Canadian Heritage committee  I agree that it's a tough one. I would just say to John—and this is why I liked the first comment—that I like the idea that we try to get the early entry coaches, so that it's not so painful on them financially and time-wise. I know there are some things they have to learn, but t

Canadian Heritage committee  When I coached a national team, we were in Ottawa at the time. I moved the team to Toronto. I went out to the corporate world. Before you knew it, we had Imperial Life Assurance Company giving us $50,000 cash a year, plus office space, secretarial help, computers—everything. We e

Canadian Heritage committee  There are a couple of things with that. Not every club can offer programs to those types of athletes. The ones that have set out to do that, to see them potentially through to the Olympics, are set up that way from their budget process. As I said to my board about seven years ago

Canadian Heritage committee  That's part of it.

Canadian Heritage committee  We have about five or six, and there are two en route.

Canadian Heritage committee  No, it's fairly lengthy, depending on the country they're coming from. The problem, too, is that it's hard to necessarily check out all their qualifications. We do, because we have insights from other coaches in that area. But it becomes difficult.

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes. Gymnastics is a tough Olympic sport. John and I were just talking about gymnastics earlier. It's a tough sport, because only so many athletes, male and female, go to represent Canada. We don't look at it in terms of Olympic athletes; we try to develop a strong base. In mos

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes.

Canadian Heritage committee  We have more girls now. It was pretty much all girls. It used to be called the Antoinettes Gymnastics Club. Because boys started coming around and it became more of a manly activity, we had to change it to the Oakville Gymnastics Club so that they wouldn't feel we were ignoring t

Canadian Heritage committee  John could probably speak more on that one. We've taken advantage of some grants for some of our higher-level coaches within the Olympic program. At the amateur level, we once also had a coach who was supported by some government funding about seven years ago. But I think you to

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes. Again, because we're fairly successful we donate about $12,000 back to athletes in the club to help offset some transportation costs. It's done on a need basis. Also, I'm even more proud of our recreational program: if people do not have money to take a recreational course,

Canadian Heritage committee  The flight was cancelled, yes.

Canadian Heritage committee  For me, it's a cornerstone for a lot of things. For example, I'm not a big gymnastics person. I was a basketball person, and I could never get gymnastics when I started in that sport. Then I realized that these little kids who were eight, nine, ten years old were flipping and doi

Canadian Heritage committee  Our biggest challenge is space and a facility. I know you're not involved with facilities at this point in time, but facilities are a big one. But coaches.... As I said, we just don't have enough coaches. One of my board members said that we have enough money now to put in a ne

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you. I don't have a presentation and I don't have notes, but I have 46 years of experience as a coach. I know, how can a guy who looks so young have that much experience? I think I started coaching in the womb. I just want to share some of my thoughts with you. I have