BOYLE – The Boyle Fitness Centre is all but broke.
That was the message Peter Golanski brought to village councillors at their Oct. 7 meeting as he provided a financial status report for the facility on behalf of the health and fitness committee. The news was not good, and Golanski was seeking blessings from the village to apply for the federal government’s Canadian Emergency Business Account (CEBA) loan to help stay afloat.
Golanski said he expects a balance of $450.47 by the end of the year, if memberships and usage do not pick up immediately. He noted that as of Sept. 30, membership has fallen from 64 to 34, due to regulations surrounding COVID-19 and not being able to remain open 24 hours, seven days a week.
Nine of those members were on the board.
“Because we’ve extended all memberships for the shutdown period that we’ve had, we have no income stream. We’ve been trying to attract new people by making super deals on monthly memberships for $30 per month, but so far we’ve had two people take that up,” said Golanski.
While the numbers are disappointing, gym memberships are trending downward across Canada, said Golanski, citing a August survey of 5,055 gym members that found only 31 per cent have returned to their gyms since the COVID lockdown. Twenty per cent have cancelled their memberships, while another 40 per cent were considering doing the same, making the fitness industry one of the hardest hit by the pandemic.
People are investing in their own gym equipment at home and for others hygiene and decontamination processes are always in question, so they stay away.
Golanski said the proper sanitization of the area and equipment is top of mind at the facility, but it does make for additional work, and with finances where they are, hiring additional staff is out of the question.
“A lot of people just aren’t comfortable, even with all the extra cleaning we’re doing, people are just not comfortable,” he said, adding that hand sanitizer is provided, temperatures are taken the pertinent survey questions are required to be answered.
Patrons are also asked to clean the equipment they have used when they are done, and then another cleaning is conducted by staff. Where some gyms are able to hire foggers to sanitize, the Boyle facility is too small.
Athabasca County has been a vital partner with the village in financing the facility over the years, but with RCMP costs being downloaded on to rural municipalities by the province and the questions surrounding the future of the linear assessment model, the county’s contribution could be severely impacted in coming years.
A meeting with the county and village regarding recreation will take place this week, and county’s ability to contribute will likely be made clearer. Village council ultimately decided to table a decision to the next regular meeting to see how the recreation board meeting comes out.
The federal government’s $55 billion CEBA program provides interest-free loans of up to $40,000 to small businesses and not-for-profits. If the balance of the loan is repaid before the end of 2022, 25 per cent will be forgiven. It was launched this spring “to support businesses by providing financing for their expenses that cannot be avoided or deferred as they take steps to safely navigate a period of shutdown, thereby helping to position businesses for successful relaunch when the economy reopens.”
The CEBA loan would allow the fitness centre to continue to operate for a year, while other fundraising is undertaken. However, if nothing improves by the end of 2021, the facility would be in debt to the feds and would be forced to turn over the building and everything in it to the village.
“The issue is, where do we get that money from to operate for one more year to see if we can in fact see this COVID-19 decrease in impact or be eliminated,” said Golanski.
Coun. Barb Smith noted Community Futures is now continuing with its very successful Regional Relief and Recovery Fund, and is also offering $40,000 loans with similar conditions as the CEBA program, and could be an option for the fitness centre as well.
