The Davidson Kinette Club is suffering from a lack of membership and if numbers don’t improve they may have to fold.

Brenna Siroski, vice-president of the Davidson Kinettes for the 2012-2013 year, said the club only has seven members right now. She said the long-standing town club held their wrap-up meeting last week and could barely fill their executive positions for next year.

“This is my third year now as a Kinette and the numbers have been getting increasingly smaller,” said Siroski. “The club has been right around that six, seven, eight, nine (and) 10 mark for quite a few years now.

“We have enough members to run our executive next year, so we’ll be able to run one more year. The concern is that we might have to fold if we don’t start attracting new members soon.”

The Davidson Kinette Club is a branch of Kin Canada, which encompasses 500 Kinsmen, Kinette and Kin clubs and 6,500 members across Canada. The 93-year-old association is dedicated to “serving the community’s greatest need” while bettering their surroundings, enhancing the wellbeing of others and improving the environment.

Kinettes have been a fixture in Davidson since 1964 and have completed many projects in the community including giving Christmas gifts to residents with no family, beginning the Arnold Park renovation project in the late 1980s and supporting the Telemiracle Foundation. The club almost folded once before in 1998 due to declining membership, but was able to rebound the next year.

Siroski said in an effort to drum up some support this time the club plans to become more visible in the community and invite new people moving into town to come out and give their club a try. She said the club “isn’t just for 20 and 30 year olds,” so they also hope to attract former members of the Kinettes to come back into the fold.

“One of the fun things that we do is we built a rapport with the Watrous Kinettes, so last year we went for a visit to Watrous and we got to see what they do at their meetings and make some connections with them,” she said. “Last month the Watrous Kinettes actually came to our meeting and we got to have some fun and see what they’re doing in other clubs and build some relationships with some other Kin clubs.”

There is no first-year membership fee to join the Kinettes, said Siroski, but there is a fee of $100 come the second year. The only commitment of a Kinette is attending their once-a-month meeting at the Kinsmen Club, which starts off with a potluck supper and ends with socializing among the members.

Siroski said members are also asked to participate in the events they plan during the year, but attendance at the events is not mandatory.

The Imperial Scorpions 15 and under girls volleyball team had a vicious sting this past spring by securing a silver medal in the 2013 Conexus Provincial Volleyball Championships.

The Scorpions took the tier 5 medal by holding a strong Moose Jaw Panthers squad to a tough three-game set in the final matchup May 5 in Saskatoon. The Panthers won the gold medal game 25-20, 21-25, 15-13, but had to hold off a strong push from the Scorpions late in the third game to secure their championship.

“In the third set, one team would get a point and then the other team would get a point,” said Kennedy Lewis, 15, middle for the Scorpions.

She said the Panthers started to pull out to an impressive lead, but somehow the Scorpions scratched their way back and it wasn’t until the final points were made that the Moose Jaw team took the gold.

“It was a really good go, so nobody was disappointed,” said Kennedy. “We had a really good time.”

Katherine Rieger, head coach of the 15U Scorpions, said the club was a “starting team,” but the girls came together by the end of the January to May season to finish near the top of the standings.

“We started the team this year and we started out pretty much dead last, or not quite, in our first tournament,” said Rieger. “We medaled in tier 5, but we had played some amazing games against some of those top tier 2 teams and even bottom tier 1 teams.

“It just happened that we have kids that are 13 years old playing on the team compared to kids that are 15 years old playing on the other teams.”

Rieger said the competition in club volleyball is much “tougher” than what the players see in high school games, but no matter how tough the competition all the girls on the team see time on the court. She said this is done because the purpose of the 15U team is the development of playing skills.

To read more please see the June 10 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

If the Town of Davidson can garner enough support on its Kraft Celebration Tour nomination page, the new Davidson Swimming Pool would be a lot closer to realization.

“The support that we’ve got already is great,” said Trevor Ouellette, recreation director for the Town of Davidson. “I emailed out a link to the nomination page and people have gotten back. The enthusiasm of the fundraising committee and the town supporting (them) has spilt over and we need more of it. This doesn’t cost anything. This is just support.”

The fifth annual Kraft Celebration Tour hits the road every summer to 10 communities across the country for a celebration of its spirit, passion for sports and dedication to a healthy and active lifestyle. These 10 are each awarded $25,000 for a community project and a live broadcast of TSN’s SportsCentre from their community during their stop on the tour.

Ouellette said Watrous won $25,000 from the Kraft Celebration Tour in 2009 for renovations to their arena. He said at that time there was only around 85 nominations in total, so for Davidson to win this year they need all the support they can get.

“What they weigh is the community support behind (the project),” he said. “If there is one project that has three people supporting it there is very little chance, but if there is lots of support (and) lots of comments on that particular nomination page that weighs a little bit more for the producers of the show.”

The 10 winning communities are chosen from a shortlist of 20 finalists announced on TSN June 30. Between July 8 and July 20, two finalists would be pitted against each other in series of 10 daily match-ups, with the amount of votes cast each day determining the 10 winners. The Kraft Celebration Tour then rolls out to the 10 winning communities starting Aug. 16 with the $25,000 awards and the TSN SportsCentre broadcast crew.

“Competition is pretty intense, so the more people we can get to like our page and leave comments about what the $25,000 would mean the better,” said Ouellette. “For the town, this is a great thing to do. I’ve been through it once with Watrous and it was a whirlwind event. It goes by just like that, but it’s a big deal.”