SUNDRE – Organizers of the Sundre Curling Club’s 70th anniversary open bonspiel had their hands full, but everything went off without a hitch.
There were 32 participating rinks that came out from neighbouring communities like Caroline, Sylvan Lake, Eagle Hill, Olds, Cremona and of course the local cohort.
“That’s most we’ve had in several years,” said Glen Smith, club president and event co-organizer.
“There was a nice group of local people and fairly local communities that participated,” he said.
With so many teams coming out to play, draws got started on the evening of Tuesday, April 1 with the final rounds wrapping up on Sunday, April 6.
The organizing committee composed of about half a dozen people also arranged for a banquet, a Calcutta as well as a wine auction and a 50/50 cash raffle on Friday, April 4.
“We been trying to get up to the 32 teams,” said Smith, adding the club would probably not be able to accommodate much more than that.
“I don’t think we really can handle any more,” he said.
“We would have to change the way we do some of it,” he said, adding a larger venue would likely be needed to host the banquet and that draws would have to start even sooner.
So the club seems to have struck this year the perfect Goldilocks zone that was just right.
“We would like to be able to maintain that in the future, and keep carrying on with good bonspiels,” he said.
Looking back at the past season, Smith said things went well this year and that the club even welcomed approximately 10 new members.
“We carried on with our elementary school introductory curling for Grades 5, 6 and 7s,” he said, adding the club also continued with its weekly junior curling program.
“We’ve been really satisfied.”
The club has also experienced some success with ongoing efforts to raise funds not only to operate the facility but also set enough aside for upgrades and improvements.
“We did our first online 50-50, which started a couple months ago,” he said, adding the winner of the $6,975 pool was drawn on the final day of the bonspiel.
That meant the raffle had nearly reached $14,000. Conducted through an online portal known as Rafflebox, which takes a little portion, the rest went to the curling club, he said.
“All the funds that we raised from it are going to a project that we’re going to start this summer on making our facility wheelchair accessible. We’re looking forward to getting going on that.”
There remains quite a bit of planning ahead, but the club expects to start making some progress.
“We’re planning on this summer, hopefully getting our lift in and then possibly widening the stairs,” he said.
“We’re not exactly sure how much we’ll get accomplished this summer, but the bigger ticket items we’re hoping for.”
Additionally, he said that once the ice is out, the club intends to replace the old florescent lights that have been in place since the facility was built.
“That’s our first project that we’ll be tackling,” he said. “We’re going to replace everything with LED and hopefully brighten it up in there.”
When he spoke with the Albertan on Monday, April 7 Smith said the club was currently working on obtaining some cost estimates.
