Expect changes in fall recreation programs
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The Town of Tillsonburg recently announced its youth and adult recreation programs for the fall with a 106-page online guide.
“With the publication of this Recreation Guide,
we express cautious optimism that the worst of
the COVID-19 pandemic is behind us,” Tillsonburg Mayor Stephen Molnar stated in the guide (www.tillsonburg.ca/recreation). “However, significant programming changes – up to and including program cancellation – may be necessary in the coming weeks.”
“Some of the programs we’re going to try to run outside, like the ultimate sports mix and the basketball,” said Mark Salt, recreation programs supervisor, who had just finished instructing the final summer basketball session last Thursday at the J.L. Scott McLean Outdoor Recreation Pad. “We figure we can get one session of that before it gets too cold and dark. We do have lights out here so that’s going to help.
“The indoor programs, everything is capped at minimal numbers to keep everything distanced. Pretty much everything we run is halved.”
The town’s summer youth programs, which started August 10, did not fill up, but Salt said the children seemed to enjoy organized biking, triathlon, ultimate sports, basketball and crafts programs.
“It seemed like such a big release. You can kind of get a sense that they’ve been cooped up, not be able to interact outside of their bubbles for however long we’ve been doing this (pandemic). It just seemed like a weight lifted off. They’ve got so much energy. It’s incredible, more than I’ve seen in past summers.”
Salt said the plan was to run the summer programs even if they did not fill.
“We wanted to run every single one of them, whether it was a couple of kids or 10, which would have been the maximum. We ended up having around 5-6 kids for some programs – four was the average. But that is kind of what we expected. Something is better than nothing and you’ve got to have something for the kids to do.”
With smaller than typical summer groups, social distancing was easier to maintain.
“With everything we were trying to err on the side of safety and keep everything as safe as possible,” said Salt.
cabbott@postmedia.com
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