CSU’s recreation coordinator has begun an initiative to increase student activities
Laura Melczer // Contributor
As students, it’s easy to get caught up in the same routine: commute to campus, go to class, study at the library, then commute home. And if work gets thrown into the mix as well, it can get pretty difficult to schedule in some form of physical activity that doesn’t include running for the bus. Mikko San Ramon, the Capilano Students’ Union (CSU) recreation coordinator, is trying to mix that routine up for students on campus. He has begun incorporating new activities that are active, fun and as accessible for students as possible.
Recreation, for San Ramon, is not only a way for students to be more engaged, but it helps students to hone in on their physical, mental and social health. His approach includes inciting change in the recreational programming and activities offered to students. The goal for San Ramon is to increase recreation and involvement, while creating self-sustaining programming that can be offered at times that will break up the day for students.
The start and test of this new approach to programming will be three free to low-cost activities: one-on-one badminton, four-on-four indoor soccer and ice skating. Aimed to be inclusive and fun, the badminton and soccer tournaments were played round-robin style in the Sportsplex on Oct. 30 and Nov. 1. San Ramon describes round robin as “a style where all the players get to play against each other, instead of a style where if people get eliminated twice, that’s it.”
The setup was meant to encourage people to play with and against each other. Ice skating is also planned for Nov.10 at the Karen Magnussen Community Recreation Centre. Due to space and equipment not being a part of the CapU Sportsplex, there will be a reduced fee associated with the ice skating activities. San Ramon is planning “to cut off a certain percentage, whatever is reasonable at that point being mindful of the budget itself.” Cost cutting is dependent on each specific activity.
Although registration isn’t mandatory to get involved, contacting San Ramon or RSVP’ing to the associated Facebook pages are encouraged. Depending on the program, there will be different rates associated with the events, with extra effort to make costs as reasonable as possible. Utilizing CapU’s existing resources will make this happen as often as possible with rental costs often subsided for students when activities are off-campus (like with the ice skating). Funding for recreational programming comes from the recreation line budget, which is flexible to enable many new programs made available to students.
San Ramon is excitedly looking to the future of recreation at CapU. In creating and testing out these three activities, he is hoping to evaluate interest and see who comes out. Moving forward, recreation will be more of a self-sustaining system. Recreation will see students getting involved from the get-go, creating a motivation positively engage with activity for all students.
San Ramon describes his hope as to “Keep it going. I don’t want to eliminate any sports [in future events.] In that case, there will be more similar events, or even multi-sports events.” San Ramon is focusing on building CapU’s recreational programming to provide fun ways to get involved, with accessibility in mind.
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If you would like to get involved with future activities, please contact Mikko San Ramon at recreation@csu.bc.ca. You can also find more information about these events on Facebook on the CSU page.