Scadding PFR rink clubhouse

Scadding CourtScadding/Harry Gairey Rink Case Study:

the step-by-step details of how to block community proposals

November 2023

The Harry Gairey outdoor ice rink, operated by Parks and Rec, sits near the southeast corner of Bathurst and Dundas. Right at the corner, just north of the rink, is the Scadding Court Community Centre (Scadding CCC), not run by parks and rec. It’s one of eight “Neighbourhood Centres” that switched to being run by local neighbourhood boards starting in the 1980s, when there was a lot of public disaffection with how city hall ran public spaces. The horse trading that went on during that separation process means there’s a big overlap in management. The neighbourhood centre buildings are owned and maintained by the city, but the staffing and programs are run – and mostly funded – by the individual centres, often with the help of grants they have to apply for.

The outdoor rink and the swimming pools (one outdoor and one indoor) at Bathurst and Dundas stayed with Parks and Rec. They also kept the large Parks and Rec one-story building that houses the skate change room in winter and turns into the swimming pool change room in summer. That double purpose means the change rooms are unusually spacious. In the middle of the building is a large windowless room formerly used for parks and rec equipment storage but now rented out to Scadding CCC. In 2023 Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment created a “youth lounge” there, with a lot of bells and whistles including some high tech games and a huge screen to watch them on.

The rink changeroom on the other side of the middle room has two part-time city staff plus a Zamboni driver watching it from 11 am to 9 pm on weekdays and 9 am to 10 pm on weekends. So: 15 feet from where they sit, there’s the SCCC youth lounge, also staffed when it’s open. There’s a wall with a locked door in between, and no contact. There are youth in both places, and there could be more, with some help and cooperation between the two institutions.

That’s what CELOS wanted to explore. In November 2023, we thought: if skate lending and snack food could get set up in the skate change room, and good staff could be shared between the rink and the youth lounge to make a rink “clubhouse,” Dufferin-Grove style, wouldn’t that be something?

We knew that in 2019, Parks and Rec had done some weekend “pop-ups” in a partnership with the Evergreen Foundation, that they called “Rink Socials.” In consultation with a Montreal group called La Pépinière, the city had bought elegant outdoor furniture and fire-stands and blankets and propane heaters to warm people, and games and crafts materials, and set them up at four outdoor rinks on four different weekends. They had invited food trucks, and borrowed loaner skates from CELOS. We wondered – what had happened to all that furniture? So we contacted the Parks and Rec Partnership office.
Nov.27, 2023: from the Partnership Office: “At the end of the placemaking event the equipment was divided up to a variety of locations re: communities centres indoors. We did leave some of the equipment at Mel Lastman [rink] as they did have storage, but all the other locations did not. The metal colourful furniture…went to Douglas Snow Aquatic Centre; they have a gather space above the pool where they host birthday parties so most of it went there as well as furniture for the front entrance lobby. Some of it went to Earl Bales Community Centre and so on, shared among the centres that had uses for it.”
Nov.27, 2023, from CELOS: “[So] it’s used mainly indoors, not outdoors as was its original purpose, i.e. for expanding the use of outdoor rink spaces?”
Nov.27, from the Partnerships staff: “I completely agree that its primary purpose was to enhance the outdoor spaces around the rink area…Unfortunately, without overnight security or staff support to manage these items re: put then away end of day in storage, there have been instances of public misbehavior, theft, and vandalism in the past”.
Nov.29, 2023: Elizabeth Antczac, one of our CELOS team and a recent masters of architecture graduate, went to Harry Gairey Rink changeroom to look around and do some measurements, so she could do a drawing that we could use to explain our suggestion. But she looked around a corner that was apparently off limits. The rink attendant told her to get out, so she did.

December 2023

We visited other outdoor rinks and drew up plans for a few other possible locations for a “rink clubhouse.” A friend who was making a lot of money blogging about videogames told us he might want to donate a chunk of money to CELOS to do these “rink clubhouses,” but he needed to find out more.

January 2024

We wrote to the Partnership office: “We’d like to explore with you whether there is, or potentially can be, a kind of “community partnership” that has the same legitimacy for PFR as do corporate partnerships.…We want to talk with you about the winter-focused partnerships that have already happened. Can we meet with you?” And then we sent letters, with diagrams and illustrations, to four city councillors about possible “rink clubhouses” in a rink in each of their wards. But only Councillor Bravo ever answered. We met with staff from the “Visitor Economy” (tourism) office to find out if they had thought about the benefits of making the outdoor rink spaces more welcoming. (They said: not part of their job.)

The Parks and Rec rinks supervisor who came to the tourism meeting said, actually, she would worry – if cheap skate lending was offered – that people would try to learn without taking lessons, and there would be injuries. She clearly thought it was a bad idea.

When we told our wealthy blogger friend afterwards, he just shook his head, oh dear. We agreed that he should put his money somewhere else. And besides, Dufferin Rink had never needed outside funding to run their skate lending or their snack bar or their rink campfires or their winter community suppers or their staff’s hosting of a friendly social space. It worked because the rink staff did it in the daily course of running the rink. That seemed a better way to go.

February 2024

Feb.8, 2024: We met with the Partnership Office. They said that rink clubhouse would need to make a business case and also that we would have to make a Freedom of Information application to find out any details of the partnership contracts for Rink Social and two others. The next day they clarified a bit more: “We understand from our meeting that you are asking the City to establish a new rink operating model as a pilot, funded by PFR (not through our established Partnerships process). At this stage there is no funding allocated for this type of programming, and further program conversations should take place with Community Recreation around what is feasible for operations as well as capital in terms of the proposed building alterations.”
Feb.22: We submitted a Freedom of Information request about the Rink Social and the two other winter-related partnership programs.

March

We started talking to skaters, and rink guards, and “community recreation programmers,” and Rec supervisors, and rec managers, and Zamboni operators – anybody who would talk to us – about rink clubhouses. Some of those conversations were at Harry Gairey rink. And it turned out that the head of Scadding CCC, Herman Ellis, was interested. So we set up a meeting to talk about the possibilities, right in the rink change room. The city councillor for that ward is Councillor Malik, and her assistant came. Jason, the Rec supervisor for the west part of the city, said he’d come but didn’t show. But Herman came, and he was eloquent. He had grown up in the buildings beside the community centre, he said, and it was rough. He could remember how he good he felt when he got skates and started playing shinny hockey with the other guys.
He liked the food idea, especially because there were all those shipping container cafés backing onto the rink already, offering really good snack food from different cultures. They could supply the rink snack bar. And the youth cooking skills program could get involved, cooking in the centre’s well-equipped certified kitchen and bringing it over.
After the meeting, when we got in touch with the Rec supervisor, he said actually there was no point in talking to him, we would need to talk to a different supervisor, he was no longer the right one. So we wrote to the person he named, asking her to meet, and asking her also to give us the name of a “Minor Capital” staff person, so that we could find out the cost of the small building changes that Elizabeth was proposing – cutting a new window, putting in triple sinks and a counter in an unused alcove. But the supervisor didn’t answer.
A recreation programmer, one step below the supervisor, had come to the rink clubhouse meeting. The next day we sent him a list of practical follow-up questions: what was his rink staffing budget, what kind of kitchen equipment and chairs and tables were already on hand in the storeroom? Were they interested in making a rink clubhouse? At the end of the email I wrote that we hoped “at least to get to the point where we can get a definite no, or a yes, let’s make it happen.”
No response, so a week later I wrote again, to the programmer and the supervisor: “I’m hoping you got my list of questions in my email from last week, below. If the hold-up is that you’re still waiting for one or two details, maybe you can send what you have and we can go from there?”
But there was still no answer.

April

April 23: A few partnership details from the Freedom of Information office arrived, about the “Rink Socials” plus the two other partnerships we had asked about: with Nike and Desjardins. But they said that most of what we wanted to know would be delayed for another month to give the donours time to appeal on the grounds of trade secrets, if they wished. Meantime we had asked for a meeting with Recreation director Cathy Vincelli, which was set for the end of April.
April 27: Herman Ellis to Cathy Vincelli: “I recently caught wind of your upcoming meeting with Jutta Mason. I couldn’t be more thrilled about the potential discussions surrounding the “rink clubhouse project” in connection with the Harry Gairey Rink. Reflecting on our meeting on March 20, it was a pleasure to discuss this exciting concept with Andrew Taylor from your recreation team, Jutta, and other passionate advocates, including a representative from Councillor Malik’s office. As the Executive Director of Scadding Court Community Centre, where our youth lounge operates from the same premises as the rink change room, I’ve eagerly anticipated pportunities to enhance our collaborations. Just envision the possibilities of skate lending and food services being seamlessly integrated into the Scadding Court recreation program at Harry Gairey Rink, following in the footsteps of the successful Dufferin rink model. Such an initiative holds immense promise for empowering our youth through entry-level economic opportunities, and I’m genuinely enthusiastic about the positive impact it could have on our community. I’m genuinely excited about the prospect of rekindling and strengthening our bonds between city staff and Scadding CC through tangible projects like this one.”
April 29: The meeting with Rec director Cathy Vincelli and six of her management staff was mainly about Dufferin Grove. When asked about the rink clubhouse project, Ms. Vincelli said that any plan involving Scadding would need a business case to be made, and that we should meet with the rink manager to talk about that.

May

May 1: the Freedom of Information material arrived. It contained the partnership agreements with Nike and Desjardins, but none for the “Rink Socials.” The cover letter said that no partnership agreement for “Rink Socials” was available because it was “a city run program.” The information package included a final report about the program, though, which made recommendations about how it could be improved in future – to amplify what was already deemed a big success. The food truck thing was the main problem they mentioned – the event needed better food.
The FOI package also included the city’s original 2019 “rink socials” press release, announcing that “Toronto in partnership with national charity Evergreen and Montreal-based place-making firm La Pépinière” is doing some “place making pilots.” I wrote to FOI: “My FOI request asked about partnership agreements or contracts.” Does the city’s FOI response, “no partnership agreement exists” mean that the place-making pilots were carried out on a handshake only, with neither a written agreement nor a contract?”
May 6: The FOI office must have sent the question right back to Parks and Rec. A two-sentence response arrived from FOI: “The City of Toronto worked in collaboration with Evergreen and La Pépinière to produce the 2019 “rink social” series as a pilot. The City paid to contract this work, as a supplement to its typical winter programming. A detailed invoice outlining the costs has been attached.”

There was an invoice for $110,739.96 to Evergreen “For Placemaking services for four City of Toronto skating rinks over a five-week period,” signed off by the Parks and Rec general manager herself. The details had no cost breakdown. No mention of a business case. And no answer to my questions either.

June

Two city Rec rink managers said they could make time to meet with Herman and us, at Scadding CCC, but not until the end of the month. We sat in a corner of the hallway because all the rooms were in use – the place was hopping. Herman told the managers about his memories of skating at Scadding, the music on the P.A., the “community feeling.” He said he wanted to “advocate for an inclusive environment where everyone has skates” as well as make a strong economic argument for the neighbourhood. He asked the managers: “what issues would we run into if Scadding could secure some grant funding for the program?”
The managers were not sure.
The project was complicated – there would have to be involvement from Minor Capital, and from Partnerships as well as Programming. The next step would have to be for the managers to take the idea back to their city colleagues to develop the “business case.” To help with the details, CELOS was to send them information about how the skate program was run at Dufferin and Wallace rinks.
I sent them the details later that afternoon, but there was no acknowledgment that they ever got them.

July

CELOS put together a list for staffing and materials that would be needed, for when the managers asked:

All the stuff we did at the other rinks.
But no more word from the rink managers.
Still no answer from Freedom of Information or city staff about the “rinks social” puzzle.
July 24: I (as the CELOS administrator) wrote to the director of Client Services, Christina Iacovino, who was apparently in charge of partnerships. I asked her to explain what the term “partnerships” meant to the City, and more specifically: “The Evergreen invoice for this program rolls the “rink social” into one “deferred account” signed off by the GM for $110,739.76. So was the Evergreen involvement actually a service contract?”
July 26: The director’s email response complimented me on my “keen interest and thorough observations.” She wrote: ''“The term “partnership” within the Parks, Forestry and Recreation (PFR) context is often used as a broad term to describe various collaborative efforts between the City and external organizations……Regarding the Rink Social program, the involvement of Evergreen and La Pépinière is indeed a collaborative effort, hence the term “partnership” in public announcements. The term here reflects the cooperative nature of the project rather than a formal legal partnership.”
But she hadn’t answered my question. So on July 28 I asked the question again, as clearly as I could, the main bits highlighted in purple:
“Was the $110,739.96 Rink Social invoice (attached), a service contract between Evergreen and the City?
If not, what was it?
My interest, as you may realize already, is in the question of how much flexibility PFR management has, when there’s a project that interests you. Since the amount was over $50,000, did the approval go through Council? How would I find that discussion?
– was the “rink socials” program actually a service contract that the city paid?”''
Silence on her side.
On the same day there was a note from Rec director Cathy Vincelli’s admin assistant, offering a WebEx meeting with the Rec director, and rink manager Terri, on three different dates near the end of August. Two dates offered a choice of half an hour and one an hour.
July 26: I sent back a snippy response: “We’ve been working on this rink clubhouse proposal for quite a while, as well as making a well-known Dufferin Grove clubhouse happen for 20 years. In 2019, PFR spent $110,700 for four weekend pop-ups to apparently reinvent the wheel, and then didn’t follow up.
Now you are offering either of two 30-minute or one hour-long virtual meeting.
I find this response kind of rote, on the border of insulting. Also a waste of everybody’s time, yours and ours.
I would prefer to be taken seriously, and meet in person. If this half hour or hour screen meeting is mostly to say this can’t be done, please ask Cathy and Terri to say it up front. Then we will add that to the negative side of the ledger of what PFR can do re inclusive economic development, youth work, social spaces etc. Sadly, that list is getting longer.
Please clarify and let me know if that seems best in the circumstances. I have added Councillor Bravo to this thread since she asked to be copied.”
An hour later there was an answer: “I’m very sorry if you were offended by the times offered; I was working within the times available in Cathy’s calendar. Of course, we do understand your commitment to Dufferin Grove clubhouse and your interest in growing this work elsewhere in the city. That said, we will reconnect with you the week of August 12, once Cathy and Terri are back.”
Another email from the Manager of Standards & Innovation (Business Readiness), suggested a meeting with the Rec director and the rinks manager in the week of August 19 “when both are back from respective vacations,” also including the manager of “the team responsible for partnerships.”
I wrote back: “What’s needed is a face to face working meeting with [the rinks manager] to discuss a draft business plan. The idea is to move a step ahead in this process, outlining the practical elements that are needed, listing existing resources, and realistically evaluating costs -- still without any commitment but at least not blue-sky hypothetical. It appears that PFR may have a strong commitment to not moving ahead, in which case it would be good to say that now.”
But there was no answer to my invitation for Parks and Rec to drop out.

August

August 11: A response arrived to my July email to from Christina, the director of Client Services: “Regarding your specific question about the $110,739.96 Rink Social invoice, it was indeed a collaborative initiative rather than a traditional service contract between Evergreen and the City, as indicated in my email of July 26th....

PFR operating funds were not used to finance these projects. While I appreciate your interest in the City’s collaborative projects, this is the extent of the information I am able to provide on this matter.”

Clear as mud. We would have to assume that in the case of collaborative initiatives, no record is required.
The August meeting to talk details about the rink clubhouse proposal didn’t happen either. The rink manager wrote that they had already submitted last November’s CELOS proposal to Capital Projects to review and cost out. And she couldn’t meet with us until September “due to prescheduled vacation.”
After some more back and forth about dates, the four of us working on the rink clubhouse issue met and decided that the clubhouse could be started without any changes to the building. Now the proposal was even simpler. We made a list of minimum requirements:

Aug 21: we wrote to the rink manager: “The changeroom is so large and well-situated that the “rink clubhouse” program and PFR/Scadding partnership proposal could fit in there quite well for the moment, in time for this coming rink season. We have a list of practical steps that would be needed, which we’ll send you as soon as Herman has had a chance to go over them. Our proposal is to build on
1. the experience of Dufferin Rink clubhouse from 1995 until 2019
2. the “Summary of insights” and “Recommendations” contained on p.20 and 22 of the “Rink Social Report” prepared for the City of Toronto by Evergreen in 2019.
Since Herman can’t meet before Sept.10, could you propose a couple of dates later that week or the following week, when we can talk about this, and work through what would be needed?”
The meeting is set for September 20.

September

Sep 11, from CELOS to city staff: “We think this project is a test case to see if Rec can a) respond to one ongoing city initiative (IED -- Inclusive Economic Development) and b) pick up the dropped thread of one recent Rec-Evergreen collaboration (Rink Social, 2019). ….in order to succeed, this test case needs to run this year, starting on the first day of the 2024 rink season, Nov.23. To make this test case real, we need to have the following people at the meeting: a) the management person where the buck stops b) Jutta Mason, since I’m keeping this going at least up to the end of this meeting c) Herman Ellis, since he manages the whole SCCC d) The SCCC youth worker with whom we’ve met once e) Part-time rec staff Mayssan Shujauddin, since she co-ran all aspects of the Dufferin Rink program when it was at its height, and trained many others f) The Community Rec Programmer who was directly in charge of Harry Gairey last year and hopefully will be again this year g) The current rec supervisor in Etobicoke, with strong past experience of collaborating with SCCC and with Herman h) Isabel Perez, a long-time Indigenous CELOS associate who worked for Dave Hains doing food at John Innes years ago, as well as doing food at Wallace Emerson CRC and again at Dufferin Grove Park. 18 Scadding CourtIf they are there, we could talk practicalities, to make a list of what would be needed when this goes up the rec director. I think a decision to go ahead, or abandon, this test case is needed by Sept.30 at the latest, to put together the necessary pieces.” Sep 13: from the rinks manager: “I’d like to get the proposal properly documented so I can begin the process of identifying the financial framework required to support it. Part of this work will include discussions with City staff, and I will ensure [the Recreation manager’s] Skate team and [the Etobicoke supervisor] are among those consulted.” Sept.13, from CELOS: “I see that your plan is to talk to Rec staff separately, not in this meeting. But the proper documentation you mention requires face to face conversation among people who would be actually hands-on, or who have had that direct experience in the past, gathering to look at the practicalities of how to make this collaboration happen. That’s the meeting we’ve been asking for since last February or longer. Could you bend your approach to honour my agenda and include the people I’ve asked for in this meeting? If that’s not a possibility, I think we need to conclude that this “test case” is not going to happen at this moment in time. So there would be no point in going ahead with Sept.20.” Sept. 17: the rinks manager wrote back that the staff I had asked for would not be available. “Please let me know if you’d still like to meet Friday.” Reply from CELOS: “Considering the amount of practical experience, insight, and Scadding CCC good will that are already in place in this proposal, this case may be an illustration of the old saying “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.” PFR is the reluctant horse, in many more ways than this one. Horses are beautiful but seeing one that won’t sustain itself is very sad.” October At the October meeting of the Economic and Community Development at city hall, staff guidelines for “unsolicited proposals” from non-city-staff were outlined and approved by the councillors: 1.4 Staff Guidelines ….Division staff are precluded from engaging in the following activities: i. acting as “sounding boards” for quotations or proposals; ii. delivering advice on project design; iii. advising on the selection of resources; iv. coordinating or participating in the collection and/or analysis of data; v. helping to refine quotations or proposals; and vi. participating in the preparation of any documentation Really? City staff are hamstrung, in other words, unable to support unplanned approaches from outside their own circle. We wrote to the committee: “We’d like to point out that with rules and policies of this kind – and there are many – it’s much less likely that city government will be able to do what the APTE [Action Plan for Toronto’s Economy] recommends: “foster small businesses, improve infrastructure, and create vibrant, inclusive communities…. [unlock] Toronto’s latent economic potential….unlock new opportunities for meaningful employment and entrepreneurship, ultimately enhancing socioeconomic mobility and reducing urban inequities.” Not without opening the doors a lot wider.”

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