We were a little nervous with the forecast but it ended up being a gorgeous day to finally celebrate the pool being open, and while it was a bit different because we have already been open for 6 weeks, it was nice to see the people come out and join us.
This summer has surpassed all of my expectations for this facility. The amount of knowledge I have gained in the last 6 months has been incredible as I was not really comfortable with pools before opening. The public has been incredible as they have both filled the pool almost every day this summer, but also they have shown so much patience with us for when we have some issues. I want to express a sincere thank you to them for that.
Mr. Van Raay was able to make the trip to be here with us and he was very pleased with the facility. He spoke to me about the importance of families having a space for activity and how great it is to see that our community could make this happen. Mr. Van Raay seemed very satisfied when I told him we are near capacity almost every day of the summer so far.
The ribbon cutting and open house went great. We wanted to do an open house to allow people who may not want to come and swim to come into the facility and look around at what the community was able to build.
Mayor Ross Derdall spoke first and emphasized the work it took from the entire community to get this facility open and running. Mayor Derdall thanked Rick Pederson for managing the construction of the facility as without him this pool may still be under construction. His commitment to the project cannot be overlooked. Mayor Derdall then spoke on the work from the 3 committees: the construction committee, the hiring committee and, of course, the fundraising committee as these committees all handled very important parts of the process and were all pivotal to getting where we are today. Lastly, Mayor Derdall commended the community. Without the gracious contributions from members of the community the pool would not have been a possibility.
MLA Greg Brkich spoke next and he touched on how happy he was to see a town like Outlook be able to open such a beautiful facility. He also spoke about the importance that facilities like ours play in the communities and how special community funded facilities are.
Finally, Cor Van Raay spoke about his decision to donate and how amazed he is with how it ended up. He then proceeded to cut the ribbon signifying the official opening of the Van Raay & Community Swimming Pool!
After that, we opened the doors for public swimming and had cake for those who were there to celebrate. All in all, I think it was a great success and I am just happy to see how well the pool is being used!
The summer has already eclipsed the totals I thought we would reach, and we are not even half-way through August. We have been able to put around 450 children through swimming lessons and we are near or over 100 people in the pool on most public swims.
We really just want to emphasize the gratitude we have to all of the people and groups involved in every aspect of making this pool happen.
