What's Your Sign?

The design for the street sign has been finalized and the sign is now in production.  One of the mistakes we made at our old facility was using the club logo on our sign.  While the logo on our old sign had a curling stone on it, it wasn't very prominent.  People driving by would have to read the sign, which didn't help to drive awareness.

We are hopeful that the new sign will immediately make people thing of curling without having to read a word.  It has the rings, a stone and a sweeper.  We also wanted to show inclusion by having both a man and a woman on the sign.  This sign checks all of the boxes for us.


(simulated image)

We did consider what many clubs are doing which is not using the word "Club" but using "Center".  The driving factor for us to use the word club was that we already get 2-3 calls a day from people wanting to come out an try curling thinking that we operate like a bowling alley.  We felt using the word Center would drive those calls up.  The hope is, at some point, to get an LED sign that will clearly communicate how to try curling.

In other news, we have found the contractor to handle our framing, drywall and dropped ceiling in the warm room.  Rosema Construction will be doing this work for us at a very reasonable rate.  Work will begin the week of April 8th.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Version 3.0 of the Fort Wayne Curling Club is coming!

Image
From October 1, 2013 through January 18, 2014, the Fort Wayne Curling club made the exciting transition from curling on arena ice to curling in our own dedicated facility.  This is the dream of every curling club curling on hockey ice and this transition was documented in detail in our first transition blog (located  here ). The facility we built has been amazing.  We have grown our club from 24 members to 90 members, 70 rookies and over 30 participants in our special needs curling program.  We have progressed from curling 1 night a week to curling 5 nights a week.  From 1 bonspiel a year to 4 bonspiels a year.  From barely break even to comfortably solvent. The facility does have some challenges though.  We are limited to 3 sheets, we only have 2 bathrooms, we have social area of about 1100 sq. ft. (which can get crowded during a 100 person tournament), we face parking challenges with our neighbors who are similarly successful and finally, we are paying rent and gaining no equity.
Read more

The new ice mat is here! The new ice mat is here!

Image
With apologies to the Steve Martin movie, The Jerk...The new phone book  ice mat is here!  The new phone book  ice mat is here! On Tuesday, April 30th, the new ice mats and the new low-e ceiling were delivered. Before I regale you with the tale of this delivery, let me regale you with the tale of the delivery of the ice mats 5 years ago.  They show up mid-day on a weekday.  They way about 700 lbs apiece and we have myself, Jim Hibbard (the ice guy) and Bruce Hearon there.  How in the world were we going to be able to do this?  Luckily, we had 2 dollies, Jim had a lot of experience moving large items having previously worked for a moving company and we enlisted the help of the truck driver and one of the electricians.  Luckily, we also had a dock height door.  I still have PTSD from that day.  Here is a picture that shows the effort involved with moving these ice mats...from the build out 5 years ago. So, back to current day. Once again, the ice mats are being delivered on a
Read more

The catwalks have begun!

Image
Progress continues. After the demolition last week, the new ADA Changing Room, Kitchen and Beer Cooler have been framed out. And drywalling has begun.  Just one side so far until the final electrical inspection occurs which should be within the next week or so.  Also, very importantly, the chiller successfully made the move over from the old club.  On Saturday this weekend, a regular cadence of work at the facility has begun.  We are looking at working 3 days per week (Saturday 9 am - 3 pm, Monday nights 5:30 pm - 9:00 pm, and Wednesday nights 5:30 pm - 9:00 pm). We have about 6 weeks to get the dehumidifier, heaters, duct sox, lights, low-e ceiling, ice room painting, catwalks and sealing of the pond completed before Jim Hibbard arrives mid-July for the ice mat installation. Saturday's work Andrew Nottingham continued the work of dusting the joists.  Andrew and Andy Downs have been working their way through the warehouse.  The goal is to reduce the p
Read more