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Over 2,000 people used the pool in the first 2-weeks

Lifeguard training course needs a minimum of six people to register before Feb. 21
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From left: Heather Crozier - facility manager, Rayna Reece - customer service representative, Damon Giesbrecht - lifeguard. (Aman Parhar/Omineca Express)

It’s been nearly three weeks since the Vanderhoof Aquatic Centre has been open and over 2,000 people used the facility during the first two-weeks.

Heather Crozier, facility manager of the pool from the YMCA of Northern B.C., said that on a Saturday the aquatic centre averaged at about 500 drop-ins.

“A lot of people we are seeing every single day. They have bought passes and they are swimming every day. When we are open at 6 am families who have kids that are early risers come in at 6:15 am and are swimming before school. We have restrictive hours right now because of the lack of lifeguards - for the times that we are open it is definitely being utilized,” said Crozier.

READ MORE: Are you looking forward to using the Vanderhoof Aquatic Centre?

In terms of lifeguards, there are eight in total working at the pool out of which two are adults and the rest are high school students. The adults can work during the day but for the students it depends on their availability after school and weekends.

Hence the pool is open during daytime for just one day in a week, she said. The course to become a lifeguard costs $1500 from start to finish, Crozier added.

She said they are looking for six people to register for the lifeguard training course. If six people register by this week, Crozier said they could start a round of courses by Friday, Feb. 21. And if everything goes according to plan, then a new batch of lifeguards will be trained and ready to work by the end of March, she said.

The training will be held in Vanderhoof itself.

“The first two courses - we have combined them. So we will run that Friday (Feb. 21), Saturday (Feb. 22) and Sunday (Feb. 23). Then we have a week’s break and the final course we run Friday, Saturday and Sunday for another two weeks. We have incorporated standard First-Aid into that final course - so two additional evenings. So hopefully we can get people to sign up and have another half a dozen or more guards in here,” Crozier said.

Once more lifeguards come in, she explained, the facility could become fully functional at all times. The climbing wall needs it’s own lifeguard and the lazy river needs a dedicated lifeguard too. So if there are just two guards on duty then only the lap pool and leisure pool are kept open.

“The more guards we have, the more we can open up. That’s where we are right now. Rather than opening up a little bit each day and not being able to offer very much, we are better off to condense that in five days and try to open everything as much as we can,” Crozier explained.

Meanwhile, there have been complaints and a little amount of struggle in regard to pool rules. Every child under 8 years needs to be under an arms reach from their parent, regardless of their swimming capabilities.

“This is a standard rule across the board. We decided to go with 8 for a community that hasn’t had direct access to a swimming facility before. There are a lot of non-swimmers here and we feel like we are being safe. And that is our goal - to provide a safe and enjoyable environment for all users. Some parents feel their child even if under 8 is a strong enough swimmer that they can be left at the leisure pool - that can’t be done,” Crozier explained.

The same rule is being enforced for everyone, she said. One complaint brought up by Mayor Gerry Thiessen during council meeting held Feb. 11 was the ‘no diving’ policy at the pool.

Crozier said, “that is the rule for everyone. It is the same as diving that came up at council. We have individuals who are trained to dive, we can’t just allow them and say no to everybody else. We have to have rules that are the same across the board. Another one is the climbing wall - you have to be 8 to use that. No life jackets - you have to be able to swim and we decided to go with that to be consistent with the arms reach rule.”

Another rule commonly misunderstood is that no life jackets are allowed in the hot tub. Children have a hard time regulating their body temperature and the life jacket ends up insulating the child which leads to overheating, Crozier explained.

For people who have questions about the registration process when you first use the pool, she said, other pools in Delta, Surrey and Richmond have the same process. Registration helps the staff at the pool keep the facility safe, reduce theft and vandalism and acts as a deterrent for people coming into the facility to do malicious and harmful things, Crozier explained.

In terms of group bookings for school, she said they are trying to get their first school group into the facility for the first week of March. Crozier said her aim is to get every class [as a group] to the pool once, before the year ends.

“I don’t know whether that is physically possible but we will do our best to accommodate people the best we can,” she said.

As for Aquafit, because of the high demand within the town for the program, Crozier said they are bringing a trainer from Okanagan later this spring.

“We will train any staff and individuals in the community who want to become certified to teach it and then we will run with it,” she said.

Swim lessons are also on the radar with Aquafit, but the main focus of the YMCA is to recruit lifeguards first which will allow them to keep the pool open for a longer time through the day.

“We want to provide a safe and enjoyable experience for everybody and if we provide that - great. Are we going to be able to meet every individual single person’s needs and wants when they are here? Probably not. But was it safe while you were here and you had fun - yes and yes. Then done - we are happy,” she said.


Aman Parhar
Editor, Vanderhoof Omineca Express

aman.parhar@ominecaexpress.com

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