Recreation Facility Research Paper.

A recreation facility is a building, a place or a space that offers leisure services or fulfilment of someone’s hobbies of relief and relaxation, pleasure, amusement and fun.

A Research on Westmount Recreation Centre, Ontario- Canada.

Westmount Recreation Centre is a recreation facility located at Lynbrook Drive, Hamilton, Ontario.

It was established in September 2013. It was designed with a highly architectural skills aimed at accessing the surrounding ice rinks, offering a café and a lounge area attractive to potential recreation seekers. Having won many awards acquired the trust of both the Canadian government and both the citizens and tourists at large, it boasts of various service and event hosting such as hockey games done in the ice rinks, free skating outdoor pool and a wading pond, locker rooms, multi-purpose activity rooms for fitness classes, and meetings, teen center, parking area, a storm water management system and electric vehicles charging stations.

Benefits of Westmount Recreation Centre

1. Benefits to the community

1. Recreation and parking services

Providing avenues for relaxation and enjoyment, the recreation facility offers a cool of mind to the community utilizing its services. Westmount also offers parks that improve the image of the community and raises its socioeconomic status. With recreation activities, self-destructive behaviors are reduced, hence building a morally upright individuals in the community.

1. Boosting sports

Sports brings about social cohesion, improves community relationships and enhances interpersonal relationships in the community. There is also active involvement in the community since individuals are brought together through such sporting activities.

1. Benefits to the environment.

Utilization of land: Opening up of recreation amenities, parks and spaces help utilization of land that would otherwise stay idle and in dereliction. Land is converted into a highly acclaimed heritage through provision of such facilities.

1. Benefits to the economy

1. Employment creation

Canadian citizens are employed to offer services at the Westmount such as maintenance of pool, chef services at the café, cleaning of the area, security and equipment operation. This helps increase per capita income, therefore balance in the country’s economy.

1. Business attraction

Business persons are encouraged to offer services at the Westmount Centre, such as opening up of shopping malls, provision of recreation equipment and offering security contracts. With the growth of business, there is assured growth in general business income with which diversification of investments is wayward.

• Government revenue

According to Ontario Recreation Facilities Association (ORFA), recreation facilities such as sports and park services provides for over 12% of Canada’s revenue. The collection of this revenue is through charges and duties paid by the management, the tax policy compliance and the business taxation services. These tax revenues are ploughed back to develop other public services such as schools and hospitals, hence boosting the economy.

1. Personal health benefits

Recreation facilities helps improvement of individual health through relieving stress, keeping fit and being happy. According to Ontario Ministry of Health Promotion Report (2006), recreation services reduced cost of medical care from 2 billion to 1.6 billion a year. A healthy living has since been encouraged though adoption of recreation activities building state of the art centers such as Westmount.

Challenges

1. Maintenance cost

Initial capital required to set up a recreation facility is way too expensive and require some massive investment. However, this cost does not recess, as occasional maintenance is required to keep the facility in good state, healthy and attractive. Costs of employing maintenance staff, equipment and machine is high and if not well budgeted for, may drive the management into losses.

1. Vandalism

Due to high number of recreation seekers, and availability of children, most of the equipment is prone to vandalism. Breakages to the sports facilities such as hockey sticks, skates and protective gears is unavoidable. The management of the facility is therefore required to plan for these inconveniences.

1. Overcrowding

The facility faces high number of visitors especially during holidays such as Christmas, New Year celebrations and Valentine’s Day. Difficulty in providing services to all these people is eminent. Overcrowding also lead to service rationing, hence non-satisfaction at the individual level.

1. Safety and risk management

With frequent ice falls, the management of the facility faces challenges of providing effective ways of curbing cold effects. Many children also tend to experience accidents during skating, footballing and swimming.

1. Competition

There are several recreation service providers within and around Ontario that offer competitive threat to Westmount. They include Ontario White Lake Park, Huntington Park, Ryerson Recreation centre, Central Memorial Recreation Centre and many more.

1. Changing tastes and demands

With evolution in recreation technology, park management and resource diversification, customer preferences keep changing with time. Demand for state of the art facilities poses economic and creativity challenges to the management of the Westmount recreation centre.

Strategies to deal with the Challenges

1. Effective budgeting will help in facility cost management related to maintenance and operations. Seasonal budgeting for such costs helps meet maintenance uncertainties. Strategies on dealing with such cists is also essential, involving coming up with mentainance policies where the facility is closed for a while for upograding and maintenance.
2.  Vandalism is an unavpoidable risk. The facility managers can leverage their costs and ensure customers pay fot the risks of vandalism at a relatively moderated cost. Kids should also be given guidsnce of their parents/guardians or the facility staff.
3. Diversification of the facility will help accommodate high crowds at a time. The facility can also open a subsequent recreation centre adjacent to the main center where they can redirect people to enhance their accommodation. They cabn also manage the number of people entering the facility at a time, and the individual time spent within the facility based on the cost one is willing to pay.
4. According to Rechner (2010), risks related to recreation activities cannot be prevented, but can be highly managed through provision of safety policies. The management can therefore invest in provision of this safety services especially to the children and the elderly people.
5. Investing in research and design (R&D), innovation and technology will help the facility not only to stay a top of the competitive scale, but also win the recreation taste of the leisure seekers (Westmount Recreation Centre Professional, 2015). Development of such skills in technology and research will help realize worldwide trends in recreation such as recreation management portal, modern security and safety measures and provision of state of the art pool with underwater gym.

REFERENCES

Rechner (2010). “Letter to the Editor: Outdoor Recreation Stimulates the Economy”. Washington Post.

Sanders, Duncan (2017). Ontario Recreation Operations. London.

Westmount Recreation Centre Professional (2015). Progressive Report on Westmount Recreation Centre, Ontario.

Ontario Recreation Facilities Association, ORFA (2007). Investing in Healthy and Active Ontarians through Recreation and Parks Infrastructure: A summary of trends and Recommendations.

Ontario Ministry of Health Promotion (2006). Plan for Healthy Eating and Active Living: A Report on Health Trend and Management.

Racism in the Civil War

Racism in the Civil War

Racism is and has been present in the United States since the colonial era, but at several

points in time throughout the history of this country, racism and its societal impact has reached a

fever pitch, one of them being the Civil War, fought from 1861 to 1865. It is argued amongst

historians and other academics that the Civil War was not fought with the intent to free the

slaves. Southern states were furious over President Abraham Lincoln’s election and his unclear

stance on freeing the slaves, which the South did not want. Divided over geographical lines and

what to do in regard to slavery, the North and South bitterly battled in the war, at the core of

which was racism. The war, nor the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation by President

Lincoln, was about freeing the slaves and recognizing their humanity. Racism was at the heart of

the war and the debate of slavery and states’ rights. It ran rampant throughout the war in more

ways than one.

To provide context, it is important to note that President Lincoln knew fully well the

injustices and harshness of slavery. While not an abolitionist in any form, he knew that slavery

was wrong ethically, socially and morally and had a significant lack of knowledge or direction

about what to do about it legally. It was not in Lincoln’s interest or desire to free the slaves and

provide their economic, social and political equality to whites (Pruitt, 2012). Lincoln believed

that African Americans had the right to improve their lives yet opposed them having civic duties

like voting and serving on juries, or even marrying interracially. Those in the North opposed

slavery; their Southern slaveholder and secessionist counterparts wanted to secede from the

Union to maintain slavery as an economic institution. Southerners argued that per states’ rights,

they were entitled to protect slave property anywhere in the country. Northerners argued that

other rights were violated by states’ rights and the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850.  With the

Emancipation Proclamation, slaves were freed only in parts of the Southern states where he held

no authority, yet the South refused to concede to even that stipulation. War soon erupted between

the North and the South; it was not until a Union victory against the Confederacy that the slaves

were ordered to be completely freed, thus changing the way of life as both sides knew it.

Racism was not only limited to the regional sides of the Civil War. Within it,

abolitionists and slaves alike hoped for the opportunity to fight in the war to not only help the

Union win, but to forge the path of social justice, or at least their own freedom. However, the

South and President Lincoln feared that by arming African Americans, they would pressure

border states to secede and prevent a union Victory. Although state militias had long excluded

African Americans from the armed forces, the Second Confiscation and Militia Act of 1862

allowed them to enlist in the Union army to secure a victory. Few Black men militants saw

meaningful work and were instead delegated to menial, labor-intensive jobs for which they were

paid very little, if at all. Even in one of the most notable units, the 54^th Massachusetts Infantry,

racism continued as they were paid scarce sums and served in domestic and security roles like

guards and scouts. They were seen as they always had been, despite the military uniform: as

inferior, less intelligent, less skills and less brave. By the war’s end, nearly 50,000 men had died

fighting for a country that saw them as inferior to Whites. The Reconstruction following the

Civil War made no better conditions for African Americans. Their lives then became impacted by

“black codes” in the South to control their behavior and maintain order that positioned Whites as

authority.