Published in The BANAR September 2004
by Gord Hawley, Fun Fair Chairman
I would like to personally thank my Board of Directors for their dedication to helping make the 2004 Fun Fair another success. Rose Moore who served both as Midway Director and Secretary; Jane Mahoney, Fair Features; Brenda Sowden, BBQ’s; Ben Charlebois, Treasurer; Kathy McFarland, Fund Raising; The Hobbs family- Bev, Sandra and Dan, General Store; Jason Dubue, Internet and Design; Steve LeGrow and Victoria from the Blackburn TKD, Facilities and Louise Bertrand, Parade Director. We also had a group of active committee members who worked with these key groups of directors without whose help we could not have successfully brought this program together.
In all there were close to 300 volunteers for the event this year. A special thanks to them and also to our great sponsors and donors who helped to provide funding for the event.
This year we introduced a new look to the midway, created a new Community Stage and dance floor and saw the expansion of our features to include the new GM Sens Street tour in operation. Thanks in part to some great weather we had lots of smiling faces from the start of the parade to the end of the evening. If you were not able to attend, you missed a great Community Event and I would recommend you plan to attend next year’s Fun Fair scheduled for Saturday June 4th.
In spite of our great weather we did not reach our objective with this year’s fund-raising through the Fun Fair and as a result our participating groups will be receiving smaller share value cheques. Part of the lower results can be attributed to several other major events being held on the same day as well as some smaller Fun Fairs in the Orleans area. We had some additional costs to recover this year with replacing the old midway. We also tried to hold down the cost of food and events so that participants could enjoy more of the Fair. Next year’s board of directors will need to keep tight controls on the ever increasing costs of operations for this annual event.
We would like to thank Molly-Colleen Thomson who at just 6 years of age was the winner of the Name the Mascot contest. Our Fun Fair mascot will from now on be known as “Maxx”. We hope to continue to build on this character including eventually getting an appropriate costume for him.
We will be presenting financial results at the September BCA meeting and will have our results published in the November Banar.
After three years of serving on the Fun Fair Committee, one as Food and Youth Director and for the past two years as Chairman, it is now time to step aside and let someone with fresh ideas come forward to serve in this capacity. We have a great board with most of this year’s members remaining for next year.