teams and groups as well as businesses as part of the process to come up with the field house plan.}

^{She said ORE provides a valuable service to the community offering all kinds of activities that draw people and thus provide spinoff revenue for hotels, motels and other local businesses.}

^{Chief administrative officer Michael Merritt noted the community, in conjunction with Mountain View County, has fulfilled its 2010 recreation master plan and now has several recreation facilities in place.}

^{He said despite its age, the Sportsplex appears to be in good shape and if anything, it may make good sense to renovate it rather than build other new facilities.}

^{In any case Merritt said, when a future recreation master plan is drawn up, residents would be given ample opportunity to provide their input into what sort of recreation facilities might be needed in the future.}

^{He predicted the process to decide on and build new recreation facilities could take as long as 20 years.}

^{Deputy mayor Mary Jane Harper and Coun. Mary Anne Overwater suggested one good step would be to meet with the ORE board to discuss its future.}

^{“We do need to meet with your board and find out where ORE’s long-term plan is,” Harper said.}

^{“Are they going to be granters of recreation facilities, are they going to be agriculture? What are they going to be in the future?”}

^{Gardner agreed that would be a good idea.}

^{“My expectation is that if everyone goes into that with an open mind and an open heart, perhaps out of that, we can find something that has a greater degree of trustworthy relevance and sustainability and business modelling moving forward,” she said.} 

^{Harper warned that this year is going to be “a very tough year budget-wise” for the town.}

^{“We just don’t want to give anybody false hopes here when we are going to be looking at a very tough budget,” she said.}