Kendall Waiting, president of the Cochrane Curling Club, agreed to a brief interview following the announcement of YMCA Calgary’s withdrawal from its bid to operate the SLS Centre.
Here's the full text.
Q. I'm looking for your reaction to the fact that the YMCA's decision today.
A. As we are talking here, literally 4 minutes ago, I received the e-mail with the YMCA's update and press release.
Number one, this was never about the YMCA. This was never about what they do and how they do any of their facilities or run their facilities or anything bad about the YMCA. They're a fantastic organization. We appreciate everything they do for the communities that they serve and their members. We have nothing but good things to say about them.
But notwithstanding all of that, we are a little shocked, but also happy that the residents of Cochrane and Rocky View (County) and the community have been heard and that this was a clear and resounding sign of what we believe is the best thing for the community.
Q. What do you have to say about the number of people that responded to the push by you and others — but yours in particular — to show their interest in the decision?
A. I'm humbled by the response of the community, humbled by the messages I received, and very delighted that I am now seen as one of the community leaders that I aspire to be, along with the people and the founders, you know, like the Rick Evrens, Bruce Kendalls, and Larry Shellys. It is amazing to me the belief and the support I received in working towards this for the betterment of the community.
Q. An interesting part of the discussions during the public hearing is that people were saying it's not perfect, but it's ours. But you believe this is a good time to have a robust community conversation on how we could make our facility even better?
A. 100%. The status quo wasn't exactly perfect and working to 100 percent, but this gives us—the community, the town administration, SLS, the SLS board—the opportunity to stop and reflect.
I do believe there's an opportunity to still leverage a relationship with the YMCA. They are an operator that has experience in this, so why don't we now approach them and ask them to maybe look at the programs and the operational values that we have from an outside lens and provide some support or best practices that they could suggest?
There's nothing to say that they've done anything wrong, and they could have outside knowledge and just a different vision about how we could find a more successful pattern forward.
Q. Any final thoughts?
Most definitely. I want to thank all of the community members, everyone who took the time and effort to educate themselves around this, to listen to what everyone had proposed, read the volumes of emails and information that were provided, and then bring forward their thoughtful comments, especially at the public hearing. It is an amazing accomplishment for the community, and we are happy to move forward.
We're (Cochrane Curling Club) not saying anything is over. Now we have the hard work to do. We now have to figure out how to go forward and how we do that. We are committed to being a part of that next step for the community and working with town administration, Rocky View County, the Town of Cochrane, and the SLS Centre to find a solution that will move forward positively for all.