Morden hosted one of the most successful Scotties provincial women’s curling championships ever, and the Morden Curling Club will benefit from it.
Organizers last week were able to present the club with a cheque for $125,800, which is an amount only bested by the $140,000+ made by Winkler when it hosted the tournament in 2015.
“I know that this is among the most that’s ever been raised by the Scotties event happening in a community,” said host committee co-chair Ernie Epp. “And kudos to any community that can break those numbers because it takes a lot of work, but it’s such a fulfilling opportunity.”
“I’m absolutely ecstatic over the money that was received from the Scotties. They’ve done a superb job,” said Scott Bissett, president of the Morden Curling Club.
Epp said the credit goes to the many volunteers who got involved as well as the fans who packed the stands at the Jan. 24-28 competition.
“When I was asked if I would take on this role by the curling club, I said I wanted to create a legacy,” noted Epp.
“We thought we’d aimed pretty high when we looked at something over $80,000 as the funds we would bring in … the fact that we broke the $125,000 mark, we were blown away with how this community responded to us hosting the event here.
“We had so many volunteers that signed up … we had to turn down our website after three weeks because we had enough people,” he added. “The whole event was such a great time for everybody. I keep hearing comments even today from individuals, people from near and far, saying, ‘Fantastic.’”
Bissett said the club executive and directors will need to meet to consider possible plans for the money.
“We’re going to be looking at different projects to enhance our club and move it forward in the future,” he said. “We haven’t really sat down and talked about it because we didn’t have any idea how much money we had to play with. I know we want to turn that money into a multiple that we can really move this club ahead in the future.
“Our club has maintained its base for years. We’d like to grow the game, and growing it means getting more junior curlers involved, having more events here, especially junior programs,” said Bissett. “I’m hoping this will turn into something that will build the curling club and build our base.”
Epp had little doubt Morden will be considered as a possible host community again sometime down the road.
“I had such a great time doing it, and I know everybody that was involved did,” he said. “I’d love to see more of this kind of thing because of the benefit it brings to the whole community.”
