Closure of a Belgian rink: "Let them skate"

The news was published a few days ago in the Belgian media.

"I had to sit down and take a deep breath. We did not know what was happening, no one had informed us about the closure of the ice rink. In Belgium, ice rinks are private companies, so we all depend on owners," said Candy Mulder, Chair of the Gullegem club in West-Flanders and Team Temptation teams coach.

As the President of the Winter Cup synchronized skating competition, she added that the 2019 event had to be removed from the ISU competition list a few weeks ago due to financial problems of the investors.

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Hi all, some of you know already, but from one day to the other, our ice rink is CLOSED !!! End of story for us...... BUT as we are fighters, otherwise we wouldn't be into skating that long.... we want to fight for our skaters, but we can't do that without any help.... Would you ALLLLLL PLEASEEEEEEE, share this post and ask the hole synchro world to donate a few euro's..... so that we can work on our solution and having an ice floor into a building for now untill we can find some investers for a new ice rink. (as in belgium all ice rinks are private companies, we are not that lucky to have much) thanks in advance.... You can find the link in the comments...

Une publication partagée par Team Temptation (@team_temptationbelgium) le 27 Mai 2019 à 9 :24 PDT

"The owners invest very poor in the ice rink and in the new equipment and do nothing to the building." The ice rink was built 45 years ago "so you can imagine the total cost to get it back on track," continued Candy Mulder.

A fundraiser
That's why the Belgians immediately started a fundraiser. "We want to hire a building and put ice in it so that all of our skaters can get back on the ice.
We work on that plan together with our friends ‘The Jets’ ice hockey club," explained the project's promoter. "If everyone could donate, a few euros would be fantastic for us to find an ice rink!"

"I'm fighting for the development of synchronized skating in my country since 1989, so I know what I'm talking about. We have to find investors and the city has to help us too. It will take a lot of lobbying, but I'm sure this story will end well for all our members, "concludes Candy Mulder.

Their crowdfunding is called "Let us skate" and just ask to have an ice rink to practice their passion... synchro.