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Changes to facility usage by community groups threatens Girl Guides

Jan 4, 2018 | 4:44 PM

 

MEDICINE HAT, AB. – Changes are coming for those community groups who use city and school facilities.

Using gymnasiums, ball diamonds and playing fields will require groups to provide membership lists beginning in the fall of 2018 to meet their Revised Facility Joint Use Agreement requirements. It includes ensuring 75 per cent of users are from Medicine Hat.

The joint agreement is between the City of Medicine Hat, School District 76, Catholic Board of Education and Medicine Hat College.

Pamela Bohnat, the district secretary for Girl Guides of Canada, said releasing private information of their Guides is troubling.

“Girl Guides is very protective of all our girls, and parents. We take that responsibility on keeping information private,” she explained. “It’s not something we’re not obligated to share and that we’re going to have to hand over.”

Bohnat said she was told they would be required to provide members birth dates and email addresses with the changes to the agreement.

Maureen Mudry, the manager of Parks Planning & Development with the City of Medicine Hat, said they worked on the agreement for two and a half years.

CHAT News asked Mudry what would happen if existing groups refused to provide a membership list due to privacy concerns.

“I really don’t know at this point in time, we would continue to work with that community group and help them understand that need for the information,” she said. “If they absolutely refused, I don’t know at this time.”

The agreement also includes a significant increase in fees for the use of the facilities.

Bohnat said the Girl Guides currently need to sell 30 cases of cookies to pay their $500 of yearly user fees. However, under the revised agreement they will need to sell 240 cases to cover the increased user fees of $4,000/year.

Jerry Labossiere, secretary-treasurer for S.D. 76, said the increase in fees needed to happen to match the rise in other costs.

“With the rising electricity costs and carbon tax, we really needed to find other sources of revenue to deal with the incremental costs of the user groups,” he said.

Labossiere explained under the previous agreement the schools didn’t receive any of the revenue from the user groups and instead rates were used to cover the costs of city administration only. The new agreement will have the city and schools sharing the revenue.

It is not yet known what will happen to user groups who refuse to disclose members private information under the new agreement and if they will have to seek other facilities.