Elora Skating Club to celebrate 60 years with year-end show

ELORA – The Elora Skating Club will be gliding through the decades for its 60th anniversary year-end ice show. 

To celebrate six decades of dedication from coaches, volunteers and members, skaters will be performing for all on March 28 from 11am to 1pm at the Jefferson Elora Community Centre.

Different ages and skill levels will be performing dance numbers to songs from the late 1960s, all the way to the 2000s. 

Songs include Stand By Me, Stayin’ Alive and Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers’ Islands In The Stream.

“We got a little bit of yellow bikini in there as well,” said 30-year coach Jean Klooster, referring to the hit 1960 song by Brian Hyland.

“I’ve been here for half of the (skating club’s) history,” Klooster told the Advertiser.

She’s been skating for close to 60 years and joined the Elora Skating Club in 1995 or 1996.

Klooster started her coaching career in 1978.

Asked if her passion for the sport is the driving factor in such a lengthy coaching career, she said, “Yes, but for any coach it starts with the kids.”

There’s just one rule in the Elora Skating Club: older skaters must help younger skaters.

“If it wasn’t for the older kids coming to help the younger ones, we wouldn’t be able to do it,” Klooster said.

One of the struggles Klooster and the club has faced for decades is not having enough coaches.

“To be in a small recreational club and to hold on this long takes a lot of background people,” Klooster said referring to coaches, volunteers and the board of directors.

Another obstacles was the COVID-19 pandemic, which the club survived “sometimes by our fingernails,” she said. 

“It was probably the toughest time to try and adjust the program,” Klooster said.

But it wasn’t the only major challenge faced by the club over the years.

“Skate calibre requirements have changed,” Klooster said.

She also noted a difference in society and discipline in younger members.

‘Family environment’

Club member Charlotte Lirusso, 18, has been skating for 16 years.

“I started in Elora and then moved away to try to be more competitive, but I’ve come back because it is a really nice family environment,” Lirusso told the Advertiser. 

She noted Klooster is a key factor in the family feeling as she is “like our mom.”

According to Lirusso, the club has seen success with many new skaters joining – which is thrilling because she plans to coach full time in Elora while attending university. 

Lirusso,  who hopes to be coaching “for many years,”  will perform a solo in the upcoming ice show to Purple Rain by Prince.

“We usually don’t do solos in the show so I’m very excited to have the opportunity,” Lirusso said.