Town of Golden recreation programming is back for the fall season, with the Mount 7 Rec Plex and Golden & District Arena reopening.
Things area bit different, however, as town staff accommodate their programming to COVID guidelines. Staff are working with viaSport to return to the field of play and ensure that there is recreation programming throughout the fall and into winter.
“Recreation programs are fundamental for people’s mental health and physical well-being,” said Jordan Petrovics, manager of recreation services.
“What we’re doing here in Golden is consistent with what’s happening across the province. By no means are we the wild child. We’re trucking along at the same pace and being cautious to make sure we’re doing our best to mitigate the risks.”
“We’ve introduced programming that we felt we could safely operate in our facilities so that our staff and community is safe,” added Carrie White, the recreation services coordinator.
“What we’ve done with our public programming is create our guidelines, we did a risk assessment and we researched what other communities were doing.”
Pre-registration is required for any and all programs and only punch cards and drop-in payments will be accepted throughout the season.
Pre-registration can be done online at townofgolden.simplybook.me, or by phone calling 250-344-1622.
Masks are mandatory in all public spaces, including lobbies, stairways and bleachers in town recreation facilities.
Masks are not required on the “field of play” as defined by viaSport as the area or surface that players or participants are, such as the players bench and ice at the rink.
“It’s largely been supported by the local doctors, who have talked about the importance of wearing them from a non political perspective,” said Petrovics.
“There’s obviously a desire for us to be good stewards of the recommendation from our local doctors to wear them and it’s been going really well, we have great compliance and people are showing a great understanding.”
Some of the regularly programmed drop-in activities have had to move from town run, to a private cohort model that rents the space from the town, such as drop-in hockey and the Silvertips.
The town has also added some additional programming for seniors that Petrovics says they are excited about.
“We decided to augment our winter walking program to help them explore other areas of fitness and start to build their strength in different ways,” said Petrovics.
“We needed to find a way that we could ensure the safety of the patrons of that program, while still offering what is the last longest running and easily most popular amongst our seniors program that we get,” said White.
“It’s a program that is encouraging our senior community to come out and stay active, with that also important component of the social interaction.
“We want them to be able to safely have that.”
The town will also be bringing in Nicki MacIntosh, who runs Shape Up Fitness and had a series of popular online pandemic workouts, to run some programming as well.
A full schedule of all programming for the fall season and details on COVID regulations is available online.
Programming may change throughout the season as COVID guidelines change in relation to the ongoing pandemic.
