Naramata Centre shutting until end of August

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Ok official e-mail today. Board of Directors have met. The Centre is attempting to raise 1/2 million by the end of this month or it will shut in 2 months.
 
Minor note: and no need to move, but threads specific to United Church of Canada -- such as Naramata Cenre are what the forum "Future United" was designed for. It allows individuals who are solely here to discuss United Church of Canada items the ability to follow that forum.
 
Except for the fact Pinga that 50% of folks attending Naramata Centre do not identify with any United Church congreagtion. While it is a United Church Centre half of the attendees are not United Church attenders.
 
I suspect Naramata, like PCTC, is done in its current form. While I generally support unions, when they forget the need for their employers to truly be viable concerns, they have a way of doing themselves in. While I enjoyed the courses I took at Naramata, the difficulty of getting there was a major factor in deciding to not take several other interesting ones.
 
I can't lay all the blame on CUPE Naramata summer programs have been making money-just not enough to support the whole cCentre year round. So the Board and Management have been tinkering with the summer programmes-to make them more sustainable. ie make more $ . IMHO they should be focusing on the other 10 months of the year-and leave the profitable summer programs alone.
 
Tabitha, thank you for this information. In other words, management maybe should not have counted on year round employment. What do you think they could have done with the other 10 months?
 
Supplemental or contract staff that works based on demand (ie, summer -- high volume, then increase staff).

hmm, that sounds like what they tried to do but couldn't alter contracts?
 
Not quite Pinga-staff was always higher in summer-there was a category of staff called "Summer staff" for summer staff programming. The CUPE staff did the registration, office support, housecleaning, security, groundskeeping, kitchen staff, yard work and laundry. Kitchen and grounds staff were going to be contracted out. Most CUPE staff were not year round.

Issue is building maintence, heat, replacement and repairs to keep up to date, and the 5 management staff that do work year round. Now one of thses staff also mages bookstore that is self-supporting.
One staff was to run Pacific Jubilee spirtual direction program-not sure if it was a money maker.


Winter session-young adults-had been drastically shortened and condensed over the years. I doubt that it broke even.

anyhow my heart is sad because I love the place.
 
Tabitha -- wouldn't housekeeping, groundskeeping, yard work, laundry, kitchen be handled via contract staff based on load?

The only employees would be those that are required no matter what the load of he space is.
 
Not the way it's been set up Pinga. Only kitchen and grounds were being contracted out. ie another company manged these tasks
All other employees-whether seasonal or fulltime are Centre employees-and CUPE members
plus of cousre the 5 management staff, then Programme staff on top of this.
 
Well, I hope they'll use the money wisely and restructure so that they're more financially viable going forward. Five Admin staff seems rather top heavy. Better off to get rid of a couple of those and add in a couple of real workers.
 
Having had my snarky moment it i not unusual to see administrative staff as employees who book/schedule/oversee conract workers.
Why? in a place where demand is seasonal you have a lot of changing needs.
Now, it also depends on how that admin is defined: fundraising/marketing, operations (housekeeping, kitchen, booking), front office, property, youth programming, adult programming.
etc
 
ahem, admin are real workers.
Click to expand...

For sure, though I'm not clear on whether she means "admin" or "management" since some (incorrectly) use the term interchangeably. To me, management are those giving direction, admin are often support staff like secretaries, hr, marketing, etc. It was said upthread that there were 5 "management" which does seem a bit high for an organization like this but it depends on what the actual positions are. Our church calls the "church secretary" an "office manager" so use of a title like that might cause some confusion/overlap between admin and executive. My brother was groundskeeper at a United Church camp for a time and I think his title was something like "property manager". Again, not really management but could get counted as such by someone who didn't know.
 
I don't have a horse in this race - Naramata is too far from my home to make it likely that I will ever go there. From my observation post outside the structures of the UCCan I can't determine a 'right' way to sort out this organisational mess. The little, quiet voice within me says that without the places like Naramata the UCCan has less chance of moving into the future. I know people who have attended programmes there and at other UCCan centres and returned home greatly enriched. Two of them are now members of their local congregation.

Several people have told me how much they would like to attend a particular programme but money and time present insurmountable barriers. It makes me wonder if there would be any success if the centres each did travelling programmes? These could be administered from an office, a schedule announced, a location decided, a van or bus (maybe even the Wonderbus) could go to where the people are. Programmes could be based in any suitable location in a community - a church, school or community hall etc. Those attending could sleep at a hotel, their own home, billets, camper - whatever would work best.

The biggest barrier to this that I can see would be the administration - easy to get too many layers, costing too much money, taking too much time, resulting in too many bosses trying to run the show.

An argument in its favour would be the savings to the planet - there would be fewer individuals driving long distances (or flying), dedicated buildings could be sold or repurposed.
 
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