The Herman Prior Centre in Portage la Prairie held their annual general meeting Wednesday and some amendments were made to their membership laws.

Executive Director Chris Dumont outlines one of the changes.

"One of the things that we officially voted in was to change our membership year from the time you sign to one year later. Before, it was always based on a calendar year from January to December," explains Dumont. "We found, with some of our members being snowbirds, they would go away for the winter and forget when they came back. Or they would say 'why would I sign up for the summer when some of the programs shut down for the summer?'"

She adds by making this change the centre has seen an increase in membership, noting they were up to 415 members as of the AGM.

Dumont shares the other change made was to allow people aged 18 and older to become associate members without voting rights, while voting rights remain for members aged 55 or older. She explains the reason for the change.

"We do give a lot of different benefits to members. For example, the trips that we take, members get them ten dollars less. We don't want to have people not be able to access those benefits just because they're not 55," says Dumont,

Previously, only people between the ages of 40-54 were eligible to become associate members.