New accesible entrance at the Melfort Curling Club (Ben Tompkins/northeastNOW)

By Ben Tompkins

Accessible Entrance

Melfort Curling Club caps off Phase 2 with accessibility upgrades

Nov 28, 2024 | 4:33 PM

The Melfort Curling Club is now much more accessible to enter, thanks to some recent upgrades.

To cap off Phase 2 of the club’s revitalization project, they renovated the front entrance so everyone can easily enjoy the club.

Along with its original front door entrance, which requires a walk up a few stairs, there is now also a sliding door entrance right beside, which requires no stairs to enter.

Then, once in the building, there is a small elevator that takes you up to the top of the front entrance on the inside, so you are now good to go into the rest of the club, without having taken any stairs.

“This has been something on our minds for a long time and really a project that we wanted to do because we often promote that we’re a community facility open to everyone,” said revitalization project chair, Kerrie de Gooijer.

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“We host lots of events year-round that aren’t even curling related as well, and those stairs into our entrance provided a bit of a barrier. We’ve made some upgrades in the rink to make it more accessible over the years, but this was kind of the last step to make it really fully accessible.”

Other recently completed renovations include changes to the bathrooms/change rooms, as well as relocating the office.

According to de Gooijer, said renovations wouldn’t have been possible without grants, most notably from the Government of Canada and their Enabling Accessibility Fund.

There was also a Sport Facility Grant from the City of Melfort, a Red River Mutual Spruce Up Your Story Grant, and the Prairie North Co-op Sustainable Communities Fund.

With Phase 2 now complete, the Bourgault Curling Centre will turn its attention to Phase 3.

That, however, likely won’t begin for a couple of years, as plenty of pre-planning is needed, so the club is able to relax for a bit in the meantime, after a busy two years of improving the centre in more ways than one.

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Ben.Tompkins@pattisonmedia.com

On X @BenTompkins_8