By June Norvila
At the Bentley Curling Club annual spring general meeting in early April the league champions were announced. They were: the Dave Neufeld team out of the 16 Monday Daytime Seniors teams, Walter Lloyd and Norm Rieu tied in the nine team Monday night Men's League, Elisabeth Mueller won out of the nine Wednesday Evening Mixed teams, Perry Widdifield won from the eight team Thursday Morning Senior's league, Walter Lloyd won from the eight Thursday Evening Mixed league teams and in the eight Daytime Senior's Stick league there was a tie between Morris/Ganderton and the Moss teams.
The cash raffle winners names were drawn by Mayor Lynda Haarstad-Petten. Winning the grand prize of $10,000 was Logan Siebold from Rimbey. Second prize of $3,000 was won by Jeff Kamlah, a member, and the $2,000 third prize was won by Jason Wiese who is also a club member.
President Bonnie Muzylouski gave a very thorough report with the aid of a power point presentation.
The treasurer Tilly Wilson explained her report. The club is in good shape financially. The cash raffle made a profit of approximately $9,000. The town of Bentley gave the club a grant that enabled the club to replace all the curling rocks with new handles. There was a CFEP grant of $7,800 and $5,000 from Lacombe County.
The next casino to work will be in late 2016 or early 2017.
It was decided to by some new matting for the rink walkways, front and back, and also for the entrance and lobby with a cost of around $6,000.
There were 28 teams in the Farmer's Spiel, 32 teams in the Seniors Spiel, 8 teams in the Men's Skins bonspiel, 12 entered in the Ladies Spiel and 10 teams in the closing Mixed T & C Bonspiel with bonspiel profits of almost $16,500.00.
Club members are again volunteering to help with the Bentley July 1 barbecue.
Colleen Peterson did a marvelous job of running the bar.
There will be a new ice technician next year - Chris Carnes who also looks after Lacombe's curling ice.
It was decided that bonspiel fees would rise by $20 per team next year except for the senior's bonspiel.
It is hoped the junior program can continue to grow. A wonderful job with 20 new junior members was done by Karen Jaffray and Ray Walker and other volunteers, and the school again used the rink on Thursdays and Fridays for their curling season.
The Town & Country Mixed Spiel had been changed earlier to March 18-19 because of where Easter fell. The number of entries was down.
The Doug Batke team won the A Event. The Andy Mueller team won the B Event and the C Event was won by the Cyndy Gibson team.
Draw to the Button Shootout winners were: 1st - the Henry Couture team, 2nd - the Ken James team and finishing in 3rd was the Andy Mueller team.
Next year's startup date and bonspiel dates have already been set with the Farmer's in November, Men's in January, Senior's in February, and Ladies and Closing Mixed in March.
On the executive are: Bruce Millar, Tilly Wilson, Lonnie Bergstrom, Bernice Pitts, Jim Orr and added was Pauline Ewen. The terms of Bonnie Muzylouski, Martin Wilson, Ralph Scarlett and Bruce Cartwright were done so there are still some positions to be filled.
After cleaning out the curling rink's ice surface area, the curling club now takes a break so the Bentley Farmer's Market can use the facility on Saturdays for the summer starting on the May long weekend.