Concerned Members Seek to Save their Centre
THUNDER BAY – A few weeks ago, the West Thunder Community Centre on Edward Street opened up a pilot project. The cafe in the centre opened, and some pretty amazing food was being served at some very affordable prices.
The West Thunder Cafe appeared to be helping to grow the centre. There were five hundred new members joined the centre. The cafe from what sources are telling NetNewsLedger was even turning a profit.
The city-owned facility run by a board of directors, and a decision was made this week to close down the West Thunder Cafe.
Thunder Bay City Manager Tim Commisso says, “To my knowledge the issue is internal to the centre and a result of a decision of that volunteer board who operates the facility. The model at our Community Centres is very much a community partnership approach where the City supports the operations of each facility and a volunteer board looks after the programming including in this case the food service operations”.
The decision, made Monday night at what some members are saying was an “unconstitutional meeting” resulted in the cafe being closed and five employees the office administrator and the four cafe employees being terminated.
Before the West Thunder Cafe opened, there were approximately 190 community centre members. 500 new members joined the membership of the community centre after the cafe opened.
Concerned Members Unite to Save West Thunder
About fifty members met Thursday morning to discuss what the next step would be. It was decided that there will be a carefully worded petition drawn up requesting an open forum for members to call for the board to be replaced. The petition will require signatures of half of the community centre member plus one.
At this time, West Thunder Community Centre members are all requested to come and sign the petition and show their support in praceful protest at 4:30 pm this Sunday (June 22nd) at the Community Centre. If you cannot come this Sunday, there will be a second opportunity to sign the petition at 1:00pm on Tuesday, June 24, also at the Centre.
West Thunder Community Centre has not responded to requests for information.
