The finish line is only three months away for the organizers of the Alberta 55 Plus Winter Games in St. Albert.
"Our goal is to put on the best 55 Plus Winter Games there has ever been," declared Stephen Bourdeau, games manager for the Feb. 24 to 27 celebration of sportsmanship, culture and competition. "As you can imagine, with the volunteer efforts that have been put forward for the last couple of years, everyone is very excited now to start making things happen."
At this stage of the games, the organizing committee has entered the implementation phase for the multi-sport and culture event.
"What it means is now we have our financing. We have close to 80 to 90 per cent of our financing in place. We can now start spending that money. We can start making things happen. We can book facilities and our suppliers; clothing, catering, things like that. We can find our cellphones and radios. We can even book our medical teams," Bourdeau explained. "For the past two years we've really been in a planning phase. All of our directors have been putting together their teams and committees and budgets and now it's time to make it all happen."
The games will bring together 1,100 competitors 55 years of age and older from throughout the province. Medals will be awarded in alpine skiing, badminton, bowling (five-pin), bridge (duplicate), carpet bowling, cross-country skiing, curling, darts, euchre, hockey, pool (snooker), Scrabble and shuffleboard. Admission is free for all events.
Zone playdowns have already started to determine the line-up of participants in the various activities.
Bourdeau expects more than 300 spouses and guests of participants and 200 VIPs from various levels of government and sports organizations will also attend the games.
"We're going to have a pretty good chunk of people that will be in and around the community during those four days."
A core team of 60 volunteers, as well as three full-time paid staff, have been hard at work to get the games going in the right direction.
"Roughly we have 50 per cent of our 800 volunteers in place," Bourdeau said. "We've got some 200 volunteers officially signed up and we have another 200 in the wings. We have them recruited but they haven't officially signed the documentation to be put in the database."
Volunteers are expected to work a minimum of eight hours, or two shifts. The minimum age to volunteer is 14 and those under the age of 18 must submit signed parental consent. For more information, call 780-458-4564 or visit www.st-albert55plusgames.ca. The games office is located in the Hemmingway Building at 25 Sir Winston Churchill Avenue.
"The easiest part of these games so far has been the dedication of our volunteers," Bourdeau said. "It's been repeatedly said from the Alberta games people, the provincial liaisons and advisors that run the games from their side, that they've never encountered a group like this that's been so dedicated from a volunteers standpoint.
"We have such a dedicated group of directors that come in and spend their time putting together programs, stuffing envelopes and other duties rather than relying on a paid staff to do that."
Sponsorship
It's been relatively smooth sailing so far for the committee, except for drumming up financial support.
"The biggest problem we've had up to this point has been finding the corporate sponsors to get involved, which is across the board for any sort of major event nowadays," Bourdeau said. "We have a number of sponsors and partners that we've been able to sign up and we're very lucky to sign them up. They've been very willing and able to provide services and products and things like that. It's the cash that is the hard one. That's been the biggest blockade up to this point."
As for the games' budget, Boudreau declined to reveal the amount since it's waiting for council's approval.
He does however expect tonight's Sparkle fundraiser at the new Hole's Enjoy Centre to give the games a big boost financially. At press time it was a near sell-out, with tickets priced at $100 for the banquet and silent and live auctions.
"It's our major fundraiser."
