This one is quieter than a rebate or a deadline, and it is aimed at fewer households — but for the households it does reach, it is the most useful thing in the City's September report.

Calgary Recreation runs a set of dementia-inclusive programs: ordinary recreation programs, redesigned so that a person living with changes in memory and thinking can take part without anyone having to make an issue of it. Staff are trained for it. The pace and the structure assume the room.

Fall registration is open now, with sessions starting mid-September.

What is on offer

Seven programs, all for adults 18 and over:

  • Indoor Golf with Dementia — golf simulator, with staff support and time to talk
  • Pickleball with Dementia — the rules and basic technique, through drills and friendly scrimmages. Equipment provided
  • Lawn Bowling with Dementia (new) — an introduction, gentle, unhurried, equipment provided
  • Balance & Strength with Dementia — low-intensity, with both seated and standing options
  • Seated Dance Fitness with Dementia — dance routines to a range of music, done seated. No experience needed
  • Arts Combo with Dementia (new) — drawing, painting, printmaking and mixed media across the weeks. All supplies provided
  • Yoga for Dementia Care Partners — gentle yoga, for the care partner rather than the person they care for

The part that makes the difference

Care partners are welcome in most of these programs — not parked outside, but in the room, taking part, and meeting other people doing the same job.

That is not an incidental detail. The most common reason a person with dementia stops going out is not the activity; it is that the outing became too much work to arrange, or too exposed. A program that expects a care partner to be there removes both problems at once.

And the yoga class is the reverse of that: a program with no caring in it, for an hour, for the person doing the caring. If you are supporting someone at home, that is a legitimate use of an hour, and it is on the schedule for exactly that reason.

How to register

  • Online: liveandplay.calgary.ca — search the program name
  • Phone: 403-268-3800
  • In person: any City-operated recreation or arts facility
Programs run at City-operated recreation and arts facilities across Calgary. The nearest City centre to Signal Hill is Southland Leisure Centre, where fall registered programs begin September 14 — but which of the seven runs where changes term to term, so search by program name rather than by building, and call 403-268-3800 if the schedule is not clear. Staff will tell you what is running closest to you.

Programs and full descriptions from the City →

If money is the obstacle rather than the schedule, the City's Fair Entry program cuts recreation fees by 50 to 100% for households under an income threshold — we wrote that up in May: Fair Entry, the Calgary subsidy that cuts recreation and transit costs.