Recreation in Neepawa

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Published on Tuesday, November 24, 2015

The Town of Neepawa is planning yet another review of recreation facilities and services in Neepawa. 

An invitational meeting is planned for Nov. 26, where reps from various facilities and organizations have been invited. The following material was published in April 2008 and April 2009. It is re-printed here to provide some background material for discussion. Some of the points may be outdated but the articles do provide some history as to why and how facilities have developed the way they have in Neepawa. 

While these articles are seven years old now, not a lot has changed in that time.

10 discussion starters for Neepawa

Originally published in the April 18, 2008 Neepawa Banner

By Ken Waddell

Neepawa Banner/Neepawa Press

The University of Manitoba has started a renovation and expansion plan called Project Domino whereby old buildings will see new functions, renovations will take place, some demolition will happen and several functions will shift around. Neepawa might want to follow that example. Here’s 10 ideas that could serve to get the discussion started.

1. The golf course isn’t going to move. That means the Town of Neepawa should look at buying some adjacent land for expansion of recreation and for future housing.

2. The Town of Neepawa could set up a Recreation Reserve Fund for a multipurpose complex. As Councillor Simon said a couple of weeks ago, the reserve could be used for land acquisition, installing infrastructure and eventually for a new building. It’s an established pattern that was most recently used in Neepawa to help with the purchase and renovation of the new Town of Neepawa office.

3. The Yellowhead hall might move easily as it is built very well and is already situated high off the ground on piers. Certainly bigger buildings have been lifted and moved further distances than the distance from the Yellowhead to the golf course for example.

4. A new curling rink could be built at the golf course.  The water isn’t an issue any more and Blair Mclaughlin is absolutely right. A year round restaurant and lounge would make a lot of sense. Summer time uses for the curling rink  could mean golf carts could be stored in the rink as they are in Minnedosa or it could be used for dances and community functions like the rink is in Gladstone. It’s interesting that Gladstone will have a multipurpose facility long before Neepawa will as construction begins this summer to combine the  curling rink, skating rink, hall and fair grounds, pool and campground all at one location.

5. The Curling Club has charitable organization status and that might be an advantage to a multipurpose facility. Operating under the corporate name Yellowhead Development Society Incorporated or YSDI might be a definite fund raising asset for a new endeavour. YSDI and the YH have been major beneficiaries of joint efforts such as the airport farming project and co-hosting provincial curling events.

6. The old curling rink might be able to be turned into light industrial or housing. It’s a good building.

7. The YH arena might have some salvage value such as rafters and steel. Perhaps not. It’s worth taking a look at. In 13 years it’ll be 50 years old and that’s old for an arena. It’s quite possible that the refrigeration pipes in the cement floor will give out and that will mean a huge replacement cost. Besides, with even two facilities on the site, parking is a major issue at times. The land now occupied by the Yellowhead is serviced land and could be used for much needed housing. 

8. Geothermal heating and cooling wasn’t really available when any of the facilities were built. It’s been used very successfully reducing operating costs at the Arden curling rink. A new Neepawa facility would likely feature much better insulation and geothermal heating, cooling and ice making and be a distinct advantage.

9. The three facilities could all establish a reserve fund or cooperate in developing a strictly governed Town of Neepawa Reserve fund. Designated funds within a fund is a model used successfully by the Beautiful Plains Community Foundation.

10. The Town of Neepawa needs a long term plan for recreation and for development of housing, industry and growth in general. Neepawa, like many rural towns, has grown largely by default rather than by design.

Recreation facilities all 30 years old or older

Originally published in the April 18, 2008 Neepawa Banner

By Ken Waddell

Neepawa Banner/Neepawa Press

One of the key components of recreation in Neepawa is the Yellowhead Centre. Completed in 1971, the Yellowhead has a storied past and not all of it recreational. The YH hall is the old Neepawa Salt Company warehouse. Built in the early 1940s, the warehouse was built  strong enough it could hold hundreds of tons of bagged and block salt on its thick wooden floor. 

As a hall, it has undergone many upgrades and is considered one of the best halls of its size in Western Manitoba.

Capable of seating 600 people for a meal, for trade shows the large south door will open up and over 20 cars and trucks can be parked on the floor without straining its load bearing capacity.

In the beginning

Part of the arena waiting room and the second floor dressing rooms of the YH is made up from a portion  of the building that housed the actual salt factory evaporators. The salt plant was about 5 stories high and was brought down to its current height to accommodate a link between the hall and the arena. The arena is relatively new compared the salt well portion of the building. 

Built new in 1971, the arena has had its roof replaced once and had some upgrades. However, the arena  is aging. The Yellowhead Arena is now as aged as the old Neepawa’s Sports Arena was when it was torn down in 1972. The old arena, which was located west of the Neepawa Legion, was built in 1935 and torn down in 1972. In terms of age of buildings, today’s Yellowhead at 37 years old is exactly the same age as the old arena was when it met the wrecking hammer in 1972.

The hall and dressing room portion are, according to the Neepawa history book, now 67 years old but considering the construction of the hall, it may outlast the arena.

Community funded

The Yellowhead Centre receives an annual grant from the Town of Neepawa for $65,000 and has had several town and government grants over the years, both to initially build it and to perform upgrades. Large amounts of fund raising took place in the early years to help with capital costs and operating needs.

Curling rink

Neepawa’s Curling rink is in at least its third building. The current location on Fifth Avenue is a fine curling facility but nearly everybody wishes it had been built either at the Yellowhead or at the Neepawa Golf course. 

The reason it wasn’t built at the Yellowhead may have been due to some nearly forgotten personality clash or it could have been a lack of money at the time or a lack of room. 

The main reason it didn’t go to the golf course site is that, at the time, there wasn’t town water piped out  to the golf course location. Ironically, only a few years later, the water line was extended to Springhill Farms hog plant and the water issue disappeared as the line came close to the course. 

At any rate, the current building is in good shape and it was built in two stages in the late 1970s and early 1980s. From time to time, the club has asked for help from the Town of Neepawa.

Golf course

Neepawa Golf course is known to be one of the best in rural Manitoba. Expanded only a few years ago to 18 holes, the course is both beautiful and challenging. The clubhouse was moved in 1960.  A former fisheries building, it was renovated and has been upgraded and added to over the years. However, it’s too small and it’s old. 

The club would like a new clubhouse and there’s many thoughts about how that might happen. One thing is for certain, if Neepawa is ever to have  a multi-use facility and if the golf course is to be part of a multi-use facility, the golf course isn’t going to move.

The golf course has had less help than they have wanted from the Town of Neepawa but there have been tax concessions, help with construction equipment from the municipalities when the course was expanded and a large tract of land was donated by the Town of Neepawa to the club.

What do the facility leaders say?

Originally published in the April 18, 2008 Neepawa Banner

By Ken Waddell

Neepawa Banner/Neepawa Press

At the second last Town of Neepawa council meeting, Councillor Monty Simon brought forward a resolution to set up a long term Recreation Reserve Fund for a future multipurpose recreational facility in Neepawa. With two councillors missing from the meeting, the resolution passed by a split vote 3-2. There was a certain amount of discussion and even a touch of rancour as some councillors thought the reserve fund which had been discussed at the committee meetings was actually in the budget. It turns out that the reserve wasn’t in the budget and to pass such a resolution would mean amending a budget that had already passed first reading.

Neepawa’s recreation facilities are all headed by hard working volunteer committees and over the years many citizens have served as presidents. Today’s presidents have a wealth of history and opinions about the direction that the community should go. All agree a long term plan is needed. All agree that there isn’t one in place. All agree that a long term reserve fund and an accompanying plan is long overdue.

Blair McLaughlin, President of the Neepawa Golf and Country Club said, “The clubhouse needs repairs, we haven’t put a lot of money into the clubhouse. Given our financial situation, I see it will be 15 years before we can. We have a lot of erosion issues to deal with.” Many of the fairways and greens are in close proximity to the Whitemud River and while erosion hasn’t happened as much this spring with a slow runoff, some years there’s extensive river bank damage at the course.

McLaughlin added, “I’d love to see the curling club move out there and have the restaurant and lounge open year round. I’m not a big fan of VLTs but they could go in too. Neepawa is one of the few communities our size that doesn’t have a multipurpose facility.”

Yellowhead Centre President Dave Clarke said, “The building is old with increasing operating costs. Hydro is up, Gas is up, water has increased by 50 per cent. We’ve looked at increasing user fees but there’s no long term plan from the Town of Neepawa. We’re just looking at keeping it going.”

Clarke added, “The conversation has come up that we should just take the keys and drop them on the mayor’s desk. I just see that other towns can have a multipurpose facility and I don’t see why we can’t. We need to be able to draw people to Neepawa, to keep our kids here. One of the big draws for some people moving here is that we  have a Junior A hockey team (The Neepawa a Natives).

“I was surprised and pleased that Monty Simon had put forward the motion and was very disappointed when I heard that it might be withdrawn. Some of these guys (councillors) are in it for the short term and not the long haul.”

Kallan Briese, President of the Neepawa Curling Club commented about the reserve fund by saying at a meeting Monday night, “We discussed it and we are 100 per cent behind it regardless of how many years down the road it takes to get there. The meeting was unanimous on that.” Briese also said, “The club is willing to change locations of the curling rink if the conditions are right. We would absolutely move to the golf course under the right conditions.”

The Neepawa  Pool, located at the Lions’ Riverbend Campground has been rebuilt once in its lifetime too. Councillor Ron Forsman, under whose portfolio the pool is administered said, “As far as a long term plan, there isn’t one. A planned  retrofit took place  a number of years ago but the pool part was then in such bad shape it had to be totally rebuilt! Forsman is frustrated as council has had access to a $20,000 Community Places government grant that he says “surprisingly the province has held it for us.” The council can’t decide about going ahead with an upgrade to the staff office and to provide for new staff washrooms and change rooms and a new chemical room. Forsman says the old part of the pool service building needs replacing and expanding as it’s “in really bad shape.”

Task force being formed to look at multi-use facility

Originally published in the April 17, 2009 Neepawa Banner

By Kate Jackman-Atkinson

Neepawa Banner/Neepawa Press

Last Wednesday, community members gathered for a second meeting to discuss recreation in Neepawa and the possibility of a multi-use recreation facility in the future. Unfortunately, scheduling conflicts  meant that only 25 people attended the meeting, however all those in attendance seemed keen to see the project move forward.  

The meeting was chaired by Neepawa’s leisure services manager Amanda Cathcart, Neepawa’s CAO Allison Bardsley and Neepawa councillor Jim Cockburn.  Cathcart began by summarizing the last meeting, held in October.  She said, “We all left from the last meeting feeling like we have to get the ball rolling.”

Recreation alliance

While the meeting was mostly about a multi-use facility, there was also discussion about a community recreation alliance.  Cathcart pointed to common problems facing the community’s recreation organizations, namely “a struggle with advertising and fundraising”.

Cathcart explained that the recreation alliance would meet a couple of times a year and would allow her to “keep track of groups”. This would provide a single source for groups’ contacts and planned events and hopefully reduce multiple events being scheduled at the same time.  

With many groups looking for help fundraising, Cathcart suggested that the recreation alliance could co-ordinate events such as a large fundraiser to benefit all groups.

Cathcart also praised the Neepawa Banner’s monthly calendar, which came as a result of the October meeting.

Neepawa Banner publisher Ken Waddell said that the alliance concept is one that has been “tried and tested and been very successful”.  Although a smaller center, he pointed to the success of the Lansdowne Recreation Commission, which replaced the individual hall, curling rink, skating rink, park and ladies auxiliary committees, over 25 years ago.  In Arden’s case, he said it “was necessity that brought them together”, but added “it’s a good concept”.

There is a drive to establish a recreation alliance and Cathcart said, “There’s money from Sport Manitoba to fund sports community leisure alliance.”

Task force

The main purpose of the meeting was to establish a regional community task force to look at a multi-use recreation facility.  Cathcart said they are aiming for a 12 to 15 member board with representatives from Rosedale, Lansdowne, Langford and North Cypress in addition to representatives from the Town.  Bardsley said, “We want representation from all areas, ages and backgrounds.”  The goal is to assemble a “cross section”.

Cathcart said they are looking for committee members who are “open minded and aren’t going to be naysayers”. These are also the type of people Neepawa councillor Monty Simon hoped to see involved.  He said, “The best groups of people really think outside the box.  It’s not just a complex of separate buildings, it’s a community complex.”  He pointed to creating flexible spaces that would mean a gymnasium can also be a theater and a hall can be made into meeting rooms.

Once the task force is assembled in early May, Cathcart said they would meet with someone from Killarney and someone from Virden who would “give advice on what worked and what should be changed”.

A community assessment will be done next.  Cathcart explained that this involves creating an inventory of all of the town’s recreation facilities, their age, who owns them, who uses them and how much they cost to operate.  Bardsley said the assessment results, “could be an eye opening experience”.

The assessment would also come up with possible locations and facilities for a multi-use facility.  Cockburn drew on an example of locating the multi-use facility on the CN property and said, “The golf course wouldn’t be in, but it might work for the curling club.”  When it comes to configurations, “We want to be told if it’s a good marriage or not,” he said.

After the assessment, the next step is a community survey.  This survey would establish “if the project has support”.

While initially, the community survey was proposed to take place before the assessment, NACTV station manager Ivan Traill suggested that the assessment should be done first.  He said, “Before you go to the community, you need parameters.  We all set different parameters.”  Additionally, without an assessment he said, “we have no idea what it could cost”.

One of the drivers behind a new recreation facility is the state of the Yellowhead Arena.  Anne Kuharski, the Yellowhead’s facility manager, said, “The beams and foundation are good, but I don’t think the majority of people realize what it [the Yellowhead Centre] costs to run.”  She said that they pay $14,000 a month for hydro and another $4,800 for water.  They said that the poor insulation in the hall means that they are “heating the north end of Neepawa”.  She summed up their situation saying, “We’re at the point where [they say] how much more money do we ask for, how much more do we put in [to the facility]?”

The assessment is expected to cost between $2,500 and $3,000.  Bardlsey said it will be “a good investment”.

The deadline to nominate someone to the task force is April 30 and forms are available at the Town office or on the Town’s website.