Future of Naramata Centre still undecided

PENTICTON – Two upcoming meetings of the Naramata Centre Board of Directors will hopefully define the immediate future of the retreat, board spokesman Gerry Anderson said Feb. 26.

“We have a board meeting Sunday and our Annual General Meeting in June. Those meetings will go a long way to deciding our future direction,” Anderson said.

Management at the centre have been busy over the past several weeks since the announcement of the centre’s closure on Jan.21, providing refunds and tax receipts to many of those who donated to the centre’s fundraising effort in late 2014.

“There’s been a lot to do with respect to closing the facility and managing security,” Anderson said, adding winter had been hard on the grounds.

The centre includes more than 30 buildings and covers 23 acres in Naramata. 

Union staff continue to picket the centre, but Anderson said mediation has recently resumed. He was hopeful that within the next week and a half there would be some progress to report on the labour front.

Anderson said there would be no chance of the centre operating this year. He said the board continued to look for ideas for future use of the centre.

“We definitely need a plan that will be sustainable, if something comes out of the ashes,” he said, noting that several directors wouldn’t continue sitting on the board if they didn’t feel there wasn’t something in the centre’s future.

“Debt servicing and infrastructure costs are what caused us to close. Those issues must be dealt with,” he said.

Anderson said since the announcement of the centre’s closure, the board has been receiving requests from those interested in becoming members of the Naramata Centre Society,  which has since been opened up to new membership.

To contact the reporter for this story, email Steve Arstad at sarstad@infonews.ca or call 250-488-3065. To contact the editor, email mjones@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724.