Kirkfield Westwood the place for sports
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This article was published 23/04/2019 (2328 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Sports are a major part of the identity of Kirkfield Westwood Community Centre.
This is evident in the makeup of the club’s board of directors — 13 of 19 positions are currently filled by sports convenors, managers and directors.
“We have proportionally more kids registered in sports than other community centres,” KWCC president Mike Stuart said. “We have fantastic community involvement and participation and we also have the volunteers willing to step up and support that.”
The club got its start in 1955 as the Kirkfield Park Community Centre at 3160 McBey Ave. and joined forces with the Westwood Community Centre when it was established in 1966 at 165 Sansome Ave. Today, Sansome, which is home to the Keith Bodley Arena, is the club’s main location and McBey is maintained as a satellite site. Kirkfield Westwood is the home of the Kodiaks and teams associated with the community centre include mini and recreational soccer, baseball, softball, floor ball, basketball, ringette and hockey.
The club employs three full-time and two part-time staff members to manage the community centre and the arena. The sale of ice time is a significant source of revenue for the community centre, on top of its operating grant from the City of Winnipeg.
Challenges facing KWCC include retaining qualified arena operators and navigating the constraints of the physical facility.
“The facility was designed in the ’60s and perhaps the needs were a little different than today,” Stuart said, explaining that the gym isn’t regulation size and much of the club isn’t wheelchair accessible. “It’s not that we need more space per se, it’s just how it’s set up — and that’s not exclusive to us.”
In addition to sports teams, KW also runs a nursery school and regular fitness classes for adults. It is a weekly meeting place for Beaver Scouts and the Karen Luba School of Dance; as well as a longstanding bridge and square dance group.Annual events include a summer carnival, hockey tournaments, Keira’s Winter Klassic ringette tournament and the Shamrocks Lacrosse Day.
When asked what the community centre does for the Westwood community, Stuart said, “It just creates a common sense of pride and sense of identity.”