The Citizen, 2010-04-08, Page 30PAGE 30. THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, APRIL 8, 2010.Continued from page 2said.“I definitely became busier once Ibecame chief,” he said. “It wasn’tmore difficult though, it just took upmore of my time.”
In the early days, however, there
were some things that he couldn’t
handle. When he first applied for the
community centre job, McArter
admits he had no qualifications for
the position and wasn’t necessarily
certain that it would be a long-term
job.
“I was working as a masonry
contractor,” he said. “And it was
quite slow during the winter months,
so I was looking for something a
little steadier.”
Despite his lack of qualifications
initially, he found a steady job,
serving Brussels at the community
centre for nearly three decades.
To compensate for his lack of
initial knowledge at the community
centre, McArter was sent to Guelphfor numerous courses over the years,including refrigeration, ice-making,building maintenance and legalawareness, to name a few.He was initially hired as somewhat
of a maintenance man, doing a lot of
the manual work at the community
centre while the bookings were still
being handled by the village
clerk’s office in Brussels.
That, however, came to an
end quickly after several
double bookings led to the decision
that it would be easier for McArter
to handle the bookings himself
because of the large amount of hours
he was spending at the community
centre, in addition to the
convenience of having just one
person booking, as opposed to two,
who could have their dates confused
at times.
The shift in scheduling was just
one of the many changes McArter
saw over his nearly 30 years at thecommunity centre. When he firststarted, the arena used a natural-looking ice surface, that wasn’twhitened, called “skated white ice”.That changed after several years
when the Brussels Bulls as well as
the Crusaders began playing regular
Sunday games at the community
centre.
For those years, McArter said, he
was using a diesel-powered tractor
to clean the ice. That was until 1993
when a proper ice cleaner was
purchased, which “made things a lot
easier,” McArter said. That ice
cleaner machine, however, was one
of the many examples that were soon
to come, McArter said, of the
Brussels and area community
pulling together and rallying around
the community centre.
“We had to raise 50 per cent of the
cost of the Olympia ourselves,” he
said. “The catering women were
quite generous and they wanted a
dishwasher as well, so we ended up
buying the Olympia and a
dishwasher at the same time.”
Soon after the purchase of the
Olympia, Corbett was hired for her
first part-time position, which would
become a full-time position for her
in 2001.
Corbett began at the community
centre at the snack bar. She was
helping with the cleaning several
months later and was helping with
the ice soon after that.
“Murray and I have always gotten
along pretty well,” Corbett said. “He
was always there whenever there
was a problem. He’s got the
knowledge and he knew everything
there was to know about the
community centre.”
Corbett said she could really
notice the community atmosphere at
the arena when McArter was there.
Because he was so well known
through his extensive work at the
community centre, as well as with
his post with the Brussels Fire
Department, it was a real family
atmosphere, she said, because the
community knew they were in
McArter’s hands.
Corbett says she can attest to the
fact that McArter did a lot of
thinking about retirement before he
finally decided to go through with it.
McArter said that it just made sense
for him to do it now, despite the fact
that Corbett says she never thought
he would go through with it.
Though McArter has seen the
community centre grow over the
years, including the accessibility
upgrades that were completed earlier
this year, he says he can see even
more changes on the horizon.
He says there has been talk aboutlinking the sites of the communitycentre and the Brussels Library foryears, pretty much since theaccessibility issues at the librarywere first raised.
“There’s definitely a lot of
potential there for the site to get a lot
bigger,” he said. “In Howick, they’ve
done the same thing and they’ve
seen library usage go up something
like 75 per cent.”
However, the most pressing and
practical issue facing the community
centre now are the dressing rooms,
with so many girls playing hockey
now, either on girls teams or on
teams where they play alongside
boys.
Corbett says that ideally four more
dressing rooms should be added and
the walls between the four existing
dressing rooms should be knocked
down, creating two larger rooms,
totalling six rooms.
“Right now you’ll have full teams
in those dressing rooms and they can
barely all fit,” she said.
In McArter’s future, however, he
says he’ll remain the fire chief in
Brussels for as long as thedepartment will keep him and heplans to be no stranger to thecommunity where he was born andraised and where he has served fordecades.
“After I was so involved with the
Brussels Optimists and their project
at the ball diamond, people were
surprised when I decided to retire,”
he said. “I told them not to worry
and that I would still be there
helping out.”
“And as far being the fire chief,
that’s open-ended.”
BMGCC staple set to retire at end of April
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519-424-2985
Leaving his throne
After nearly 30 years with the Brussels, Morris and Grey
Community Centre, Murray McArter has decided to retire.
Throughout his years at the community centre, he saw
many changes, one of the most recent was the accessibility
upgrades that were made to the centre’s washrooms. As he
helped to remove the old toilets, he also helped to bid them
a fond farewell. McArter will, however, remain on as the
Brussels fire chief. (Shawn Loughlin photo - right; Citizen file photo - left)
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