Saint Mary’s Bay Community Centre hosts first AGM

The Saint Mary’s Bay Community Centre hosted its first annual general meeting on Sept. 21.

The community centre group is now an incorporated organization hoping to take over the former Barton school that closed its doors in 2017.

The group wrote a letter to the municipality in February 2018 to find out about the process to get access to the school.

“Since then, we’ve been (envisioning) a community center,” said Tom Haynes-Paton, a member of the board of directors.

They’ve hosted meetings regularly to get the community involved in their initiative and took part in an open house in May, hosted by the municipality. The open house was used as a platform for the municipality to hear suggestions from the public to see what they would like to see happen to the former school.

Since this community group formed in February, they have organized a business plan and started the planning stages for if they get access to the school.

They’ve elected a board of directors to assist with planning fundraisers, events and to speak to the public about their efforts.

As well, they have members registered for the group who have all paid to join. These members assist with voting in the board of directors and helping with any aspect of the community centre planning.

“There are plenty of reasons why we need this community centre. Together we stand for the right and need of the people in our community,” says HaynesPaton. The group would like to see the former school used for community activities like nature walks, community kitchen events, children’s programs, programs for seniors, etc.

Barton School previously hosted community activities but that stopped when the school closed.

Some members of the community find it difficult to travel back and forth to Digby for activities and hope if the community centre in Barton opens, that will fix the problem.

They have already hosted their first community centre event, but at a different location since they don’t have access to the school. Last month the group held a square- dancing event at the North Range Hall on Ridge Road. There are committees forming to start planning other events, but the group needs people to volunteer to plan them.

“We need people to get involved so we can show the public that we’re serious about this. We need to prove that even without the building we are strong,” said Haynes-Paton.

“This does not go away because of the building, we are an incorporated group and we’re not going anywhere,” said Shirley Langpohl.