This is the last summer that Saskatchewan 4-H members will be able to camp at Rayner Centre.
The camping facility on the shores of Lake Diefenbaker has become too expensive to run for the Saskatchewan 4-H Foundation. So it will be sold or destroyed.
In 1995-96 the operational deficit was $110,000, said Harry Pringle, a hotel consultant and a member of the centre’s management committee.
In a presentation April 5 to the Saskatchewan 4-H Council annual meeting, he said several recommendations from a viability study had been examined or tried the past couple of years but nothing other than a big injection of cash was going to make it successful. And a fund-raising drive for Rayner Centre would overlap with the campaign by the 4-H council, which is trying to wean itself off government funding.
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“We can’t afford to continue to lose money,” said Janice Myers, executive director of the 4-H council and a former manager of the centre.
She told about 120 people at the meeting that it is “a different world and time” for 4-H in Saskatchewan. Loss of business and rising costs led the 4-H board of directors to decide to sell Rayner Centre.
A price has not been established but it will be on the market soon. If no buyer is found within a specified period then 4-H will sell the individual buildings and contents and raze the rest, Myers said.
The 30-year-old facility, which includes several cabins and washroom facilities, plus a main meeting hall with kitchen and dormitories, is located on land leased from the Saskatchewan government. Its mortgage was paid off in the late 1970s through a major fund-raising campaign.
Efforts to market the facility to other youth camps, non-profit agencies and commercial groups failed to bring in the $300,000 a year needed to break even. Camps just for 4-H youth became a lesser part of the business due to the declining number of members and competition from other groups’ special interest camps.
Also, the non-winterized facility was only open from March to November and couldn’t compete for the commercial dollar against urban hotels and the two spa resorts in the province.
“The reality is this is a two-month season” in July and August, said Pringle.
Attempts to form partnerships with groups like the cancer society and lung association that also hold summer camps failed because they could get the same camping service cheaper at church camp sites run by volunteers.
Necessary move
Deloris Hawkins, a former member and now a leader from Maymont, said she is “very sorry to see it go but it’s a decision that had to be made” because Rayner’s debt hurt the larger organization.
Shellbrook leader Rose Grypiuk also had mixed emotions but said “it was obvious that for 4-H to survive as an entity we needed to sell it.”
But 4-H member Rae Ann Shea of Kindersley said the decision to get rid of the centre “sucks.” Laurie Hannis of Paradise Hill noted it is “sad because we’ve both been there.” Shea said although 4-H camps after this summer will still be held, they may not be as desirable.
“It depends on where it is, if you have to sleep in tents and cook over fires.”
Both girls say they intend to go to Rayner this summer.
