Thompson's health and leisure mart, the 21st edition of which was held this past Sept. 6-7 at the Gordon Beard Arena, is not only a convenient place for kids and adults to sign up for fall and winter activities: it's also great exposure for all kinds of organizations in the sports, arts and social services fields.
The Twilight Waterski Club, which has been less active in recent years than in the more distant past, was one of the groups taking advantage of the one-stop shopping to let people know that they are still alive and kicking.
"The general consensus was like, 'Hey, I had no idea this was still running,'" said Danielle Savoie, the club's promotions co-ordinator, who was tending the water-ski club's table along with junior club members Jayden Lindstrom and J.J. Antonio on the morning of Sept. 7. "We had a lot of older people come by and say they used to ski like in the 70s and 80s and then they're super interested in getting their kids to come out or grandchildren to come out and try it again to get it going. It was really successful yesterday. We're doing well at getting the word out."
The club has had problems with declining membership and vandalism to its clubhouse and equipment recently, but Savoie said it was operating every day this summer and a strong core of members is hoping to add some new recruits next summer and strengthen the organization even more.
"For this season, we acquired a really passionate executive," Savoie said. "We're just looking to bring it back to what it once was. For this entire season we've been running like every day and we've don a lot of cleaning up of the beach, fixing up the club because there's a lot of vandalism and that. Right now we're just trying to set ourselves up for next year to get more members."
The club makes it as easy as possible for people to get into waterskiing, offering all the necessary equipment and operators to members or even to people who want to drop in for the day and try it out.
"If you sign up with a membership or a drop-in you get to use our boats and we always have a licensed boat driver down at the club so you don't have to worry about driving the boat or anything," said Savoie. "We have a boat you can use, you can use the gas, we have ropes, lifejackets and all sorts of water-skis and wakeboards so you don't even have to have your own equipment. You need a bathing suit and like 35 bucks to drop in for an entire day. It's pretty easy to get going actually."
"We've got anything you can do there so you can do whatever you want," said Antonio.
Another group that's easy to become a part of that was at the leisure mart is the Thompson Writers' Guild, a collective of Thompson area writers of all descriptions that meets every couple of weeks in the basement of the Thompson Public Library and had their first meeting of this year on Sept. 14.
"Basically it's a group of people who are starting out, who are already published who are working towards other more technical writing or educational writing," says guild member Angela Wolfe. "It's a very loose and varied group of people. There's actually a very strong base for writing in northern communities."
The guild is sort of a support group for writers, Wolfe says, to encourage those with the urge to put pen to paper to realize that they're not alone.
"What we do is we'll get together, we'll discuss what we're working on currently," said Wolfe. "We found last year most writers needed help to just write, just getting the boot to the mud and getting themselves in front of that laptop or that pen or pencil in their hand and actually doing it, getting the work done. For part of our motivational thing we became part of NaNoWriMo [short for National Novel Writing Months]. It's an online writing contest. The only thing you're working for is your own pride, if that makes sense, and what you have to do in the month of November is write 50,000 words of a brand new story. It was amazing because in the northern region which does include Flin Flon and The Pas and everything north of Ashern, we came in third globally."
Participants from over 600 regions entered the contest, said Wolfe's fellow guild member Chesa Mellish, who was also behind the table at leisure mart.
If you want to join them Wolfe, says, all you have to do is show up to their meetings, which are usually from two to four p.m. on Saturday afternoons.
"We do have e-mails that we'll send out periodically to let everybody know what's going on but if they just come down to the library during our meetings everybody's more than welcome," said Wolfe. "There are no membership fees. We have a silver collection. It goes towards the fine folks at the library. Without libraries, without people who read, writers don't really get very far. What we really want people to know is, yeah, if you've got a story there's people who can help you get it out there. There's no reason why you should feel that you're not good enough or you can't do it or you don't have time. There's always a way."
Another group seeking participants at the leisure mart was the YWCA; specifically, they were looking for men to take part in this Saturday's Walk a Mile in Her Shoes event, a trademarked fundraiser held the YWCA across North America and built on the notion that you don't know what another person is going through until you've walked a mile in their shoes. Participants in the event - all male - collect pledges and then don a pair of custom-designed red high heel shoes for a short walk.
"They're not asked to walk a mile, they're asked to walk a few blocks," said Joy Thompson, executive director of YWCA Thompson. "It's an opportunity for men and boys in Thompson to demonstrate their commitment to a violence free and safe community for women and girls."
Rates of violence in women are higher than the Canadian average in Northern Manitoba, Thompson notes.
As of early on Sept. 7, 45 men were registered to take part in the walk, said Thompson.
"We really want to get 100 men and boys registered so we've go a long way to go in the next week," she said and the big and tall are welcome. "We do have shoes up to size 14."
Prizes for the walkers who raise the most money include a TV and an easy chair. The YWCA also had another fundraiser on Sept. 17, the Fabulous Fitness Fundraiser with four local fitness instructors. Proceeds from that will also go towards preventing violence against women and girls.
