Early bird registration deadline for youth soccer is Wednesday, Feb. 29! If you have a youth in the house who would like to play soccer this Spring, don’t delay registering them with Kootenay South Soccer. The closing date for registration is March 16. Log on to www.kootenaysouthsoccer.com to register.
There will be a new face in the recreation department while I (Robin Hethey) am away for the next two months. Heather Bartlett will be replacing me for the months of March and April while my family and I enjoy an adventure in Central America. Pam will be in the office three days a week, keeping everything running smoothly with Heather and also running several of the new Spring programs.
For those of you who are interested in where I’m going and what I’ll be doing - in between being tourists, studying Spanish and trekking through the jungles, we’ll be volunteering at two different organizations, each for several weeks. While in Costa Rica, the girls and I will be volunteering with the Cloud Forest School, (www.cloudforestschool.org); a K-11 environmental education, project based learning school located in the National Cloud Forest preserve. I’ll try to send a “column” back to Rossland, about our time with the school, so that if you’re interested in the direction RSS is moving in, you can read about the organization and curriculum of a similar school. While we’re in Guatemala, we’ll be volunteering with Project Somos, (www.projectsomos.org) – a children’s village for abandoned and orphaned children. This is the project that Steve Knox worked on last year, for his sister Heather, the founding director for the project.
The Spring Brochure is now online and can be viewed on the city’s website (www.rossland.ca) and also on Facebook. The hard copies will be in your mailbox next week.
Spring break is still a few weeks away, but if you’re looking for something for the kids to do over the break, Shelley Painter will be running some March Break Art Classes! Running Monday to Friday, March 12 to March 16 and then again from March 19 to 23, these two hour long classes run from 2 – 4 p.m. Each day will be a different project and some days will explore more than one project, using a specific technique. Participants can come to one class or all the classes – whichever works best for your child’s schedule. Suggested ages are 6 to 12 years, but 3-5 year olds are welcome to come with a parent or babysitter, for the first hour only. For specific information about each day, please log onto www.rossland.ca and look at the Spring Break Art Camp information in the center of the home page.
The Neighborhood of Learning (NOL) and Visions for Small Schools (VSS) committees have created a survey regarding the school configurations in Rossland. The survey can be found at www.surveymonkey.com/s/RosslandSchools or in hard copy format at city hall. Important decisions are being made in our school district regarding school configurations and they need your input! The Neighborhood of Learning committee needs to know what Rosslanders want. It is critical that you make your views known so that NOL committee knows what to fight for and what perspectives to present to the school district. All views and ideas matter and they want to hear from a diverse range of people. Make your views known!! Rossland residents completing this survey will be eligible for a $50 draw prize! Please complete this survey by March 19 to be eligible for the draw.
Morning Zumba is now at a 7 a.m. start time on Mondays and Thursdays, which began Feb. 16. The class runs from 7 – 8 a.m. and can help you get an early, healthy start to your day! Classes are in the Miners' Hall and are $7 drop-in for those younger than 55 years of age and $6 drop-in for those older than 55. The early morning classes will run until March 8 if there is enough interest to continue the 7 a.m. class. Evening Zumba will continue on Mondays and Thursdays from 6 - 7 p.m. If you would like to be on the instructor’s email list, in order to receive updates about schedule changes, please email Amber, at a_hayes@telus.net.
Public Skating schedule for the week of Feb. 27 - March 4 will be: Wednesday, Feb. 29 from 6:30-7:45 p.m. and on Friday, March 2 from 5 - 6:30 p.m. On Sunday, March 4, public skating is from 2:30 - 4 p.m. and again from 6 -7:30 p.m.
If you currently enjoy a recreation program in one of the school buildings, please note: All recreation programs either end before Spring Break (March 12-27) or take a break during the two weeks, resuming when school starts again, on March 28. There are no recreation programs when school is not in session.