Welcome to 2022, or as I saw in some memes lately, 2020 too. I hope everyone is doing their best to stay safe and healthy during these challenging times.
I know one thing that is helping Hawkwood residents and that is the newly named Hawkwood Community Park (formerly the ORF or Outdoor Recreational Facility). We have just officially opened the Park that has a boarded hockey rink, a small pleasure rink with a fire pit, as well as tennis courts. We have a ground-breaking parkour course as well as a bi-facial solar panel that will help us save energy.
It was a challenge to get the rink ice going during the holidays with the abnormally cold temperatures we experienced in December and January. I can’t thank our volunteer Rink Rats enough for their perseverance, coming out and sweeping/shoveling/flooding the rink on a daily basis in frigid conditions during late December. Now that the rink is up and running, I am delighted with the popularity that the HCP is experiencing, and I am looking forward to the various activities and programs that we can have there.
This park has been an idea that I and many others in the community have had for over 16 years. To see it come to fruition is a very gratifying feeling, and one that couldn’t have happened without the selfless and continual effort of a few individuals. Firstly, the ORF Committee (which is composed of several Hawkwoodians) that steered and honed the vision that we have had for this space over the last two years. Secondly, Kelsi Hurlbut, the Principal Landscape Architect at The TULA Project who took the Committee’s vision, drafted the plan, and more importantly, executed the plan with dogged determination to a point where we now have one of the more enviable outdoor spaces in Calgary. Lastly, the biggest hurdle we had for the better part of two decades was who was going to be the person to lead and manage this project? I can honestly say we found the best person to not only find us the grants – including some of the biggest ones in Calgary and Alberta history – but also help get us through the mammoth bureaucracy that is the City of Calgary. Heather Kovach has tirelessly done all of this and so much more, at great personal sacrifice to her and her awesome family. I, and all Hawkwoodians, are eternally grateful for all her efforts to give us a community space that we should be very proud of and something that we will cherish for many, many years. Thank you, Heather!
Kevan Newman, President
