Version 3.0 of the Fort Wayne Curling Club

After a detailed discussion with our resident construction expert and a discussion with members at the Annual Meeting, it was decided that we might be able to afford to re-build the existing rooms in the warm room if we eliminated the dropped ceiling (as we wouldn't have to do the ceiling or replace the heater and A/C that was in the warm room). After getting a revised quote from the subcontractor doing the framing and drywall, the move forward on this initiative was approved as it will actually save us just under $5,000. So, in order to get this work underway, we needed to demolish the structure that was already there.  We quite foolishly thought that since it looked pretty rough that it was not well constructed.  Oh man!  Were we ever wrong.  The structures were, in fact, over built. But first we needed to empty the rooms out.  It took some of us back to our Arena days with Phil Mussallem and Craig Fischer carrying 48 rocks two by two and putting them into the future

On Tuesday, May 7th, the club held its first annual meeting at the new facility. Construction is clearly still underway, but we were able to rig up some temporary lighting and a TV to hold the meeting.  We had 25+ people attend and we walked through the year in review, the club financials, the new facility and held board and officer elections. Matt Hart and Craig Fischer were re-elected to the board and they switched officer positions with Craig Fischer becoming President of the Fort Wayne Curling Club again and Matt Hart moving to the Secretary role.  Congrats guys! It was great to see the parking lot of the curling club heavily populated for the first time ever!

Tuesday night, April 30th, we worked on additional cleanup in the old facility.  Replacing our smart thermostats with not nearly as intelligent thermostats, loading more insulation into dumpsters, moving various leftover items to the new facility (like the access control system). Andy Downs, Greg Eigner, Andrew Nottingham, Bob Leckron and Craig Fischer were there to help. We had put out the call that we needed help and we needed someone with a pickup truck or a trailer hitch.  Turns out that we had not moved the kegerator over the weekend. Unfortunately, nobody showed up with a truck or a hitch.  How in the world were we going to transport the kegerator to the new club? Ingenuity prevailed.  We got the pallet jack (which for future reference is just narrow enough to fit under a kegerator) from the new facility, loaded the kegerator onto it and literally walked the kegerator down Wells Street. This will definitely be one of my most memorable experiences from this build out.

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

Sorry for the belated post. The critical move of the ice equipment occurred on Saturday, April 27, 2019. After months and months of speculation as to whether or not we would be able to roll up the ice mat, we finally got our answer.  Drumroll please..... Yes.  Yes, in fact we are able to roll the mats up!  This was great news as it meant we would not have to parade 7 105 ft long ice mats 200 yards down Wells Street carried by 20 or so members.  It would have been a sight to see but likely would have required us to get a parade permit!  :-) David Michael, our construction manager, had arranged for a forklift for us from his employer, Michael Kinder & Sons, to help with the move.  The night before, I thought it would be helpful to have another forklift on the other end of the move.  Unfortunately, I thought of this 1 hour after McAllister Rentals closed, but luckily Sunbelt Rentals was open on Saturday.  I swung by on the way to the club and found out that they don't