BMO Money for the OCC!

The Bank of Montreal swings into Oxford to hand off a cheque, name one of the building’s spaces, and tour the “getting close to done” new Oxford and Area Community Centre!

The latest corporation to secure naming rights to a section of the new Oxford & Area Community Centre is the Bank of Montreal. A group of BMO representatives were in town last week to check out the centre, and put the bank’s name on what had been referred to as the internet café, and which from this point forward will be the Bank of Montreal Lounge, courtesy of a $100-thousand donation. This public space is just off the atrium, between the main doors and the YMCA childcare centre.

From the lounge, members of the public can see activity taking place in the Oxford Home Hardware Gymnasium. OCC committee member Matthew Bragg says the area will be “open to the public to sit, relax, have free available Wi-Fi that’ll be provided by Eastlink. It’ll be a room that we think is key for people that are maybe waiting for an event or overlapping with other events. And rather than just sitting in their car waiting until their pickleball or basketball game starts, they’ll be able to come in the building and there’s a window from the lounge looking into the gym. They’ll be able to see what’s happening in the gymnasium from that room and maybe hold some events or have a coffee. So we think it’s a key room for the community to spend some time in the building even in-between events.”

Bragg says a good deal of thought went into the design of the facility, ensuring it would be a usable space: “We visited a lot of community centers in the design phase of this years ago. As a group we drove around, we went to Guysborough… Guysborough is a good example for anybody that’s been there where it’s a very nice building and there were a lot of kids, we were there during a soccer tournament and there was all these soccer teams hanging out in the building, but not enough room for 20 kids even to go in and kind of stand around.”

“So we thought, you know, if we get four, five or six different groups in different sporting events and meetings, we need to have some common areas for people to kind of be in and just use the building. So we look forward to hosting the whole community be in our building instead of just sitting in their cars or sitting in the parking lot waiting.”

Bragg says the parade of cheques will continue until the facility opens its doors in late June, and more companies have secured naming rights for the facility’s spaces: “The ‘Oxford and Area Community Center’ name will be gone. The building will have a name which will be announced soon. The fitness center will have a name that will be announced soon. And we still have a few other rooms that we’ve got the funding arranged, but the donors are the ones that want to come and do the announcements. It’s just the timing of making these announcements.”

While these large cheques are important contributions toward the projects overall $24.5-million price tag, all donors of over $500 will be recognized in a display on the wall of the atrium. Bragg says the OCC display will be modelled after a donor recognition wall at the Dartmouth General Hospital.

In the photos below, representatives of the Bank of Montreal and members of the Oxford & Area Community Centre Committee tour the build site of the new facility.