The meeting room at the Humboldt Uniplex was packed with area residents ready to voice their wishes and checklist dreams for new recreation facilities in Humboldt. The Future Recreation Facilities meeting took place on Tuesday evening, May 13.
The meeting was guided by Michael Ulriksen, director of Community and Leisure Services from the City of Humboldt. The mission of the meeting was to begin a process that would create a vision for what future might best serve Humboldt residents in the areas of sports, performing arts and wellness. The hope is to gather together a group of interested individuals – community champions – to form a steering committee that ultimately drives future projects according to what the community has listed.
Kurt Leicht has worked tirelessly with the Humboldt Broncos Memorial Committee, and he was pleased to see the strong turnout of interested people.
“We’re so happy to see this number of people, and I know there are others out seeding and with sports and other meetings, but I think it will just grow from here. This is a preliminary meeting, and so there will be a couple more to get ideas together.”
Ulriksen emphasized that it was important that the planning process be community led. Those projects that a driven by community needs and careful planning with joint use and joint operation groups are the ones that tend to attract provincial and federal dollars. He didn’t want to see the next phase of facility building come solely from input provided by city administration or council. Members of Humboldt City Council were on hand to take in much of the information provided during table chat sessions and the breakout board groups.
After a recap of the history of recreation planning, dating back to 2015, and a brief mission statement, attendees headed across to Jubilee Hall to record their ideas on paper sheets.
As expected, the wish list was as diverse as the community members in attendance. Of course, the desire for a second indoor ice surface was on the minds of winter sports enthusiasts. Participants listed all of the surrounding communities whose rinks provide ice time for practices and games, particularly hockey events.
Summer sporting groups like baseball, soccer and track lamented the lack of indoor training spaces during the winter to maintain athlete activities in their sports. Some parents drive their kids several times a week to facilities in Saskatoon, Martensville or Warman to maintain their wintertime training regimens.
New facilities with amenities like walking tracks and climbing walls were on the lists of wellness advocates, including seniors who hope that their active lifestyles can be supported particularly during cold winter months.
Since the demise of the Sutherland Theatre in 2012 as part of the Humboldt Public School renovations, the performing arts community has been advocating and working toward a suitable replacement facility. Performing arts has always been strong in the Humboldt area with individuals citing plays, dance, concerts, author readings, and all the community organizations that provide them. Some individuals shared a vision like the Kerry Vickar Centre in Melfort as a multi-use facility particularly for performing arts.
The group reconvened to talk about the next steps.
“Tonight was all about figuring out who was interested, who wants to be involved in this activity,” said Ulriksen. “It’s going to be a big project, and we need a steering committee that’s strong with a very diverse, broad range of interests and reach. We want to get people from inside the community but also from the region, the RMs and the small communities around us.
The next step is to wade through all the ideas and interests that come in. We’ve had lots of conversations with people, and we’ve left info cards that will help us to know where people fit in that realm. Once we get all the information compiled, we can start tapping some shoulders and say we need you to sit on that committee.”
Once the steering committee is up and running, Ulriksen says the priorities for any new facility planning can be run through that. The key thing he says is to get the steering committee going so that the planning stages can get traction.
Interested parties who were unable to attend Tuesday’s meeting can contact Ulriksen through the City of Humboldt’s Community Services and Leisure Department.