Seaside Marketing Coordinator and Gustavson Business Student Elizabeth Moss Talks with Ian Hennigar, Senior Manager, Panorama Recreation
Being involved with high performance sports from a young age, your passion lies with the health and wellness of upcoming generations. What would be your advice for parents raising young children and trying to keep the whole family active?
My advice would be to find a routine/activities that work for your family; do things together that you enjoy. This is only limited by your imagination. Saturday could be your hiking day, with so many great parks and trails there are lots of places to explore. Sunday could be your bike ride day, Monday is your play in the park day etc … just keep moving! Use your creativity and involve the children; they have tons of ideas. I am also a firm believer that children should walk or ride to school rain or shine. We live in a very safe community and this exercise has been proven to improve health and even improve academic marks. If your child is driven to an out-of-district school drop them off away from the school so they have at least a 15- minute walk.
Panorama is a leader for a lot of its active lifestyle programs such as the Youth Pass; how are you planning to promote this further in the community to create similar programs?
Communication and improved awareness of our extensive program offering is a critical priority for Panorama. We are continuing to expand our presence through various outreach opportunities. The Play in the Park program has been a great success, where our staff is at a community park every week night in the summer. We have staff that visit schools and speak to a wide range of community groups, and we have a significant and very successful social media program. The local media is extremely good to us.
Graduating with your Bachelor of Commerce degree and having a lot of experience in different executive director positions, your knowledge of the business world is extensive. You have recently launched an employee wellness program at Panorama, starting with local businesses; can you expand on this and give us an example of how it works?
This has been a very successful program with over 35 companies already participating. Wellness is a huge issue for employers. Research is conclusive: healthier employees are more engaged, have less sick days, are more productive and make fewer mistakes. What employer wouldn’t want to do something that has such a huge impact on their business? A participating business does almost all of the administrative work. They confirm with their employees who are interested in an annual pass program with Panorama, then forward a list of the names and relevant information to us along with one cheque. Since the administrative work is done by the employer, our costs are much lower and we pass that along to the employees. This has brought in a significant amount of new revenue allowing us to keep our tax requisition much lower so it is a great win-win for all.
You have done a lot of research in the area of child and youth wellness and you are currently organizing a Kids R Us summit with many of the Greater Victoria organizations that help fund this area. What is the summit’s main focus and agenda?
The latest research from Stats Canada indicates that only 7% of Canadian children meet the national guideline of 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise per day. Locally we are bit better, however that isn’t saying much. It will take every group that touches on child and youth wellness to make an impact. The summit is to bring these bodies together to improve collaboration and to fill some of the gaps to improve their wellness. As a society we have to invoke change. Obesity rates have tripled and the number of young children with diabetes, cardiopulmonary and cardiovascular disease, mental health issues is staggering. Already 40% of provincial tax dollars are spent on the health care system. How will we afford this in 20 years when these children are young adults and the baby boomers are elderly?
The Active Healthy Kids Report Card 2014 was recently released; it compares Canadian children’s activity levels to other countries. What is your response to Canada’s ranking?
The health of the average Canadian kid is deplorable. We as Canadians MUST do more to get our kids active. The report card has made that very clear. Of the 15 countries ranked on overall physical activity, Canadian children were tied at D-, in second-to-last spot just ahead of Scotland’s “F.” The result in the active transportation measurement was unfortunately about the same. In short we are “driving” (literally in our cars) our kids to poor health. For their health, mental wellbeing, academic and physical development they must be active at least 60 minutes a day. Riding or walking to school can easily be one big component of this.
With a large portion of the Saanich Peninsula community made up of an older demographic, Panorama has developed the volunteer-run Peninsula Elder College that has grown to over 300 members. What information on the program can you provide for our readers to give us an idea of the outcomes and feedback you have received?
In just the third year of Elder College it is clear from the participation numbers that those 50+ in our community are loving it. The program has grown thanks to the sponsorship resources of Sidney SeniorCare. Most of the programs run for one to three hours on a wide variety of topics presented by local volunteer experts in the community so we can offer the programs at minimal cost. Registrations run anywhere from free to $20, with most of them around $10 mark. Program offerings are determined by feedback from the participants themselves and our very active Elder College Advisory Committee. A list of the courses
and details can be found on Panorama’s website
(https://www.crd.bc.ca/panorama/).
What guidance were you given when you were younger that has helped your personal and professional life? What advice would you have for a student (like myself) coming into the business world today?
Great question! My father was and is my best mentor. His advice was always be prepared and strive to be the best you can be in all that you do. I would pass that along with the addition of being very creative and develop a lot of great relationships. Today’s world is very small. Who you know doesn’t ensure success, but it sure can make things happen much faster.
Photo by www.nuttycake.com.
