A Message from our Executive Director

Wow, what an end to 2025 and start to 2026. Many of you may have heard about the extremely challenging and expensive mechanical and technological failures we had to deal with over the holidays and into the new year.

Our hot water tank went Christmas Eve Day. We had it replaced on New Year’s Eve Day. Our furnace needs a new motor, and our email was down for 8 days. I know these incidents caused significant challenges for our renters, our members and everyone who tried to send us an email. I thank everyone for their patience and understanding as we worked hard to resolve these issues. We are back up and running and hope for a smooth February.

Speaking of smooth, we wish everyone going on the 50^th Anniversary cruise a safe and happy journey.

Thank you to everyone who has signed up to volunteer for our upcoming casino on March 4^th and 5^th at the Elbow River Casino. There are still a few evening positions open. If you or if you know of anyone who can help, please sign up online or contact our office.  We will start the year off with a $20,000 hit to our reserve fund which means fundraising from the casino and other events we will announce shortly will be critical in stabilizing our financials.

You will also have noticed that we have set up sign-in sheets for every program we offer. The reason is the City has mandated us with “FCSS-funded programs are required to track participation counts starting January 2026. These changes are part of the Government of Alberta’s new FCSS Accountability Framework and shared measurement reporting requirements. FCSS Calgary is required to report program data to the Province. The above changes align The City’s reporting practices with the Government of Alberta’s updated standards under the new accountability framework”. We receive over $100,000 per year from FCSS. We are incorporating the sign in sheets to protect our ability to continue to receive these significant funds. If we want to maintain our programming with our current cost structure, we need your support to please sign in (print first and last name). All sign in sheets will be kept confidential.

2026 continues to show growth in membership, programming and event participation. Most of our programs are either at or near capacity. It is so incredible to have 80 to 100 people in our facility on a regular basis. It will be more incredible when we report to the City that in 2026, we had approximately 20,000 participants sign in.

Thank you to our membership, volunteers, funders, donors and sponsors for their continued support.

We look forward to seeing everyone and reading your emails at our warm centre with hot water throughout 2026.