'We need to get people back in the building'

2019/2020 brought challenges for the Pictou County Wellness Centre

2020 – it’s been a rough year for everybody and the Pictou County Wellness Centre is no exception.

The recreational facility recently held its annual general meeting and while it had a clean audit report with no management issues identified, the audit showed the facility had finished the 2019/ 2020 fiscal year which ended March 31, $251,000 over budget.

“$45,000 of that alone was due to lost revenue in the month of March,” said chief operating officer Greg Smith. “We had three weeks of cancellations.”

But that wasn’t the only factor that put the wellness centre in the red.

Another $48,000 went to repair and maintenance at the eight-year-old facility.

“We had some things we had to do and things we decided to invest in for safety sake,” Smith explained. Among that work was installing new ammonia and CO2 sensors.

There was also some structural work that had to be done because of settling at the facility. While some of the repairs are what you’d normally expect, Smith said some were due to design flaws, which has forced some equipment to work harder than it should have.

“The equipment in this building has basically been working very hard since day 1,” he said.

The wellness centre isn’t alone in this struggle, he said. Other facilities of similar age in the region have had to make similar repairs, but he’s optimistic they’re getting to a point where they can move forward.

While COVID has no question had a tremendous impact on the current fiscal year, he said they’ve done their best to minimize expenses. All but two employees were laid off during the shutdown period and other operational expenses were kept to a bare minimum. But you can’t erase all costs.

“You can’t just turn the lights off and walk (out) for five months,” Smith said.

But they turned off everything that they could and everything down they could.

Smith is happy to see some activities starting to resume again. Hockey games have started, figure skaters are back on the ice and the YMCA which leases space is reopened. Smaller events and meetings that can conform to the COVID-19 safety guidelines have also been held.

Having it operational helps people physically and mentally, but is also good for the center operationally.

“We need to get people back in the building from a revenue perspective,” Smith said.

There are a couple areas that are limited still. They haven’t been able to restart the canteen yet and they can’t operate at full capacity. While they’re open to the idea of hosting concerts and large-scale events again, right now most in the entertainment industry aren’t holding those kind of events. Smith said they will look for expanding as restrictions loosen in the future.

In the meantime, they’ll be focusing on keeping costs manageable.

During their AGM they had a speaker talk about energy usesage.

“It’s still the biggest drain on our expenses,” Smith said.

Part of the reason the cost is high is because you have the pool which needs to be kept warm while the rink needs to be kept cool.

“That creates a little bit of a challenge,” he said.

Management is planning to investigate the possibility of switching to an alternative energy source such as natural gas. He said they will be working with Efficiency N.S. and a private energy broker as part of that process.

Also at the AGM, Pictou Mayor Jim Ryan was voted to be chair of the Pictou County Wellness Centre Building Authourity. He replaces outgoing Trenton Mayor Shannon MacInnis. New Glasgow Mayor Nancy Dicks will continue to serve as vice-chair.