Sam Dyck officially became the acting recreation director on February 1. The position opened up when longtime rec director Brent Littlejohn left in late 2016. It was covering the load afterward that led Dyck to her current role.
“When Brent resigned, the responsibilities kind of got passed down to the office staff,” explained Dyck, who has been working in the municipal office for a year now. “I had been doing the scheduling for about probably a little over two months before taking over.”
The staff shuffle saw Dyck move into the rec director’s chair. For her, the move was fairly natural.
“I have always been involved in the town sports-wise. I’ve coached multiple sports, grew up playing sports in the community. I definitely think I have a large knowledge base of what goes on. I was a lifeguard as well so I kind of know how that runs. And then when the position opened up I thought it would be a great opportunity for me.”
Dyck is serving as acting rec director for six months. During this time, she will be half time in that chair and half time in administration. Everyone will be evaluating how much time is spent doing rec duties and look at what the position entails after that six months.
She feels her background in Boissevain is an asset.
“It’s definitely a big perk to know all the people, the arena, the ball diamonds, the campgrounds.” Dyck said. “I’ve been involved in all of it before, the swimming pool, so I don’t have to learn everything new from scratch. I guess it just helps having that background and knowledge.”
Right now, she is dealing with a lot of scheduling for the arena, which is tight this time of year. The ball diamonds will be coming up fairly soon. She will start to look at hiring staff for the pool to get it up and running for the summer, scheduling swimming lessons and encouraging young people to get their lifeguarding so there are more of them in the community. The campground and small programs also run through the office. Granting and budgeting comes as well. With the budgeting, Dyck said she would be getting some help from Administrator Lloyd Leganchuk and Assistant Administrator Leo Poulin while she is learning the position.
Definitely, she said, the pool will be large to get up and running, and there are some ideas being thrown around for summer and other programming possibilities like yoga or bootcamps.
Dyck said she is happy with the support she has received from the Recreation Commission and the staff in the municipal office and is interested in continuing in the position, and would be happy if it turned into a full time opportunity.
by PAUL RAYNER, Recorder staff