President's Update for December 2024
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- Membership update: We got lots of curlers playing both day and night leagues.
- Bonspiels: We hosted a couple of events and will host more in the future.
- Crap doesn't always flow downhill.
- Kitchen - We got a pass, with some notices for improvements.
- New fire extinguisher in the kitchen and AED up to date
- We got more volunteers helping with the youth program. Thank you.
- Learn to curl program was a great success.
- New U3 league to be piloted in Feb.
- Rocks were sanded.
- Rock handle sponsorship program has been updated
- Admin Committee positions coming open. Secretary, Membership, Treasurer.
- We will be doing a survey of membership soon
- Still lots of changes and new items to come.
Membership Update:
Although the previous newsletter contained the total membership number and just a breakdown on the number of teams within each league, I did not indicate the specific number of registered curlers in each league nor the number of teams in the Mon/Wed pick up league since they don't have established teams. Similarly I did not break out the number of teams on the Thursday daytime league as that has historically not been published on our website or electronically. Apologies for missing this level of detail. So here is the detail for the daytime curlers.
89 members registered on Monday/wed daytime (no regularly established teams)
31 members registered on Thursday Day league, 7 spares (typically having 8 teams in our Fall session and will have 9 teams in our Winter session, teams not published on the website).
Bonspiels:
Masters spiel was held on Nov 12th. We had 12 teams (7 from outside and 5 from Ux) on two draws. Thank you to the drawmaster Tim Lofgren and all the players for keeping the pace of the game to allow for time after the spiel for the ice maintenance to be completed prior to the regular league play. Thanks to Kitchen staff Julia Bailey, Lynda Acton, Michele DeVries, Anne Marie Mills, Jackie Porter, and Heather Bayliss. Congrats to the Birchard Team (winner draw 1) from Whitby and the Nicholson team (winner draw 2) from Oshawa. This event drove greater revenues and had an increase in profit of 37% over last year (derived from the entrance fees of 4 more teams, the 50/50 draw, and the 70% increase in bar sales). There was a lot of help from club volunteers and a special thanks to the last minute Uxbridge team required to even out the draws. But the best way to describe how successful it was, is from the feedback we received from one of the participants.
"Hi -- On my way home I realized that I had not properly thanked Uxbridge on the behalf of my team for the spiel, and all that went with the curling, especially the lunch. ... I have been fortunate to curl many times in Uxbridge, and it is certainly my favourite place to visit. I find it almost impossible to understand how Uxbridge can put on such an event at such low a cost. Uxbridge certainly puts York to shame when it comes to value for dollar!...It is a shame that more York teams don't take advantage of the event."
All feedback is a gift and I cannot be more proud of how we and our events are viewed by the outside teams. This would never be the case without the dedication and altruistic nature of our members that volunteer their time at events such as these.
Special mention of thanks to Dave Whetham for dealing with the urgent plumbing issue during the Master's spiel, the day before our health inspection.
Toy spiel was held on Nov 23. Thanks to Ciara Sinclair and her team (Kathy VanKoughnet, Kelly Point, Sandy Kelloway, Lesley Burnett, Darryl Stevenson, Heather Mosher-Saunders, Marie Gowans, Ian Gowans, Karen Winkel and Cinzia Frantellizzi.) The place was decorated to the nines and was a real kick start to the holiday season. We had a great turnout for this members only spiel with 8 teams on the first draw and 6 teams on the second draw. Our new curlers now know how fun these events can be. Although the focus of this event is not intended to raise funds for the club we did bring in almost $3000 in revenues from donations and registration fees alone. The 50/50 proceeds raised over $400 in gift cards along with a massive pile of toys went to local charities and it warms my heart to see such giving. For those that missed Cinzia's gnocchi and carrot salad for lunch, it was fantastic. Greg Lavigne and Kabota's generosity had everyone going home with at least 3 prizes each. What a great day full of laughter and a great tradition we have by hosting this type of event every year.
Upcoming Turkey spiel (Dec 7) This is an open spiel and typically more competitive than our in house spiels. We have 2 full draws registered and teams on the waiting list.
T-bone spiel (Jan 4) This is a Men's only spiel and is also full.
6 -ender bender (Jan 11) This is an open Spiel and the format of a six person team throws an interesting twist on the game, giving everyone a chance to play every position on the team for 2 ends. There are still openings for this event.
More details on the Spiels are available on our events page
Building:
Inspections We had a visit from our health and food safety inspector on Nov 13. Thanks to our Kitchen lead Cinzia for all of her efforts bringing up the standard in the kitchen so we received a pass on our inspection. Also thanks to Julia Bailey and her kitchen staff that cleaned up after the Master Spiel prior to the inspection.
Special thanks to Kristin Jackson, Doug White, Ciara Sinclair, and Steve Jackson for their effort to resolve the issue noted by the health inspector about the glass cleaning appliance behind the bar, apparently this servicing may have been a bit overdue.
We had our annual fire safety inspection. It was discovered that we had an incorrect extinguisher in the kitchen, which had not been caught as an issue in prior inspections, but a new extinguisher has been ordered and located in a more accessible location in the kitchen attached to the island.
The AED device has been inspected and updated with new pads in the event that we have a medical emergency with one of our members.
Other programs:
Special thanks to the additional volunteers helping out with our youth program.
The Learn to curl program was a great success wrapping up on Nov 24. We had our largest number of curlers participating (30) and we hope that will drive continued interest in our sport, increase registration in our leagues, and increase skills for the individuals that attended. Thanks to Carole Anne Andrews for organizing and running this program along with the other volunteer coaches Val Sloan, Scott Heslip, Heather Skanks, Julia Bailey and Ray Brauch. Leveraging off the success of this program we are going to pilot a 4 week, under 3 years experience curling league in February on Sunday. Contact Patrick Brown if you are interested in participating or interested in helping.
Rocks:
For those that may have not already noticed we have been getting more curl out of our stones for several weeks now.. This is a result of the stones being flipped and sanded. This will make it a little more difficult to those players that throw less rotation, so as a reminder with sharper stone it is recommended to put closer to 5 rotations on the release. Special thanks to Donnie Paul Winkel, and Ray Brauch for executing this recurring activity on our stones. And special note of thanks to Andrew Bowen who got roped in to help with this when he was casually dropping by the club that day.
UPDATE: Rock Handle Sponsorship Program
In May 2024, the Curling Club Board of Directors presented the Rock Handle
Sponsorship Program to our membership. Since then we have received your feedback and as a result, have made several revisions to the program. We have reduced the cost of the Rock Sponsorship for MEMBERS ONLY. The cost to sponsor a rock is now $250 per rock.
The term of the sponsorship is still 5 years, so that works out to only $50 per year.
Members will be able to purchase a sponsorship each year. (while rocks are available)
Example:
Sponsorship 2025/2026 season - deadline for sponsorship application - April 30, 2025.
Sponsorship 2026/2027 season - deadline for sponsorship application - April 30, 2026.
Sponsorship 2027/2028 season - deadline for sponsorship application - April 30, 2027..
Newly sponsored rock handles will be installed prior to commencement of each curling
season.
SPECIAL OFFER:
Sponsor a rock “NOW” and get the balance of the 2025 session FREE.
You must submit your sponsorship application before December 20, 2024.
We’ll do our best to get the new “sponsored” handles installed in early-mid January.
A reminder that the funds generated from this program will go toward the Roof
Replacement. If we secure sponsorship for all 62 available rocks, the program would
generate $16,000 toward this project. We hope that you are happy with the changes we’ve implemented and will consider supporting the program.
Admin Committee items:
As those that regularly attend the membership meetings may recall, terms of positions on the Admin committee this spring are coming due. The positions are Secretary, Membership, and Treasurer. We have a talented and collaborative team on the Admin committee responsible for the day to day operations of the club and although I would be honoured if the incumbents would remain, I also know that there can be great benefits of bringing new individuals into the roles. We have re-established a nomination committee consisting of Amada Martin. Greg Lavigne and Marg McKnight, so if you have a passion for the club, skills in these areas, an interest in influencing the club operations, or even if you need to get a better understanding of the scope of responsibilities please contact them.
Survey:
We will be surveying our membership, with a fairly comprehensive survey on many aspects of the club. The data will help us understand what we are doing right as well as where we may need to focus our efforts on. As you may be able to tell there are so many things that are going on behind the scenes to keep the club running as well as it has been in the past, but please let your thoughts and opinions be known by taking the time to complete the survey. We are committed to the success of the club and meeting the members needs is a key aspect to that success.
There are still many items being looked at that we feel will drive greater success for the club and options for our membership. We are having a fantastic year so far so I will close with a final word of thank you to everyone that is contributing to the overall health of our club. I hope you feel the same as I do when you are heading into town for a game, or some other event associated with the club, or for the apres curling conversations that take place on the couches. This really is a great place to be a part of, we have some great people within our membership. I'm honoured to be a part of the leadership team and the team is energized to keep making changes to drive improvements.
Good Curling,
Ray Brauch
President, Uxbridge & District Curling Club
