The Russell 55+ Club
The Russell 55+ Seniors Club held an open house at the Russell Community & Sport Centre behind Russell High School to make a statement that they would like to use the space for a variety of activities for local seniors. Glover photo

RUSSELL – The Russell 55+ Club wants to engage in more physical activity but there’s no place for them to go… except maybe a youth centre that’s mostly vacant 75 per cent of the year.

“We want to be able to have this area for free because we’re seniors and this centre is empty most of the time,” said Elisabet King, vice president of the club.

The group held an open house at the Russell Community & Sport Centre behind Russell High School on Fri., Oct. 25 to show off the activities they would like to use the space for, if granted permission to do so.

“We’re doing this [open house] because we’re trying to get an interest from people to say, ‘Hey, you know what, we’re interested in doing activities here, we want this building and we should have access to it,’” added King.

While the group came up with a long list of activities that would capture the interest of the seniors in the area, they also took suggestions from other members and even other senior residents in the township.

“We’ve got 23 activities and they’re all from different areas including the arts, photography, creative writing, music, choir and even computers, tablets and smartphone lessons,” said group member Don Anderson. “Realistically, in this township, one in every four people is over the age of 55, we want to try to attract more seniors by [offering] more general activities.”

King added, “We also have a suggestion area because we try to think of things people would like but, really, people have been coming to us since then saying, ‘Well, what about music lessons?’”.

The goal of this open house was simply to show the community that they are here and that the Russell 55+ Club exists. “We just want to let people know that we exist and that we want to help you,” said King.