Mulgrave faces ‘dire’ need for Scotia Days volunteers
MULGRAVE — The Town of Mulgrave is facing stiff headwinds on two separate fronts to recruit volunteers for community programs and events this summer, says Councillor Krista Luddington.
“Right now, we are on attempt number three [of] trying to hire a recreation coordinator,” she told The Journal last week. “We’re approaching July when we have our annual Scotia Days Festival (July 12-21) and, typically, the coordinator would be at the helm of that festival.”
She said that, while the event has been run, in practice, by volunteers “for many, many years” they’ve still needed the recreation coordinator’s guidance. Under the circumstances, “Throwing a nine or 10-day festival [to] someone just coming into [that job] could be pretty overwhelming.”
Hoping to avert any disruption, last week the Mulgrave recreation department posted to its Facebook page: “The Scotia Days Committee is in dire need of volunteers to come out and lend a helping hand ... Volunteering with the festival is a rewarding experience that lets you have input on the festivities, give back to your community, and help to keep this 40-year-plus Mulgrave tradition going ... All help is welcome and greatly appreciated.”
Luddington was quick to emphasize that Mulgrave is “fortunate in that we have some folks who are very visible in town, supporting anything and everything. [But] when it comes to an event like Scotia Days, which spans multiple days, it’s a large operation that requires bodies ... We don’t want to create a space where people are burning out.”
In a separate but related matter, she also remained concerned about the town’s strict liability insurance – which, she says, threatens to dampen volunteerism, in general.
“I’m not trying, in any way, to skirt the system or to put unneeded risk on the town,” she said. “But it just feels like it’s a little bit overboard to [expect] people to have their own certificates of insurance and have them [list] the Town of Mulgrave as additionally insured [by them]. That’s really going to cut out the large majority of the folks who we would have leaned on in the past to run programs like this [Scotia Days].”
She indicated that council and staff plan to hold a meeting with the insurer to explore options. As for the prospects of hiring a new recreation director soon, she said, “We haven’t had much luck with our two attempts to date, but we’re hopeful the third time’s a charm.”
Alec Bruce, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Guysborough Journal
