I hope that you and your family have managed to survive the isolation and social distancing measures we have all experienced over the last few months, and that your entire family has remained healthy during this period. This has been somewhat of a disappointing year for the community association. After hosting another successful AGLC Casino fundraiser on March 5 and 6 (thanks to all of our volunteers for helping out!), we were quickly hit with the closure requirements due to the pandemic which came into place later in March. That meant an early closure to our two seasonal ice rinks, as well as the cancellation of our Community Clean-Up event in May. We also made a decision to cancel our 2020 Adult Social Event, which was originally scheduled for June, as recommended by the city. The city also handled the closure of all our playgrounds on our behalf. Perhaps our biggest disappointment was the cancellation of the 2020 Children’s Soccer and T-Ball Program. After registering 60 children and collecting fees, we ended up fully refunding fees to parents this spring. It also appears that we will need to postpone any planned events at our Springbank Hill Community Park until the fall.
While it is disappointing that we have been limited in delivering value-added programs and events over this period, we wanted to fully support municipal and provincial guidance and ensure we prioritize the need to uphold the health and safety of our residents, volunteers, and board members. We hope that things will get back to some semblance of normalcy over the next few months. Our monthly board meetings have continued during the last few months, using zoom video conferencing and we are in the process of developing our business plan and budgets for the coming year (our year-end is August 31). So, like all of you, we have managed to make some progress using remote work measures.
We hope that you have continued to enjoy the amenities of our wonderful community and taken advantage of walks through our many ravines and pathways and, of course, our community park. We did initiate our annual membership drive on May 1. Annual memberships remain unchanged at $25 per family and can be purchased on our website. Any purchase made after May 1 will provide you with a membership that will be valid until August 31, 2021. Now, more than ever, the purchase of a membership will help us sustain our community association by ensuring that our operating expenses can be covered. We will soon get back up to speed with our offerings of programs and events, so we hope that you are able to help us out with the purchase of a new membership or renewal of your existing membership! It will be greatly appreciated by our board of directors and will allow our volunteers to proceed with future planned events.
We look forward to a more active and engaging period in the coming months, and we wish everyone all the best in ‘getting back to normal’. Stay healthy and enjoy the summer season.
Elio Cozzi
President
Springbank Hill Community Association
