Memoranda issued by Recreation, Cultural and Facility Services

January 18, 2024

To: Mayor and Members of Council

From: Dan Chenier, General Manager, Recreation, Cultural and Facility Services Department

Mayor and Members of Council,

I’m pleased to advise you that the new Last-minute ice (LMI) booking system on register.ottawa.ca will be launched mid-next week This is one more step towards the full implementation of the City’s ActiveNet booking and registration system.

To help support this transition, we have developed the following resources:

• Video tutorial EN Link: https://youtu.be/2GJfTjMgIHM
• How-to brochure (bilingual printed brochure available at arenas)
• Web content (to be available upon launch)

This new functionality is for booking last-minute ice within a 15 day timeframe only. The search function to view unsold arena ice times beyond 15 days will be available at a later date.

Like any new process, there will be an adjustment period for both RCFS facility staff and user groups as they make the transition to this new online booking system.

Should you have any questions related to this, please contact Luc Lavictoire, Program Manager, Centralized Allocations.

January 3, 2024

To: Mayor and Members of Council

From: Dan Chenier, General Manager Recreation, Cultural and Facility Services Department

The purpose of this memo is to provide a status update to Members of Council on the Recreation, Cultural and Facility Services Department’s Commemorative Naming Program and policy review.

On February 8, 2023, Ottawa City Council passed a motion to pause the Commemorative Naming Program to allow for a full program and policy review. The review is intended to strengthen the City’s approach to commemoration and outline a more equitable, diverse, and inclusive process that reflects the values of the City of Ottawa.

As part of the review process, we are inviting Ottawa residents to share their ideas and feedback regarding the future direction of the Commemorative Naming Program on Engage Ottawa. The survey will be open to the public on January 3, 2024, and close on February 16, 2024. Survey results will assist with the creation of a more diverse, inclusive, and equitable Commemorative Naming Policy.

We encourage you to promote this opportunity to as many residents and community groups as possible. Residents with questions or comments can contact the Commemorative Naming Program at NamingOttawa@ottawa.ca

December 14, 2023
To: Mayor and Members of Council
From: Dan Chenier, General Manager, Recreation

Skating on the City of Ottawa’s outdoor rinks is a popular pastime for residents and a great way to keep active during colder weather. Ottawa’s outdoor rink program is unique as the ice surfaces are primarily constructed and maintained by community volunteers. 

We recognize that your staff receive countless calls from residents with questions and concerns about their local outdoor rink. The information below can be used as a guide when responding to inquiries.  

We recommend that you make this information available to your office staff so that they may refer to it as they field inquiries.  

Base ice/Opening date 

We are currently tracking forecasted snowfall and temperatures. To create base ice, 10 to 15 centimetres of accumulated snow is required with evening temperatures consistently below -10 degrees Celsius for a duration of five to seven consecutive days. Ideally, construction of base ice begins around December 15 but due to fluctuating weather patterns, achieving base ice has not been possible until early January in recent years.  Creating base ice is a labour-intensive process that includes packing of the snow and applying 12 coats of water within a five to seven-day cold period.  

Snow removal  

Volunteers will do their best to remove snow from the ice surface in a timely manner.  

In general, residents can expect that minor snowfalls will be cleared from the rink within 12 hours and major snowfalls (10+ cm) will be cleared within 24 hours.  

Shovels will often be available at the rink, and we encourage rink users to assist with snow removal. 

Mild weather  

In recent years, we have experienced several periods of rain followed by mild weather, which makes it difficult for volunteers to maintain the ice.  

During warmer weather, there is little that volunteers can do until the colder weather returns. It is crucial that the public stays off the rink during mild weather.  

Walking on the rink during mild weather will cause damage to the rink’s surface and make it incredibly challenging for volunteers to get the ice back to a smooth surface.  

Skating tips for residents 

We encourage you to post the following tips on your ward websites or social media accounts for a successful season.  

• Rink users should always wear a CSA certified hockey helmet. 
• Children under the age of 7 should be accompanied by a responsible person aged 14 and up.  
• Respect signage indicating the rink is closed. It means volunteers have recently flooded or the ice is too soft for skating. 
• Avoid walking on the rink, as this is hazardous and damages the ice surface. 
• Keep all pets off the rinks. Please do not use boarded rinks as dog runs.  
• For the safety of users, hockey is not permitted on puddle rinks (non-boarded rinks).  
• Hours of operation and access to warming facilities (where available) for supervised rinks is determined by the local community operator at each location. 
• Take the time to thank the volunteers who dedicate their time to creating a rink in your community and lend a helping hand when possible. 
• Report any site hazards or deficiencies to 3-1-1 or the Seasonal Recreation Office. 

Rink operator appreciation breakfast 

Staff are again in the planning stages for the annual rink volunteer appreciation breakfast. This is an annual tradition where Councillors are invited to attend the celebration and assist with serving breakfast to the volunteers. This year’s breakfast will take place on Saturday, February 24 at the Jim Durrell Arena.  

Sledding Hills 

Ottawa has a unique landscape with a high number of naturally occurring hills on City property which are appealing to residents to use for sledding activities. Although this makes oversight and management challenging, the City takes every reasonable precaution to manage risk for activities that take place on its property, including sledding.    

In order to mitigate risks associated with sledding, City staff have designated more than 60 hills as “approved sledding hills”.  These locations have had site risk inspections completed, safety signage installed and protective measures such as hay bags and foam padding have been installed as added safety measures. Approved sledding hills are listed on ottawa.ca/sledding and are the only hills located on City property considered reasonably safe for sledding.   

As a result of the large number of naturally occurring hills located on City property, staff cannot be aware of sledding activities taking place on all hilly landscapes not designated for sledding. Staff have identified more than 30 hills located on City property that have been inspected and identified as not reasonably safe for sledding. Signage indicating that sledding is not safe at these locations has been installed to warn residents of the dangers. If your office becomes aware of any safety issues at approved or non-approved hills on City land in your ward, please report this to the Seasonal Recreation office.    

Sledding tips for residents 

• Only sled at designated approved sledding hills. A full listing can be found at ottawa.ca/sledding 
• Always wear a proper helmet – ski, snowboard, or CSA certified hockey helmet 
• Check the weather before sledding and avoid sledding during icy conditions. 
• Sit or kneel on your sled and avoid going headfirst. 
• View hill descriptions at ottawa.ca/sledding to verify the hill you are visiting is appropriate for young children or new sledders. 
• The City of Ottawa recommends that young children avoid sledding on hills identified as fairly steep or steep and stick to hills with a gradual slope. 

Last year, in partnership with Ottawa Public Health, we developed a public awareness campaign with these messages and will be running that campaign again this year. 

Contact information  

Residents with questions regarding the general operation of the outdoor rink program or the city’s sledding hills are invited to contact the Seasonal Recreation Office: 
Phone: 613-580-2590  
Email: SeasonalRecreation@ottawa.ca.  

Other comments, questions or concerns can be addressed to: 

Program Manager: Sue Chiumera
Phone – 613-580-2424 x 26637
Email – sue.chiumera@ottawa.ca 

Recreation Supervisor: Matt Hyne
Phone – 613-580-2424 x 46606
Email – matt.hyne@ottawa.ca 

We look forward to another successful season.  

October 26, 2023

To: Mayor and Members of Council

From: Dan Chenier, General Manager Recreation, Cultural and Facility Services Department

The purpose of this memo is to provide an update to Members of Council on the Recreation, Cultural and Facility Services department’s development of an outdoor tennis and pickleball strategy.

We are inviting Ottawa residents to share their experience or ideas with outdoor tennis and pickleball courts through a survey available on Engage Ottawa. The survey will be open to everyone starting tomorrow, October 27th and will remain open until December 31, 2023. Input received will help with the creation of a strategy that will serve as a reference guide for management, oversight and development of public and municipal club-operated outdoor tennis and pickleball courts.

The project team will also be undertaking virtual consultations with the general public and targeted stakeholder groups. Further details are to come and will be available on Engage Ottawa.
We encourage groups and individuals who would like to participate in consultations to reach out to the project team at tennis_pickleball@ottawa.ca.

The City will also be partnering with the Ottawa Sport Council, a leading voice in the community for amateur sport, who will support the engagement process for this strategy. 

We encourage you to promote this opportunity to as many residents and groups as possible.
Residents with questions or comments can contact the Outdoor Tennis and Pickleball Strategy team at tennis_pickleball@ottawa.ca.

Thank you

August 24, 2023

To: Mayor and Members of Council

From: Dan Chenier, General Manager Recreation, Cultural and Facility Services Department

The purpose of this memo is to advise Members of Council that the online launch of fall non-aquatic program registration that took place yesterday, Wednesday, August 23, 2023, went very well and experienced no technical issues. Residents were able to successfully book programs for the upcoming season with minimal wait times.

Following recent adjustments made by the vendor, the ACTIVENet service performed well last night, processing 10,000 registrations in the first ten minutes without delay. Peak registration occurred 20 minutes after launch. This morning, the service has processed over 14,000 registrations.

Staff remain committed to working with ACTIVENet to ensure a reliable service.

August 21, 2023

To: Mayor and Members of Council

From: Dan Chenier, General Manager Recreation, Cultural and Facility Services Department

The purpose of this memo is to notify Members of Council that the online launch of fall non-aquatic program registration has been re-scheduled to Wednesday, August 23, 2023, at 9 pm, and in-person registration to Thursday, August 24, 2023. Staff have put together a comprehensive communications plan to ensure residents are made aware of the new dates. This will include a public service announcement, updates to ottawa.ca and social media, an email to DiscoverRec subscribers, and radio ads. Registration for aquatic and Before and After School programs remains open and ongoing.

Following ongoing investigations and testing, the vendor ACTIVENet has advised that the cause of the disruption that occurred during aquatic registration on Monday, August 14 was from a planned software update that negatively impacted the hardware responsible for balancing the high volume of transactions during peak registration across available servers. Subsequently, the service was impaired for a short time resulting in poor performance. The issue has now been resolved.

Many residents have expressed concerns about the capacity of the ACTIVENet service to handle registration night volumes. On the previous registration system, City servers could only process 450 concurrent transactions, causing long wait times during registration launch nights. The vendor has assured us that the issues that occurred during aquatic registrations are not reflective of the new service’s ability to handle the peak registration periods for the City of Ottawa as well as their other clients. This has been demonstrated for winter, spring and summer registrations. The City is confident the ACTIVENet service has sufficient server capacity to support our high volume of registrations.

I wish to thank residents, as well as Members of Council, for their patience as staff worked diligently with ACTIVENet to resolve this issue.

August 16, 2023

To: Mayor and Members of Council

From: Dan Chenier, General Manager Recreation

The purpose of this memo is to notify Members of Council that tonight’s fall non-aquatic program registration launch has been postponed. Following ongoing discussions with the vendor it cannot be confirmed that the issues that occurred on Monday have been resolved to support the peak volumes of registration night. While this was a difficult decision to make, it is the recommendation of the vendor, and our priority is to ensure that the resident experience is a positive one.

Staff have been working diligently with ACTIVENet management and engineers to determine the cause of the disruption that occurred during aquatic registration. Initial review suggests that the disruption is related to a hardware issue in the ACTIVENet datacentre that affected the flow of online traffic to available servers. A temporary solution mitigated the issue resulting in return to regular service by 9:40 pm. By 11 pm, over 25,000 transactions had been completed.

ACTIVENet has extended an apology to the City and our residents for the lapse in service as well as made assurances that they are working around the clock to ensure that this issue has been corrected. A new date for fall non-aquatic program registration will be communicated as soon as possible. Aquatic registrations remain open and ongoing.

We are committed to providing residents with a registration system that they can trust, and I sincerely apologize for Monday’s technical issue. I will continue to keep Council and the public up to date on ACTIVENet’s progress, as they have committed to providing more information as it becomes available in the coming days.  

Thank you.

June 7, 2023

To: Mayor and Members of Council

From: Dan Chenier, General Manager Recreation

Mayor and Members of Council,

I’m pleased to advise that the activation of the City’s 10-year sponsorship agreement with the Tony Graham Automotive Group is underway.

In addition to naming rights at the Kanata Recreation Complex, Tony Graham Automotive Group is investing in community recreation programming through the sponsorship of free access for Ottawa youth to our cardio and weight rooms for the summer months at select City recreation centres.

There are many benefits to motivating youth to be and stay active, especially for their mental health and social well-being. Offering free memberships to Ottawa youth is a great incentive to introduce them to fitness and a healthy choice of activity during the summer months.

To qualify for the free workout pass, youth must be a resident of Ottawa between the ages of 13 to 17, attend a short orientation at their preferred location to familiarize them with the safe use of the equipment, and have a signed consent form from a parent or guardian.

For more information on this new youth recreation program, visit ottawa.ca/TonyGrahamYouthPass.

We encourage you to share this exciting new initiative with your residents. Should you have any questions related to this, please feel free to contact Ingrid Meza-McDonald , Manager, Corporate Sponsorships.

Date: May 17, 2023

To: Mayor and Members of Council

From: Dan Chenier, General Manager

With the outdoor summer recreation season approaching, we are providing the information below with details on the City's beach, outdoor pool, wading pool and park programs.

Beaches are supervised Monday to Sunday, noon to 7 pm, from June 17 to August 27.

• Beach pavilion washrooms will be open from May 20 to September 4 at the three beach sites. Monday to Thursday, 10:30 am to 9 pm
• Friday to Sunday 10:30 am to 7 pm

The City will not be providing lifeguard supervision at Westboro Beach this year. The NCC is advising that due to construction at the site, only reduced unsupervised access to the beach area will be available. The City recommends swimming at supervised beaches only. Water testing will not be completed at this location. For information on water quality at beach locations, contact Ottawa Public Health: 613-580-2424 ext.13219 or Beach Water Quality Results - Ottawa Public Health.

For general information on beaches, please visit Outdoor Swim and Splash or email beaches@ottawa.ca.

February 21, 2023

To: Mayor and Members of Council

From: Dan Chenier, General Manager Recreation

This memo is in response to Councillor Menard’s budget inquiry to Recreation, Cultural and Facility Services (RCFS) requesting cost estimates to extend wading pool hours and to open washrooms in City parks more consistently.

Wading pools

Historically, wading pools have staggered seasonal start and end dates between two cohorts. The planned 2023 wading pool season for half the pools in cohort A is June 26th to August 20th, and the season for the remaining pools in cohort B is July 1st to August 27th. The start dates align with the end of the elementary school year in late June, since young children are the primary users of wading pools.

Staff have prepared and costed two options for extending wading pool hours:

Option 1 – Omit the typical staggered opening model and open as many pools as staffing will allow from June 24th to August 27th. This would result in cohort A receiving an extra week at the end of the season, and cohort B receiving an extra week at the beginning of the season. This option adds an extra two weeks to all wading pools and moves the program to a 9-week operation.

The additional operating cost required for this option is $229,898.

Option 2 - Create four wading pool cohorts and stagger opening dates between June 17th to July 1st. This would result in an additional 7 days for each cohort and an overall 2-week extension of the wading pool season.

The additional operating cost required for this option is $100,580. Canada Day & Civic Holiday
To open City operated wading pools on both holidays, the cost would be $112,075.
 
Staffing

Staffing of the wading pool program continues remains a challenge. With either option of the extension options presented above, there is a high likelihood that not all pools will achieve full operational hours during the wading pool season extension. Most positions in this program are new summer hires filled by students. There is an annual challenge with completing training and retaining a full staff complement until after high school exams and graduation are completed at the end of June. Similarly in late August, staff retention is a challenge as students leave for school. The staffing variable is difficult to predict and has direct implications on the department’s ability to implement an extended season.

Washrooms in parks

For the purpose of this inquiry, staff have prepared costing assuming that some park washroom facilities could be staffed from April 1st to October 1st to provide daily access (opening and closing the facility), to maintain clean and sanitary conditions, to address any operational or maintenance issues and to provide overall supervision and security

Cost for an Attendant position for wages and benefits $18.00/hour Daily wage total (two employees, 8-hours) per site: $288.00 Weekly wage total per site: $2,016.00
Cleaning supplies & toiletries per week, per site: $105.00 Weekly total per site: $2,121.00
April 1st to October 1st (26 weeks) for one site, seven days a week: $55,146.00

The above calculations provide an example of a possible staffing model. With this information, costs could be moderated by reducing the number of service hours per day or week, and the number of service locations.

Due to the age of some washroom facilities, many within parks are not fully accessible and lack appropriate automated door openers and accessible cubicles. A significant capital investment would be required to make the necessary retrofits. Staffing these positions could be a challenge and implementation would need to reflect the City’s ability to hire sufficient staff.

Many of the seasonal comfort stations in parks are located at wading pools where pool employees are on site from mid-day to early evening, and for up to 2 hours before a wading pool is open, and up to 2 hours after a wading pool is closed (exact hours vary by pool). Washrooms can remain open while staff are on site, increasing access to residents at no additional cost.

Porta potties

In an effort to increase washrooms facilities in parks, RCFS has a number of rental porta potties deployed to parks across the City. These units are a cost-effective way of providing washroom facilities without the cost pressures of staffing a facility. Current locations are primarily focused on supporting programming in parks, such as sports field tournament sites, District splash pads, etc. In addition to units installed under City contract, some sports organizations and Community Associations also rent units for park locations where their activities are focused. In 2022, 152 porta potties were placed in City parks from April to September.

These units are priced as monthly rentals and can include one or multiple service calls per week to empty and clean the unit, depending on volume of use. Costs increase with the number of service calls required. The average cost of an accessible unit with one service call per week is $113.90 per month. The cost to rent an additional two accessible porta potties in each ward, from April to September (6 months), would be 32,803.20.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out.