City addresses ‘pent-up demand’ for leisure programs

Registration for the City of Regina’s spring and summer leisure programs came with a lot of headaches for some parents on Tuesday.

Extremely fast sellout times along with being waitlisted were common occurrences, according to some people online.

Bobbie Selinger, the city’s manager of community and recreation programs, says the city is fully aware of the increased demand this year.

“This was definitely our busiest registration period that we’ve seen for a long time,” she said. “I can say by the end of the day,  we actually processed over 6,000 registrations and waitlist requests.

“There is pent-up demand.”

COVID restrictions being dropped means normal capacity for most programs, as well as more people feeling comfortable with signing their kids up for activities.

Selinger says the city is looking at ways to make programs more accessible for families in Regina without having to be put on a waitlist. That’s especially true when it comes to swimming lessons.

“The recreation master plan has identified that the indoor aquatic centre was one of the top priorities and we’re currently in the middle of doing a feasibility study on a new indoor aquatic centre,” she said. “That really is a long-term solution to creating more swimming lesson spaces.

“We do have a system that’s been live for a while, but it does really intend to create a level of fairness across it in terms of people going into a queue when they’re looking to register, and it really does help to ensure that everyone has an equal level of access and sort of the same chance of getting their child into something that they want.”

Selinger says the next time leisure programs are offered for initial signup, it would help to be ready by 7 a.m., as well as to have a wish list in mind for what activities parents are set on having their kids signed up for.

“I just really encourage people to watch for the May leisure guide, because it does offer many other swimming lessons that will be coming out. It’ll be starting later in the year and also offers outdoor swimming lessons as well,” she said. “We are constantly evaluating if there’s a way to get more lessons in the pools than what we have today.”