Hanson wants to thank all of the volunteers who help to make activities happen
After 19 years as the Executive Director at the Gordon Howard Centre, Lee Hanson is going to be retiring at the end of this month, but he doesn’t plan to go too far.
“All of a sudden, it’s here. I’ve been thinking about it for the last couple of years and planning for it, and now it’s a week away. So, it’s exciting,” said Hanson.
Hanson took on the position of Executive Director of the Gordon Howard Centre in 2007, and a lot has changed with the Gordon Howard since then.
“It was not quite as busy, and there was lots of card playing and visiting. So, I think we’ve really increased the number of activities and new programs,” he said.
In addition to more activities, the Gordon Howard Centre, which enables older adults the opportunity to lead active, healthy and independent lives, has had many changes to the space itself.
“We’ve done some renovations on the building over the years, some big renovations, like the lobby renovation, kitchen renovation into a commercial kitchen now and just recently, the furnaces and new flooring. The biggest change probably is just the number of activities and the number of new members that have been coming,” said Hanson.
He explained that their goal is to have all their multi-use spaces in the building busy morning, afternoon and evenings.
Since he’s been Executive Director, Hanson said that a lot of new opportunities have come about, but just in the last year, there are some great things that have started up.
“We started a Men’s Shed. (It’s a) men’s group that meets every Thursday morning. Basically, about 75 per cent of the people who come here are women. So, this is a Men’s Shed that we started every Thursday. They’ve been meeting since last fall. There’s about 20 to 25 members, and it’s just for men to talk about ideas, to share ideas. Eventually, they’re going to get into maybe doing some small projects, or maybe going out into the community and helping out with repairing fences or decks. Another new thing has been line dancing, we started again and belly dancing, which we weren’t sure about. We had an initial class, just to try it out, and we had about 28 people at the initial class,” said Hanson.
The many regular activities like fitness classes, cards, quilting, woodworking, painting and more continue to run, making the Gordon Howard Centre quite a busy place if you stop by on a weekday.
Hanson says that none of this would be at all possible without the help of the many people who give their time to the Gordon Howard Centre.
“We couldn’t do it without our fabulous volunteers. Our volunteer receptionists, our activity leaders, who are looking after our activities in each room, our maintenance people who do lots of maintenance, retired plumbers, retired electricians who do a lot of our work, right? We’re nonprofit, so we rely heavily on volunteers,” he said.
His favourite part of his job over the years is naturally the wonderful people that he’s met thanks to his work.
“Some of our volunteers were actually here before me when I first started, and they’re still here volunteering. I’ve known them for 19 years. The other part, too, is when new people come into the building, and we give them a tour of the facility, and we show them the different rooms and the different activities. They’re often surprised at the size of the building and also the number of activities that we have. We give them a newsletter, and we give them a tour of the building and a lot of the time they sign up as members right then, but if not, they’ll come back. We’ve found that usually when we get someone into or starting with an activity or coming to one of our Christmas dinners, they usually come back, which is awesome,” he said.
The Gordon Howard Centre welcomes residents aged 45 and up who reside in the City of Selkirk, RM of St. Andrews, and the RM of St. Clements to become members, and membership is very reasonably priced for all the activities that take place.
Something that Hanson says not everyone in our community realizes about the Gordon Howard is just how amazing and fun the community is when they get together. For example, he explained that in preparation for their Perogy Bees, they make 500 dozen perogies over 2 days. It’s a well-organized endeavour, but it’s also fun having 30-40 people at a time downstairs pinching perogies.
“A big part of what we do is not only the activity or the program, but the socialization that comes along with it,” said Hanson.
As for the future of the Gordon Howard Centre, Hanson has high hopes.
“(I’d like to see them) continuing on with new programs and new activities, so people come into our lobby and if they have a new idea that we haven’t tried, let’s be open to do it, and let’s try and have all of our rooms full with activities so that people have a choice on what they can do,” he said.
Hanson also plans to enjoy his retirement, but he’s not planning to go too far.
“I will come back probably to the Men’s Shed for sure in the fall. I hope to golf in the summer and do some travelling in the winter,” he said.
He wanted to conclude by thanking all of the people who make the Gordon Howard Centre such a great hub in our community.
“I just want to thank you again to all of our phenomenal volunteers. It’s been fun, it’s been a good run and very enjoyable,” said Hanson.
