Safety Padding Fundraising Campaign
As a new club established in 2016, Dartmouth Crossing Speed Skating has had significant start up costs. We have been helped by the Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage and Sport Nova Scotia, as well as the sponsors listed below, but acquiring safety padding to ensure the safety of our skaters is an extraordinary cost that means we need to undertake a major fundraising campaign.
The cost for padding that meets Speed Skating Canada's standards for training and competition is nearly $50,000. The club is currently using borrowed padding.
We have been approved to run our fundraising campaign through the National Sport Trust Fund, which means that donations of $20 and above will be eligible for a donation receipt for income tax purposes.
Donors must complete the attached Donor Form together with a cheque made out to National Sport Trust Fund. The form and cheque can be returned to the club registrar, who will take care of submitting everything to the NSTF through Sport Nova Scotia, or the donation can be submitted directly to the address at the top of the donor form.
The cost for padding that meets Speed Skating Canada's standards for training and competition is nearly $50,000. The club is currently using borrowed padding.
We have been approved to run our fundraising campaign through the National Sport Trust Fund, which means that donations of $20 and above will be eligible for a donation receipt for income tax purposes.
Donors must complete the attached Donor Form together with a cheque made out to National Sport Trust Fund. The form and cheque can be returned to the club registrar, who will take care of submitting everything to the NSTF through Sport Nova Scotia, or the donation can be submitted directly to the address at the top of the donor form.
More about Crash Protection and Safety Padding
The Speed Skating Canada Long Term Participant and Athlete Development model (LTPAD) envisions training and competition requiring adequate levels of safety padding from an early age. The crash protection requirements are actually based on a formula that considers the athlete's body mass and speed (based on lap times), rather than the specific ages of athletes. The written requirements are based on tracks laid on full arena ice, however, our entry level speed skating programs are run on divided ice, so the real requirements for these programs are higher because of the confined space of the divided ice, and the closer proximity of the athletes to the boards.
Safety padding is an essential requirement for speed skating. Athletes cannot be safety trained without it, nor can competitions be run. Until this year, short track speed skaters had only one opportunity to compete at a sanctioned meet within Nova Scotia, all other short track competitions required out-of-province travel. We are adding a development level competition to that schedule in March 2019, which will mean that the youngest skaters will be able to undertake a level of competition participation appropriate for their development stage in the LTPAD without leaving the province, and older skaters will have one less requirement to travel. In future years, we plan to add an additional full competition, which will significantly reduce the out-of-province travel requirements for young speed skaters in Nova Scotia.
Once the pads are acquired, they have a long useful life if they are properly cared for. At the RBC Centre, we have temperature-controlled storage for the pads, which is an ideal situation. Arena D was set up with easy access to roll storage carts out onto the ice quickly and with minimal wear and tear on the pads, minimizing the loss of ice time to pad set up and take down.
Unless safety padding requirements change, which would normally only require small adjustments to padding thickness in different areas of the track, no additional expenditures for pads should be required for many years.
For more information about short track safety padding, see our Short Track Safety Padding page.
Safety padding is an essential requirement for speed skating. Athletes cannot be safety trained without it, nor can competitions be run. Until this year, short track speed skaters had only one opportunity to compete at a sanctioned meet within Nova Scotia, all other short track competitions required out-of-province travel. We are adding a development level competition to that schedule in March 2019, which will mean that the youngest skaters will be able to undertake a level of competition participation appropriate for their development stage in the LTPAD without leaving the province, and older skaters will have one less requirement to travel. In future years, we plan to add an additional full competition, which will significantly reduce the out-of-province travel requirements for young speed skaters in Nova Scotia.
Once the pads are acquired, they have a long useful life if they are properly cared for. At the RBC Centre, we have temperature-controlled storage for the pads, which is an ideal situation. Arena D was set up with easy access to roll storage carts out onto the ice quickly and with minimal wear and tear on the pads, minimizing the loss of ice time to pad set up and take down.
Unless safety padding requirements change, which would normally only require small adjustments to padding thickness in different areas of the track, no additional expenditures for pads should be required for many years.
For more information about short track safety padding, see our Short Track Safety Padding page.
