What is the board of directors of your club doing to do to get you and others to curl there?
If you were to recommend to a friend one experience at your curling club, what would it be?
Considering what your club offers to potential members, what should the club continue to do the same, and what, if anything should the club change?
How can we define or measure our success at providing great curling experiences?
In 5 years, what is your vision of curling in Moncton?
In order to protect our facility, what are the main areas that you believe require attention or support?
How can we define or measure our success at protecting and increasing curling membership?
What are the top three things that you believe visitors to your club should see, hear or experience?
What audiences do we need to reach, and how should we reach them?
What opportunities are there to partner or collaborate with other curling clubs in order to achieve our common goals?
In each curling club, someone cares for the ice, someone chairs each committee, and someone dreams about winning big. Once the doors of a club close behind you, you can't tell if you are in Newfoundland, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, or New Brunswick.
The game of curling is best suited to night owls who love togetherness and partying, the icemaker has to be a morning person with a strong streak of the loner in him. Each summer we spend countless hours painting and scraping until the club is ready for the next season.
Baning smoking and increasing dues do not increase membership in a curling club. When smokers left your club you lost the most social of your members and the people who contributed most to the coppers of the club.
Now days every curler must carry a brush at the end of a long handle. Good sweeping is an essetial part of the curler's art. When not to sweep, and how best to sweep, needs a keen eye and quick judgement. Games can be won or lost on it. Sweeping is under the skip's control and subject to strict rules.
Thomas Pennant defined curling in 1772 as: The object of the player is to lay his stone as near the mark as possible, to guard that of his partner, which had been well laid before, or to strike off that of his antagonist.
The spirit of brotherhood was innate in the character of curling inself; it emerged naturally; each and every member had to give close attention to his fellow's play, and back it up by himself giving his best. Everyone had to co-operate. A man's walk of life ceased to count. His play was all that mattered. The game was unifying. And so it is today, because the curlers of all nations have agreed to keep it so.
Curling is an easy game to play and watch. You don't have to be the strongest and fastest to win. You have to know what to do, and do it at the right time. It is a game where you have to do well when you have last turn and make sure the other team does not do as well as you do when it has last turn.
