By Patrick Newhook/December 16, 2021
The Town of Cape Broyle has high hopes for what it can now do with its newly expanded Recreation Committee.
On Tuesday, December 7, council held a meeting and expanded the committee, which has done yeoman’s work over the years organizing events such as the Santa Claus Parade and other activities.
The key difference between the old committee and the newly updated one is mainly size. For some time now, the committee had been down to two members. Now it has been increased to include more members and will operate as a more formal arm of council.
Mayor Beverly O’Brien is hopeful that will enable the town to tap into more grants that can help the community.
“The government is offering a lot of opportunities around recreation and grants and stuff like that, and I just felt that we were probably missing out on some of them because we didn’t have a formal committee,” said O’Brien. “Now we do have a formal committee.”
The mayor is also optimistic about what the new Rec Committee can bring to the town of some 489 residents in other ways.
“It’s not about sports, it’s not about arts, it’s about everything, it’s about bringing recreation activities to our town,” said O’Brien. “We have Come Home Year coming up the summer and it’s just nice to have a formal recreation committee to help out. They’re going to be doing stuff for all ages from babies to seniors.”
One of the new committee members, Heather Shannahan, is excited about the potential of the revamped Recreation Committee. Shannahan is originally from Cape Broyle and moved back last year. She wants to see the town have more opportunities for people to get together and have fun, which motivated her to become part of it.
“I think we’re going to… provide new interests for people to partake in the town and for all ages,” Shannahan said. “We’re hoping to have programming for people of all different ages, interests and abilities.”
One key thing Shannahan wants to see happen is more activities created to get the community to come together.
“We want to give them the option of, instead of on Tuesday evening going out on the road, maybe there’s an activity going on down at the hall, the community center, that might interest you,” said Shannahan.
Group activities like that help build a sense of community and memories, she argue
