Finding volunteers a challenge for Tuxedo

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This article was published 23/04/2019 (2430 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A small community centre along Southport Boulevard is making sure kids in the area start their early years on a firm footing.

The Tuxedo Community Centre has operated a preschool in its facility for over three decades serving young families from across west Winnipeg.  

“Our claim to fame is we have a fantastic preschool,” Tuxedo Community Centre president Shaun Hauser said. “It’s a standalone facility and it’s always sold out.

“It’s a great service that we offer our community, so much so, that other communities drive to Tuxedo to use it.”

The community centre’s board oversees the operations of the preschool, Hauser explained, which includes programs for families with children ages one through four.

“We’ve been blessed with a couple people that on a professional level and volunteer level have really taken it upon themselves to run it seamlessly,” Hauser said.

Also offered at Tuxedo Community Centre for youth is baseball, basketball, hockey through the Assiniboine Park Hockey Association, karate, mini-soccer, and youth soccer.

The centre has two outdoor rinks, two ball diamonds, and two soccer fields. Hauser said they’re lucky to have convenors for every major sport, but whether or not Tuxedo will field a team is dependent on registration numbers.

“Generally speaking, Tuxedo is a smaller area as far as having kids. Our numbers compared to somewhere like Charleswood or Waverley West, or Southdale is discernibly smaller,” Hauser said.
The biggest draws at Tuxedo are Timbits soccer and youth hockey.

“Typically Timbits hockey and 7/8s house league take up a lot of practise time during the season, and Timbits soccer makes the fields pretty busy Monday through Thursday,” he said.

Hauser said the centre continues to develop family and adult programs but has few options currently available to folks. The neighbouring Tuxedo Lawn Bowling Club and Tuxedo Tennis Club are open to the public.

“Programming is definitely a weak spot for us as a community centre; it’s been the focal point of the board for the last couple of years on trying to pin down a strategy to improve it,” Hauser said.
The community centre also isn’t available to the general public for rentals due to space restrictions and volunteer capacity.

“It’s more of a skate building than it is a community centre, so it’s hard to have any big number of people in the building at once,” he said.

Hauser said Tuxedo remains on solid financial footing and continues to post a profit year after year, which goes back into the operations and upkeep of the club.

“It’s great that we have no debt, but we have to look at trying to use capital to increase funding,” he said.

Hauser said the community centre hosts an annual winter carnival to raise additional funds and is considering other fundraising initiatives in the future.

Despite Tuxedo’s solid operational model and many families accessing the centre for youth sports programming, a lack of volunteers continues to plague the centre. Hauser said the biggest challenge for the community centre has been, and always will be, a lack of volunteers.

“Volunteerism generally in Tuxedo has been pretty tough, but we have a really great group of volunteers that go above and beyond what many volunteers have to do,” he said. “One of the strategies that we continually look at, at the board level, is trying to build in process for succession so we’re not left scrambling if somebody, for whatever reason, can’t commit to next year.
“We’re getting a little better at it but I would say it’s a lot of work to make sure those seats get filled.”