As of today, fitness centres have reopened in response to the update of BC’s public health restrictions, which were announced on January 18.
UBC Recreation has opened the fitness centres “under guidelines that essentially represent where we were in June 2021,” said Director of Intramurals and Recreation Michael Tan.
In addition to sanitation of equipment and requirement of proof of vaccination, some of the new guidelines include pre-registration, reduced capacity and highly-encouraged mask usage in all activities.
Not only do Term 2 fitness membership fees include the access to the ARC and BirdCoop Fitness Centres, it also includes all fitness classes, whereas students had to buy a separate membership for fitness classes in Term 1.
These fitness classes need pre-registration, including boot camps, yoga, pilates, spin classes and the BirdCoop Climbing Cave on top of the access to the ARC and BirdCoop Fitness Centres.
“It's just a change that we decided to bring in for our winter student memberships, and would encourage people to take advantage of those opportunities,” said Tan.
Other recreational programs, including drop-in swimming and youth programs, are continued to be offered with pre-registration prior to the sessions. More information can be found here.
UBC Intramurals programming has experienced a slight delay to start their programming, but it will start on January 24.
“Most captains have already confirmed or declined their participation for this upcoming year,” said Tan.
According to Tan, major events like UBC Triathlon and Storm the Wall are still planning to operate due to the safety requirements that need to be in place, but an update on these events will be released soon. Storm the Wall has been cancelled twice since 2020.
The launch of the new Moves on MacInnes Field will begin in February. This can be accessed at the Student Recreation Centre, where students can rent out equipment and use it on the MacInnes Field. More information will be available soon, according to Tan, and this program will be part of Move UBC.
With school being online until February 7, UBC Recreation provides virtual opportunities for students who live off campus.
“One of the initiatives that's actually underway and still open for registration completely free, is a challenge called Walk for Joy. It's a nine week walking challenge that I would encourage people to consider getting involved in [their] own space [and their] own time, so they don't have to be on campus,” said Tan.