New board selected to take over operations of Gordon R. Snow Community Centre

Fall River, Nova Scotia (D2N) – The overseeing of the Gordon R, Snow Community  Centre’s  daily operations, is that much closer to being handled by community members.   The first Meet and Greet of the newly selected Fall River Recreation Board members was held on May 20th, at the Gordon R. Snow Community Centre, Fall River. Ten of the twelve new board members and HRM staff came out for the event.

Councillor Barry Dalrymple spoke about the process to transfer the operations and running of the year and a half old facility from HRM staff to a volunteer community board. “I was on the selection board to put together a new board from among applications received; I was there, along with three HRM members, and Michael Creighton, Jeanette Sanchez- Smith, and Dale Schrimpf,” he stated. “We advertised for Board applicants and we had a scoring system that was open and transparent. We were looking for nine qualified Board members, and at the close of the application date, we had twenty incredible applications to choose from.”

The Councillor said all of the applicants were highly qualified and it was a difficult process to choose from among them. “The applications were all so impressive; when the selection group met to score and pick the Board, we ended up taking twelve members instead of nine,” said Dalrymple.

The board is made up of a varied group of individuals “we are thrilled with the twelve,” said the Councillor, “they represent all age groups – youth, teens, people in their 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s. They will set policies and constitutions, and they will be responsible to prepare financial reports. And they will have to hire a facility manager to run the place.”

Following are the names of the newly selected board members: Danielle Wisen, Colin White, Bill Horne, Marni Tuttle, Brian McEachern, Sara Wilson, Paige Zwicker, Stephen Clow, Robin Stewart, Rick Fullerton, Janet Salo, and Derek Babineau.

Dalrymple expressed his gratitude to all who applied. “I want to say I thank those who applied and didn’t make it. The quality of applicants was unbelievable, and the incredible enthusiasm – even of those who didn’t make it – was fantastic, very impressive.”

The new Board will take over from HRM staff on January 1, 2011.