The Nipawin Revolution gymnastics club is looking at its options after a request for financial help from the town of Nipawin was turned down.
The problem is that COVID restrictions over the last few years severely affected the club and membership dropped.
“COVID caused an impact on the membership of the club. Our membership was down, and then we had just opened the new building when the pandemic started,” explained Doug Gudnason, a coach with the club, and co-director of the Nipawin Centre for Gymnastics and Athletic Development – the building the club meets in.
“The club’s doing their part and doing fundraising and things like that, but I need other financial sources,” he said. “I don’t really want to raise the rent to the point where the club shuts down.”
He noted he’s been paying the building’s utility bills out of his own pocket.
“I’ve literally had to carry it, I pay the electric, gas, phone and internet and the water; the club can’t afford to cover all that,” he said.
But Gudnason said he can’t afford to cover utilities indefinitely, so he approached the town of Nipawin to see if the town would be willing to buy the building outright for about $500,00, or else give the club a loan of $150,000, with a grace period of six years.
However, at its April 11 meeting, council turned them down. A report prepared for the meeting said, “administration is recommending council not enter into this type of activity as it will create more requests for assistance.”
“The proposal of $150,000 for six years at no repayments and a monthly repayment of $1,000 thereafter poses significant risk as the payback period is +18 years to recoup the requested $150,000,” the report added.
Gudnason said the decision is a disappointment and the risk to the club’s future is “moderate to high.”
“I’ll have to look for investors and possibly create a cooperative or something like that,” said Gudnason.
He said the club currently has around 200 students, with male and female athletes starting at pre-school.
He also said they’ve done quite well in competitions.
“For a town our size, we have a large and very competent, competitive team that’s actually beating larger clubs,” he said.
He said in the long run he had hoped the building could be transferred to the club, or to a group that planned to keep it open as a gymnastics facility.
“The intention in the end was the building was always more like a philanthropy kind of thing,” he said.
The report to council said the club currently pays around $36,000 in rent annually.
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doug.lett@pattisonmedia.com
Twitter: @DougLettSK
