Watch above: Many residents unable to register for some city-run leisure service activities are looking for alternatives. Meaghan Craig finds out what’s available at a reasonable price in Saskatoon when it comes to swimming lessons.
SASKATOON – Depending on who you ask, city leisure registration for the spring/summer session on Sunday night either went swimmingly or not. According to city officials 2,700 people secured spots on opening night but there was a bit of an online glitch to contend with.
“Two-thirds of our registrations happen in the first hour so that means everyone was trying to get in at six o’clock,” said Brad Babyak, integrated facility supervisor with recreation and sport for the City of Saskatoon.
Officials say the number of users that should have been able register at any given time was not increased by the city’s software provider as requested. The number of concurrent users able to log on was supposed to be 450 up from 400.
“We’re still investigating that with our provider.”
The city says it was unaware of the issue the first night of registration and that it was fixed Monday morning.
READ MORE: Glitch in leisure services system during program registration
For those who did succeed on Sunday night, officials say 70 per cent were for swimming but there are still spots and options when it comes to the type of lesson.
“We have our group lessons where a number of people try and register and get in on the first night,” explained Babyak.
“We have block lessons so it’s for families that maybe have multiple children in swim lessons so instead of trying to get into three different group lessons they have the opportunity to get into one block.”
One time and one location to make it easier for parents, in this case you have to register over the phone so you can describe what level each participant is at.
Stroke improvement is also offered to fine tune one element of a stroke that the swimmer needs to improve upon.
The fourth option is private swimming lessons at a cost of $32.50 per youth for a half-hour session. One-on-one instruction that is not limited to city leisure facilities.
“We see more and more parents interested in that when they’re trying to juggle all the activities during spring and summer that sometimes the lesson sets don’t work for them,” said Paul Rogal, director of recreation services for the University of Saskatchewan College of Kinesiology.
“They will contact us and get private lessons and get lessons that meet their time lines.”
Rogal boasts about the excellent word of mouth and positive feedback the campus receives about it’s aquatic instructors.
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“Our facilities like the city’s are clean and we’re able offer to a wide range of programming. The number of different aquatics classes that we offer is a huge range there’s well over 400 different classes over the spring and summer.”
The university pools are a little older so they aren’t zero entry pools like the city, which means smaller children don’t walk down on an incline to deeper water levels for their lesson.
“We use what we call “tot docks” and we place those in the pools and the younger kids can stand on the tot docks and do their lessons there,” said Rogal.
“They’re really comfortable for the most part and up to their waist in the water even though the pool is three feet deep at that area.”
Cost comparisons between the city and the university show a few gaps here and there.
Here are some examples, based on Red Cross levels and a total of eight classes each.
Starfish
- City of Saskatoon: $60.50
- University of Saskatchewan: $66
Whale
- City of Saskatoon: $60.50
- University of Saskatchewan: $71
Red Cross Kids – Level 10
- City of Saskatoon: $91.25
- University of Saskatchewan: $88
Taking a camping trip? A number of provincial parks offer classes including Pike Lake so instead of juggling swimming lessons around your summer vacation, officials say why not do both at the same time.
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