Winter Fun in municipalities and communities
In the winter of 2011, nearly 650 municipalities, boroughs and community organizations offered Winter Fun activities.
Offering simple, inexpensive and appealing activities and accessible facilities helps enliven the community and improve residents’ quality of life. Providing more opportunities to use facilities and participate regularly in physical activities or sports contributes to the good health of the community and helps bind it together.
Why should your municipality, borough or community organization take part in Winter Fun?
Here are the main reasons why municipalities or boroughs take part in Winter Fun:
- to make winter more appealing by emphasizing the fun and benefits of taking part in winter activities
- to organize activities or events for all their citizens
- to be able to count on the promotional support of Kino-Québec
- to convince people to be active in winter by providing easily accessible sports equipment and facilities
- to enhance existing winter activities programs
- to consolidate existing activities
- to make winter activities more accessible to all citizens by adapting them to people’s lifestyles and schedules
- to encourage citizens to take advantage of nearby sports equipment and facilities
- to set up or consolidate an outdoor sports infrastructure (e.g. skating rinks, luge runs, tobogganing hills, cross-country trails, groomed hiking trails, etc.)
In a survey of 581 municipalities carried out by the Institut national de santé publique du Québec on Winter Fun, most respondents said that running the campaign in their municipality or borough encouraged their citizens to participate in winter activities and helped them rediscover the fun of playing winter sports. Public participation in the program had a direct impact on neighbourhood life by strengthening the feeling of belonging to a community. In addition, participation in the programme attracted a lot more people to local sports facilities.
Here are a few comments from municipal authorities on Winter Fun:
“These activities have given people the impetus they needed to get out of the house and start skating again.”
“Winter Fun is a great opportunity to get residents of a neighbourhood together.”
“Even though this was the first year we participated in the program, I found that it was a good way to get new people involved.”
“It definitely brought new life to the neighbourhood and created a feeling of belonging.”
Services offered by Kino-Québec
- guidance and support from professionals in promoting physical activity
- attractive promotional material
- examples of activities to organize
- promotion of your event, activities, sites and installations
- an opportunity to join Municipalité active
Winter Fun: a cooperative endeavour
Many organizations are dedicated to promoting recreational activities, well-being and quality of life. Cooperation and partnership can have a positive impact on the level of participation and make it possible for different organizations to find common ground. The organization of Winter Fun activities in your community could greatly benefit from a partnership between the municipality, schools and community organizations (sports and social clubs).This type of collaboration can prove invaluable and help you successfully plan, promote, organize or run activities as well as share facilities. Be creative and make Winter Fun a truly cooperative endeavour.
Keys to success
- Promote winter activities and sites using different communication vehicles: municipal newsletters, press releases, brochures, advertising handouts, cards to invite community organizations, radio, Web sites, posters in various locations (workplaces, community and recreation centres, grocery stores, banks, schools, etc.). Promotion often makes all the difference in the level of participation so feel free to use as many communication vehicles as you can to reach your target public.
- Make sure that safety is an integral part of the organization and supervision of activities as well as the set-up of the facilities.
- Plan back-up activities in case the weather does not cooperate.
