The City of Winkler has launched a new website to make for a more user-friendly experience when it comes to accessing the community’s recreational facilities and programming.
The idea for playwinkler.ca, which went live a few weeks ago, came as work was underway on upgrades to the Winkler Centennial Arena, shared assistant city manager Wendy Klassen.
“We kind of said, hey, we have a Meridian Exhibition Centre website and then we also have some recreation stuff on our City of Winkler website—wouldn’t it be great if we had just one nice, big recreation website? So that’s what we’ve done.”
“The growth that we’re seeing in the recreation community as well as in the city as a whole really warranted some restructuring,” agreed Kelly Morgan, community services office manager. “Similar to how we’re always revising our policies, our procedures, our efficiencies with the public in other areas as we grow, the website just felt like maybe it wasn’t keeping up or meeting the needs.”
The “Play” tab on the City of Winkler website that formerly showed recreation department programming now takes people directly to the new site, which also replaces the old MEC web presence.
Everything you need to find information about what’s going on in all of Winkler’s parks and rec. facilities is accessible from the new website, Morgan explained, including links to program registration and bookings.
“You can go under the umbrella of this recreational campus, go right to the home page of the Meridian Exhibition Centre, the Centennial Arena, the RCU Aquatic Centre, the campground, Winkler Park, and the Parkland,” she said, noting there are also links to other public spaces—the Discovery Nature Sanctuary, various sports fields, playgrounds, and parks, etc.—and to upcoming community events in all those spaces. “It’s all under one canopy of recreation now.”
Being able to more easily find the right place to make bookings online is something Morgan expects is going to be the most well-liked part of this new site.
“That’s one of the biggest comments that we’ve received over the last few years as everyone’s going more and more to online, to having something more user-friendly, mobile-friendly, website-friendly,” she said. “Hopefully we’ve really made it a one or two-step process rather than lots of administrative back and forth for our community members.”
The new website has already gotten the thumbs up from user groups.
“We’ve gotten a lot of good feedback, especially from folks that are using the ice, and I think in the next few weeks we’ll really hear more because mid-April our campground and shelters go live for bookings,” Morgan said. “So I think folks that are in the spring and summer kind of mode already are going to get a chance to really see the features and hopefully provide ongoing feedback for us.”
“As with any new website, it’s a bit of a flowing document,” Klassen noted. “If we hear feedback of something that’s not working, we’ll make adjustments as we go.”
