Notes from the Rotary Meeting 12.30pm Thursday, April 21, 2022
Secretary Kathleen welcomed everyone to the meeting at 12.30pm.
Lorraine’s husband Rob was a guest at the meeting
Program
After lunch the Program Chair Ian introduced the guest speaker Rayna Luther. Rayna Luther (P. Eng.) is the Director of Facilities and Ancillary Services of Grenfell Campus. In her presentation Rayna updated Rotarians on the major infrastructure developments at Grenfell campus.
She began by talking about the Regional Recreation and Aquatic Centre. This $25M development is in partnership with the City of Corner Brook. She illustrated her talk with drawings and plans of this new extension on the rear of the Arts and Science Building. Construction began in April 2022 with completion estimated late 2023.
The new swimming pool will be positioned where the old pool was. The renovated area will include a welcoming lobby, fitness centre, daycare, meeting rooms plus a therapeutic area with a leisure pool, lazy river, waterslide, lap pool, wet/dry sauna, and multipurpose room. The gymnasium will be in the same place as it now is. The fitness centre will be on the second floor.
From the different drawings Rayna showed, the layout of the new area could be seen and with the glass back wall the whole area will allow much natural light and be both attractive and bright. Rayna talked about the parking for this Aquatic Centre and the new parking areas being developed around Grenfell Campus.
The next development Rayna discussed was the new Centre for Research and Innovation. This was developed by Grenfell Campus in partnerships with Corner Brook Pulp and Paper Limited (CBPPL), City of Corner Brook and College of the North Atlantic (CNA). The building on Mill Road has been leased from CBPPL for 15 years and the whole building has been renovated. The renovation of the building began in April 2021 and was completed in March 2022. Rayna went through the development of the space and its different areas suitable for different uses. The space will be used for research projects and activities, progressive training programs, Makerspace, support of Navigate Entrepreneurship and a city studio. The Makerspace will have two areas. One will be for metalwork, carpentry, welding etc. while the “clean” area will be for technology, crafts and sewing etc. Rayna showed diagrams and pictures of the inside of the building and its open plan concept.
The final building Rayna spoke of was the location of the new Western Regional School of Nursing (WRSON) Building. The present RecPlex has been identified as the preferred site for the WRSON. Now this site has been decided upon for the Nursing School the next step will be to determine if the present building should be renovated, or a new building should be built. This process is now taking place.
Rayna answered several questions before being thanked for the interesting and informative presentation.
The meeting was adjourned at 1.30pm