Editor:
Harmony Hall's seven-year lease is up for renewal. Breaking with past policy, the Town is now inviting applications for all expiring leases. The other applicant for the Hall is peppering the media with urgent pleas for evening events, implying the Gibsons Seniors Society is not properly serving the 40-plus-year-old community.
The lease has always required that the premises be used for seniors. The Old Age Pensioners Branch minimum membership age dropped to 40 long ago to accommodate a weight loss club. Our members wanted that activity, but it had younger members. The purpose was never to change focus from a seniors group.
Policy guidelines state "at the discretion of the executive committee, Harmony Hall can be made available for the use of non-profit organizations for specific occasional events." Our hall has been used for a celidh raising funds for the Fiddlers, benefits for the Hospital Auxiliary, Jack and Jill Pre-school, etc.
Coast Community Enter-tainment Society (aka SunCoast Harmony Entertainment Society), was incorporated to put on non-profit entertainment events, unlike most local groups which support a specific cause. Our executive never asked those members to incorporate, and we never asked them to submit a slate of monthly evening activities. They went ahead and advertised those events as though the announcement came from us, and the executive voted not to deal with them at all.
We make our decisions carefully, and ask that they be respected. Our seniors group physically built the hall in 1975. We re-roofed the hall two years ago for $18,000. The kitchen and small hall were refloored in 2009 with a New Horizons grant, and the main hall gets a new floor in 2010.
It will be heartbreaking if a bunch of would-be party planners take Harmony Hall from the town's old folks.
Maureen Goldman/director
Gibsons Seniors Society
