Winter carnival ready to return to Wolseley

Wolseley

Winter festival season is gearing up to return to Wolseley with Robert A. Steen Community Centre’s winter carnival on Feb. 11.

Like several other community centre carnivals, the festivities were cancelled the previous two years owing to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s a great feeling to be able to put an event on,” said Joel Fingard, R.A. Steen general manager. “The last two years have been difficult — a lot of closing and opening and partially opening, and we really couldn’t plan any events of this nature.”

Fingard said one of the aims of the carnival is to give the community something over which to come together and enjoy.

“The reason why we put the carnival together is really to get people to come out, be together, and to see all the programming that’s available to them at the centre,” Fingard said. “It’s great that people are able to participate in something like this again, getting out in the community, seeing each other, having fun. I think that’s really important.”

Fingard and company are putting together plenty of activities people of the neighbourhood can enjoy together.

The carnival will feature the Prancing Pony portable petting zoo, which will give people the chance to enjoy goats, rabbits, alpacas and, of course, ponies. Kids will get to jump around in a bouncy castle, and everyone will be able to play various games, such as Nordic bowling, table tennis, and basketball-inspired games.

After all that play, people can refuel with pizza or hotdogs or why not both? It’s a carnival, after all.

There’ll be ice sculptures, a photo booth, and balloon twisters. For those looking to enjoy some more cerebral fun, they can hunker down in the reading tent or learn new things from the Let’s Talk Science initiative that will be set up at the carnival.

And of course, a winter carnival at a Winnipeg community centre wouldn’t quite be right without a hockey tournament, which at R.A. Steen will feature kids at the Jackrabbits level.

To top off Feb. 11’s full day of activities, the community centre is holding a family dance from 7 to 11 p.m. Advance tickets for the dance are available until Feb. 7 and cost $15 for adults and $5 for youth (age seven to 15). After that, tickets cost $20 for adults and $15 for youth. Children six and under will be admitted free of charge.

Fingard said he expects the turnout will be good.

“What we’re noticing now in the centre is that participation rates are much higher because folks have not been able to do this for a couple of years. They’re excited to get out and participate,” he said.

The general manager said the winter carnival needs about 60 volunteers to help run everything from the games to the canteen.

“Right now, we have a third of those folks signed up, but typically more people sign up closer to the date. So we’re really pushing hard for people to come in and give us a couple hours of their time,” he said.

For more information, or to volunteer or buy tickets to the family dance, visit robertasteencc.ca