People want what they have paid for

I am writing in response to the recent story about the sauna issues and the Rath-eastlink Community Centre.

First, the name of the facility is the Rath-eastlink Community Centre – not the Rath-eastlink Convention Centre or Competition Centre. Its primary purpose is to service the community.

This has been a calamity of errors from day one, from all the design flaws, the picking of the wrong location with no parking, the building of the facility with improper oversight, etc.

In comparison, the Pictou Wellness Centre, which is around the same age as the RECC, designed and built by a different company, has had a fraction of the issues that have plagued the RECC. This is a building that is under 10 years old!

The RECC was built because of people like the seniors in the story that wanted a community centre that provided them with services. The taxpayers (town and county), private and corporate donations and, more importantly, the fundraising that was done to build this facility was due to people with disposable income, like those seniors, donating to make the facility happen.

The values statement on your web site says “The RECC was built by the community, designed to benefit the health and wellness of the community, is open to all members of the community, and operates with a mandate to increase the interconnectedness of the community.”

It was the understanding that the membership fees along with local government would be able to carry the facility from year to year. When a person gets a membership, they are provided with a list of services available. What is offered for services is a factor when deciding to join or not. When a person signs up, they expect best effort to provide the basic services to the membership first, not to visiting tournaments or events. Effectively, the members are your employer.

I believe you also have your numbers wrong. I believe the number of 15 users a day to be inaccurate; by my calculation, let’s say, on the low side, 40 users per day.

Also, fixing the pump has no relevance to the ceiling being lowered or the seats being changed; one is mechanical, the other is physical.

These people only want what they have paid for. I would say that after a quarter of a year of not having the sauna available to them they have been more than understanding. If the RECC does not have break/ fix money and contingency funds for the routine equipment failures that will crop up, then there are bigger issues that will need to be addressed!

It is important to have events, but not at the cost of the membership’s services. It has taken many years to get the membership levels to where they are now. Can you really afford to start losing members?

The RECC and the facility’s employees exist because of people like those seniors. All they want is what they paid for – a working sauna.