Williams Lake Skating Club welcomes skaters of all levels
WILLIAMS LAKE, British Columbia — Williams Lake Skating Club has a deep history in Williams Lake and started as a non-profit organization in 1956. Our mission is to provide a fun, safe, quality skating instruction following the SkateCanada mandate, while keeping fees as low as possible to ensure accessibility.
Our learn-to-skate program is CanSkate which is designed for beginners of all ages. CanSkate is a program that focuses on fun, participation and basic skill development.
Junior Academy is the skater’s entry into figure skating and incorporates both group lesson times and independent practice times. It focuses on perfecting basic skating skills, such as edge control, balance and body positions.
StarSkate, Intermediate and Senior, offers opportunities for skaters of all ages to develop fundamental figure skating skills in the areas of ice dance, skating skills, free skate and interpretive skating. This program teaches group and private lessons in a progressive and sequential manner. Skaters have opportunities to participate in competitions and testing. Our club has two different groupings of StarSkate: an intermediate group for skaters advancing from Junior Academy and a senior group for the more advanced figure skaters.
The StarSkate skaters may participate in five competitions with the first one in October in Kamloops October 14th – 16th. Each December, the club hosts a showcase performance open to everyone to watch. This showcase features all skaters and programs in the club as skaters show off their amazing skating skills. In addition, the Williams Lake Skating Club will be hosting a competition January 20th – 22nd, 2023 at the Cariboo Memorial Complex in Williams Lake. We encourage and invite anyone interested in watching upcoming competitions.
In our last competition in March 2022, our skaters did very well, especially since there were no competitions for two years during COVID. Many skaters were in the top of their group, and many others had personal best performances. Please stay tuned for an update on results during the October competition in Kamloops.
Head Coach, Joanne Macnair, has been a skating coach for 43 years and, in 2015, was the recipient of the Skate Canada Provincial Club and Recreational Coach Award. Joanne inspires each of the skaters to push to their highest ability.
The Williams Lake Skating Club is a non-profit organization run and managed by a group of volunteers, meeting monthly to make decisions about the club’s operations. Being a non-profit organization and with our goal to keep fees low to encourage as many participants as possible, we fundraise multiple times throughout the year and rely on many sponsors. One of our ongoing fundraisers is our club account at the Williams Lake Return-It Depot: anyone wanting to donate to our fund can drop off bottles at the depot. As a bonus, you do not need to sort your bottles since the depot staff will sort them for you. We thank anyone who wants to donate bottles for the “Williams Lake Skating Club – Figure Skating.”
In January, we need many volunteers to host the competition at the Complex. If anyone would like to help in the variety of roles, please contact the club via email: [email protected].
We look forward to welcoming new skaters and returning skaters to the club. All our skating programs start the week of October 2nd, 2022. To register, please go to www.williamslakeskatingclub.com where we have detailed registration information online.
We look forward to seeing many new skaters and returning skaters for the 2022-2023 skating season!
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