News Release

New Westminster, B.C. Sept 18th, 2007 - The New Westminster Parks and Recreation Department takes the lead to offer a community wide walking challenge program and selects CoreCommunity software to help launch it’s Active Community Challenge.

The City of New Westminster joins the other Lower Mainland communities Richmond, Port Moody and the North Shore introducing a new interactive challenge to its community members. The program is part of a provincial, federal and worldwide initiative of increasing its citizen’s activity 20% by 2010.

The local program will be supported by a social marketing campaign through the recreation centers and local media. It will promote the need to be active the equivalent of 10,000 steps a day to reduce the risk of obesity, heart disease and hypertension that is affecting many inactive people.

Designed to host seasonal walking and physical activity challenges for all ages, organizers hope to set up community challenges, corporate team challenges and school challenges with fun prizing for the winning teams and random prizes to recreation facilities throughout each seasonal event. Individuals can also join the program to work on their health and fitness on their own time and pace.

“After researching for our Active Communities initiative, we quickly found that the CoreCommunity software stood out above anything else in terms of both functionality and features. We needed a program that did not require us to “re-invent the wheel”. CoreCommunity had everything we needed and was it was ready to implement quickly and easily” commented Sandy Earle, Active Community Programmer for New Westminster.

New Westminster is strategically located in the centre of the Greater Vancouver Regional District (GVRD), along the north bank of the Fraser River. As the oldest incorporated City in Western Canada, many of its cultural and heritage buildings have been retained. In recent times, the City has seen rapid residential development especially in the form of condominiums and townhouses. This has attracted young home buyers, couples and empty nesters, who are also drawn to the City's relatively affordable housing prices and vibrant parks and recreation system.

“We are excited to see cities like New Westminster taking positive steps towards making people aware of the obesity crisis and providing tools to help people change their lives.” comments Anne Marie Kirby, CEO of CoreHealth Technologies.

CoreHealth Technologies is a leading developer of web-based software in the preventative health sector, serving businesses, governments and health organizations across the United States and Canada.