The Seniors’ Centre for Excellence started the second season of its shuffleboard league on Sept. 13 with a new coordinator.
The position became vacant after the original organizer has since gone on to full time employment.
According to Helen Edwards, coordinator for the senior centre, one of the seniors at the centre volunteered for the lead organizer position and will take up the helm for the second session.
The announcement at the Aug. 28 Mapleton council meeting led councillor Marlene Ottens to ask how the new coordinator would be compensated for taking on the task.
“The shuffleboard program was funded by a grant last year, so now is the person in charge a volunteer or are they paying fees to play?” Ottens asked.
“The person who is the coordinator will be paid for that 10 weeks,” said Edwards.
Edwards added the centre has already planned to continue the program after the fall session of the league is finished.
“We will be putting together a shuffle board committee so that they can take ownership of it after this 10 week session,” she said.
Edwards went on to clarify that the centre plans to help the committee in any way it can and that they already did a survey to begin the preparations.
The survey asked seniors what fees they are willing to pay for the program and has taken that information into account as it goes into development.
“I think we are in good shape,” Edwards said.
The league
Back in February, the seniors’ centre announced that they had received a grant from the New Horizons for Seniors Project, a federal program that supports projects led or inspired by seniors, to fund the league.
Originally, the centre had asked in its proposal for the grant to fund the league over a 20-week period.
After the centre received the grant, seniors told them they did not want to play during the summer months, explained Edwards at the Aug. 28 council meeting.
The centre was permitted to split the 20-week funding into two sessions over the spring and fall.
New Minds in Motion program
The Mapleton Seniors’ Centre for Excellence has also been coordinating with the Alzheimer’s Society of Ontario to introduce a Minds in Motion program.
It is an eight-week program that incorporates physical activity and mental stimulation for people with early to mid-stage signs of dementia and their caregivers.
The program will be held in Drayton starting Oct. 2 and consist of two hour-long sessions each week.
