Tudor and Cashel grants kids’ Bible club use of facilities for 2025

January 22, 2025

By Michael Riley

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Tudor and Cashel Township resident Anne Glenn spoke to Tudor and Cashel council at their meeting on Jan. 14 about using the township community centre space for her kids’ Bible club she operates for local youth. She successfully did so last year and was hoping to renew the arrangement with the township this year. Council voted to allow Glenn to use the community centre for the club for the 2025 year.

Glenn sent a letter to the township on asking council’s permission to use the community centre for the kids’ Bible club she operates for kids in the township.

“After seeing the changes to the library hours on the township calendar, I am hoping to run the program from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Wednesdays, so that the children can take advantage of these new library hours at the end of our program. This will still be considered kid’s club time and there will be Bible club supervision present with the children in the library. As explained last year there will be religious instruction, music and art events, as well as play ground activities, all with supervision. We did have a great trial run during our last school year and the feedback from the kids and the parents was very positive. It appears that we will have approximately 12 to 15 kids attend again this year and, with your permission, we are hoping to do our kick off around Jan 8 or 15 as long as our booking times and dates don’t clash with other community events booked at the centre. On behalf of the community kids and their families I would like to thank you for your kind consideration to our request,” she said in her letter.

This will be the second year she’s run this afterschool Bible club. Bancroft This Week previously wrote about Glenn’s afterschool club in the March 22, 2024 edition of the paper in the article “Afterschool program proposed by Tudor and Cashel resident.”

At the Jan. 14 meeting, Mayor Dave Hederson brought up Glenn’s request and asked her to speak on the issue, which she did. Following her presentation, Councillor Jerry Chadwick asked her how the current temporary library closure initiated on Jan. 8 would affect her plans for her club and she said that it would be inconvenient as she’s hoped to provide some library time to the kids. She said she’d pursued it last year but unfortunately library time for the kids in her club never materialized, and by the end of the year, the weather was so nice, the kids preferred to be outside.

“So, whatever the available hours are for this year, we would like to incorporate library time for the kids during our Bible club time. When they come in, we usually have a snack, and then while the kids are eating, I give them a little bit of a devotional and Bible discussion and then after that it’s either art, music, whatever activities we’re doing, and then I’d like to give them time in the library and then playground time, which they always look forward to. So, whenever the library issues are resolved, it would be nice to have that opportunity for the children and I can’t wait to hear back,” she says.

Hederson replied that they were in flux with the library but that the township was working collaboratively with the library board to come up with a solution that would be to the benefit of all taxpayers.

“So, when we get that sorted out, hopefully that’ll meet all the requirements,” he says.

Glenn said she was hoping to get the club going by the first week of February (not the first or second week of January as stated in her letter), preferably on Wednesdays from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.

With no further discussion, council voted to approve Glenn’s request to use the community centre for her kids’ Bible club in 2025.

Bancroft This Week reached out to Glenn for further comment but did not receive a reply by press time.