While you may have to book a time slot for a family or public swim at the Canada Games Pool several weeks in advance at least for the next little while, city staff are aware of people not showing up when they are supposed to.
Aquatics Supervisor Andrew Smeaton says while people have been eager to dive in after a six month closure, they have had to limit the number of people in the facility at any given time due to COVID-19.
“We used to be able to have people in for leisure activities while we were running lessons or while we were running fitness programs but now all of our different programs have to be separated, but we’ve tried to give options so its not just athletes or its not just directed at people who want to learn how to swim,” he said.
“There are still leisure and lap opportunities as well.”
Smeaton says he is looking forward to the date when the facility can return to full capacity, post COVID-19.
“Right now, we’ll have like a period in the morning for lap swimming, but then we have to close the pool down in order to run say lessons and a school group and then we have to change programs, have a break in between before we can open it up again to some leisure swim,” he said.
“Then we have to close it down to have lessons and aquatic clubs in, so its not just open throughout the day where people can drop in anymore.”
As for the issue of no shows, Smeaton says the city is working on options, including calling and asking people if they’re able to come or whether their time slot can be given to someone on the waiting list. People have to either have a membership or pay for their swim in advance, and if they don’t show up, they lose the money.
Right now he says without hearing from the person, staff are unable to release the spot to someone else as it was already paid for.
“We used to be able to have about 250 people in the pool. Now we’re restricted to say a number like 24. Having such restricted numbers means that even though you come in and it looks like there are way less people around and there’s lots of space, that is the amount of space that we need to follow a lot of the COVID protocols around lap lane usage or around our leisure space usage,” Smeaton said.
Smeaton expects there to be strong demand for public swim times until such time COVID protocols are eased. If you’re unable to get a time at the TCC, city staff are encouraging people to try the Westsyde Pool or the Kamloops Downtown Y to see if they have space available in their pools.
@cityofkamloops we waited 9 months to see the new TCC, and now staff is telling us that the next two weeks of family swim are fully booked?! I don’t want to complain, because we’re lucky to have pools open at all. But Recreation Staff may want to rethink this system.
— Jay Michi (@jaymichi) January 17, 2021
