Ruth Taylor is in her 50th year as a member of the Windsor Curling Club, but it took her a while to warm up to the sport.

“My mother was an ardent curler,” she says. “She was on the provincial championship team, but I didn’t curl. When Dick and I got married, he was always down at the rink so I thought I had better join, too.”

Ruth joined the Windsor club in 1957, but wasn’t able to curl as she was pregnant with the couple’s first child. She began curling in 1958 and friendships with other mothers included curling.

“When we were home with the kids, they would go to school and we would head to the rink for the morning. After I retired, I found there was no daytime curling, so we had to get it started again!”

Daytime curling became a vibrant part of the rink, filling the four sheets of ice almost every day of the week.

That enthusiasm is now being channeled into another project - rebuilding the rink the Club lost to fire last month. Ruth and Dick Taylor and another 130 Windsor Curling Club members attended a general meeting Oct. 10 to discuss the present and future of the Windsor Curling Club.

In the aftermath of the fire, members have been very busy preparing to move ahead. Treasurer Dave Penney and other volunteers have put in considerable time to complete insurance claim paperwork. Other members of the executive have begun to plan how to rebuild the rink.

Get up and going as soon as possible

Big decisions have been made already. Offered a place in a planned multi-sport complex, the club has chosen a simpler route; rebuild on its own. President Rae Winkelaar says members are worried that it may be more difficult to recruit volunteers and costs may escalate: ''We want to get up and going as soon as possible."

Ruth Taylor is pleased with the choice.“The decision was unanimous; we’re going ahead on our own. We want to be in charge of our own destiny,” she said.

Ruth, the first woman to be president after the men’s and ladies’ clubs amalgamated, is pleased with efforts so far. “The members are 100 per cent behind the executive.” Her husband, Dick, another past president, adds, “life goes on.”

Ruth is involved with planning for a gala dinner in February to celebrate the 100th birthday of the Curling Club in 2008. The evening is now being positioned as a fundraising opportunity. “We’re going ahead. We’ll pull together; everyone is very positive.”

Positive start

Efforts have borne fruit immediately. Before the fire, 100 T-shirts had been donated to the club in celebration of its centenary. At the general meeting, 75 of them were sold on the spot, raising $2,300 in a few minutes.

Winkelaar said, “the community has already shown it’s onside. The Dill family offered a pumpkin for a 50/50 ‘Guess the Weight’ raffle at the pumpkin Regatta. With the help of several Junior Club members, another $245 dollars was raised through the raffle.”

A positive start. However, a new rink will likely cost in excess of a million dollars, more than local raffles can earn. Even after insurance money arrives, a great deal of fundraising will be necessary.

The club executive has contacted federal and provincial governments about possible grants. MLA Chuck Porter has been actively supporting the club in this process. Winkelaar says the club is “really just in the exploratory stages of seeing what funds may be available. We already know that the Canadian Curling Association has capital assistance, which we’ll be applying for.”

Sharing expertise as well as ice time with other rinks will help the Windsor Curling Club members plan to rebuild. A group from Windsor traveled to New Glasgow to speak to members of the Bluenose Curling Club - who rebuilt their rink a few years ago - to glean information on the process. Winkelaar hopes to travel to a new curling club in the Miramichi in the coming months to see how their members built a new rink.

In fact, Ruth has been the benficiary of the generosity of local rinks. “I’ve curled twice this week already at Mayflower (in Halifax),” she said. “It’s just amazing the support we’ve been offered. Many of our curlers will be able to play in Wolfville.”

Other clubs have been generous

Winkelaar confirms that clubs closer to Windsor have assured that curling will go on this winter. “Wolfville Curling Club has been very generous and members will be curling at CFB Halifax on Sundays, too.”

This isn’t the first time the Wolfville Curling Club has stepped up to help its Windsor colleagues. Dick Taylor remembers when he was president of the rink one year “the plant broke down and we had to close early. Wolfville came to our rescue then, too.”

Goodwill and community are long-standing elements of curling in the Valley, on and off the ice. The Hants Journal published accounts of curling matches between Windsor and Wolfville as early as 1896. Laughter and curling took place on Windsor ice as early as 1884, again according to The Hants Journal.

Long-time members like the Taylors remember curling as a social touchpoint of Windsor life.

“The Curling Club has been a major part of our lives,” Ruth said. “Saturday night used to be fun night and each community took charge: Chester Road, Curry’s Corner, Falmouth, Hantsport and so on.”

Dick agrees. “It was a swinging place on Saturdays. Chester Road always put on the best parties.”

Ruth recalls the fun of having a night out when her kids were young. “Saturday night was my night to howl. I would go to the rink Saturday at 2 p.m. to curl. We would have supper there, then mixed curling and then a dance. The floor would be heaving from all the people dancing. I wouldn’t get home until 2 a.m.!”

The friendly curling community stretches even further. Ruth has traveled quite a bit with curling, including to Scotland. “I was curling there for four weeks in 2000 with 24 other Canadian women. I also visited Ailsa, Scotland, where the best granite for curling stones is found.”

Sadly, Windsor’s own Ailsa granite rocks were lost in September’s fire, but the enthusiastic, dedicated membership is determined to rise out of the ashes, better than ever.

A good example? The Windsor Curling Club is holding a Halloween Masquarade Oct. 27 at the community centre. Tickets are $10.