Good Morning, I've worked in the aquatics industry for how long - 20 years?! - and my mother is still taken in by clickbait instead of actually asking me what's going on. Here's a recent text message: TL;DR as I say in a

If you run an outdoor pool, hang in there: we are less than 30 days away from Labour Day and your reprieve from summer staff shortages. I don't know about you, but I have been on a steady diet of replaying Olympic Swimming narrated by Byron MacDonald (who

Friends, if you do not reside in Alberta, you might not have heard about the wild fires that devastated the Town of Jasper a few nights ago. At least one client, Maligne Lodge, burned to the ground according to unofficial footage that's come out via social media. Parks

This shouldn't be the kind of thing that is so rare it requires a celebration, but each month I check Health Enforcement Orders on the provincial website, and only a handful of Recreational Facilities (pools) in Alberta were ordered shut in the last few months! Non-critical violations are

With summer fully underway in the Northern Hemisphere, I just want to go on record as saying that this entire news roundup could be the dozens of fatal & non-fatal drownings showing up in my daily Google News Alerts. It's not that I don't care, but

US lifeguard shortage causes pools to work year-round to rebuild their staff after the pandemic Unpopular opinion alert! With all due respect to journalists trying to cover a story that keeps getting more and more traction during the summer months, there is NOT - in my personal opinion - a

I've been following a terrible trend in our industry over the last few years: a dramatic increase in lifeguard workplace fatalities at swimming pools in Canada & the USA. I recently presented an hour-long session on this topic at the Atlantic Recreation & Facilities Conference (ARFC) in Fredericton,

City of Calgary Declares State of Local Emergency Whether you know it as the location of The Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth or the closest airport to Banff, the City of Calgary has recently been crippled by a major water main break. Residents have been asked to reduce usage during

In terms of pool news this week, there are a number of developing stories that we'll come back to as more information becomes available. Free lunch program keeps kids at the pool well-fed At a time when so many people are struggling with the very basic costs of

Friends, due to a confluence of factors I won't rehash here, I woke up last week with the sense that I'm now on summer vacation. It's early June, and aside from one week per month blocked with Zoom Pool & Hot Tub Alliance (PHTA)