Barrhead Pickleball Club outgrowing current digs

The Barrhead Pickleball Club is calling dibs.

If and when the Town of Barrhead recreation department decides to move the skateboard park from its current location near the Agrena and Aquatics Centre, the club hopes they will consider using the spot to build a new outdoor pickleball facility.

That is what a delegation from the club, headed by chair Marcia Moon and treasurer Judy Bohn, told councillors during their July 10 meeting.

Pickleball is a racquet sport played by two to four participants. It combines aspects of badminton and ping-pong and is played on a shrunken version of a tennis court.

Currently, the club meets, Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays.

In the fall, winter, and springtime they meet at Barrhead Elementary School (BES), while in the summer they meet at the Agrena’s outdoor ice rink.

Bohn said it has gotten to the point when they are playing at BES they often have to limit games to 12 minutes so that everyone has an opportunity to play.

“Word of mouth is getting around, and more and more players are coming. Once they play it they are hooked,” Bohn said.
“It is getting to the point that we are afraid to advertise because we don’t have space for everyone to play.”

In the summer the club faces other challenges.

“We are losing a lot of days due to the wind and the cement pad on the outdoor ice rink is also giving us some trouble,” she said, noting it is also difficult for players to clear water off the court after it rains.

“You can’t play when the courts are wet, it’s just too dangerous.”

That is why the club is recommending that if it does build another outdoor pickleball facility, they enclose it in some fashion, which would also lower the amount of maintenance required.

“Our paint isn’t staying on there,” Bohn said, adding because it is a multi-use pad and they couldn’t use acid etching to sketch in the courts’ lines. “We will be lucky if the lines last until September,” she said.

Moon noted because it is a multi-use rink, the club loses a lot of time setting up the nets for the six courts.

“We would also like some input,” Bohn said. “Is there any chance that we can go after the Elks money that you guys turned down?”

In late January, administration brought forward a proposal from the local Elks chapter to  donate $150,000 to the Barrhead and District Agrena Society’s fundraising efforts, which went towards the construction cost of the $12.178 million facility, in exchange for the 25-year naming rights of the building.

This is on top of the $100,000 the service club donated in September 2016 in exchange for the 10-year naming rights of the facility’s competition pool.

Following a May 22 in-camera session, councillors unanimously supported a motion made by mayor Dave McKenzie to decline the club’s offer.

McKenzie said the pickleball club was welcome to approach the Elks.

“They don’t have this little bag of money waiting for us [Town of Barrhed] to decide something to do with it,” he said. “We do have some projects, we are going to get them involved with, to what extent I don’t know yet, but the conversation with the Elks is happening as we speak.”

The club is hoping to be able to contribute to the building of new courts, saying that they recently received $5,000 from Makadiff Sports, which they used to offset their start-up cost.

Makadiff Sports is an Alberta-based not-for-profit organization created to encourage the growth and development of amateur sport through financial support of worthy innovative initiatives.

“We are preparing a video that we will be submitting to them, and if we are successful, we could get up to an additional $50,000,” Bohn said.

It is also one of the reasons why the club will be hosting a pickleball introduction afternoon on Saturday, July 21 at the outdoor ice rink.

“We are trying to really get more youth playing because it is really important to Makadiff Sports,” Bohn said.

However, Moon noted that even if they had the money, what they really need was for the town to provide an appropriate location, which is where the skateboard park, if relocated, comes in.

Coun. Leslie Penny asked what the status of the town’s other pickleball courts was and why the club didn’t utilize them.

In 2016, at the request of pickleball players, the parks and recreation department drew pickleball lines on two of the three town’s tennis courts.

“The reason we aren’t over there is that it isn’t large enough. When you have 20 to 24 players coming out on a night, we need to be where there are more courts,” Bohn said, adding players often use the courts on a drop-in basis.

Bohn and Moon added if the town did decide to create a permanent pickleball space, it would allow the club to host tournaments, which would benefit the entire community.

“If we hosted a two-day tournament, people would need hotel rooms and the economic benefits just domino from there,” Bohn said.