Waddell: Maintaining capacity

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Published on Thursday, July 17, 2014

By: Ken Waddell

myWestman.ca

In my many years of traveling in Manitoba, I have seen countless fairs, parades, festivals and sports tournaments.

It’s these kinds of activities where communities put on their best face for their own enjoyment and for the benefit of visitors. Regardless of the size of the community, there is usually at least one event a year when they welcome visitors to come and have fun.

The weekend of July 25-27 is Neepawa’s turn with the annual Lily Festival. This year, due to the July 1 flooding at Riverbend Park, the Canada Day celebration will be held that weekend as well. Basically the Canada Day celebration schedule has been transplanted onto the Sunday of Lily Festival weekend.

This year, the Yellowhead Roadrunners have decided to run their highly popular annual Runway Drags at the Neepawa Airport with a car show Friday night at the new co-op parking lot. The racing is being held on Saturday. Altogether, it will be a huge weekend that should leave a lot of people entertained, happy and tired.

It will be interesting to see if the Neepawa area can come up with enough volunteers to pull it all off. If you are inclined to help out, I’m sure any of the organizations could use a hand at some point during the weekend or in preparation beforehand.

A basic requirement for a major event is proper facilities. Over the years, I have seen some town’s facilities deteriorate to a point where they can’t be used anymore. It’s always  sad when a rink or grandstand or fair building slowly sinks into the ground and has to be destroyed. I remember seeing a two-sheet curling rink, in what is now a ghost town, slowly slump over on its side. It was unusual because, in most cases, it’s the roof that’s first to go. In that case, the roof looked great, but it was the side walls that simply gave out.

Maybe the original footings weren’t good enough. If it wasn’t so sad it would have been funny as there was this big roof, looking good, but sitting on the ground. The snow and wind load had won the battle.

The point is that buildings, facilities need maintenance to withstand  wind and snow load. You can’t just show up once a year and expect that the building will be ready. It’s the same way with a committee. You can’t expect that the treasurer’s report will be up to date and the minutes all in order.

Buildings and committees need ongoing maintenance. And it’s tough to find willing leaders. Hundreds of times I have heard people say they will help but they don’t want to be in charge. Actually, being in charge should be the easy part, but I wonder if, as a western Manitoba society, we are forgetting how to be leaders.

In my youthful era, the 4-H program taught young people how to chair a meeting, to keep minutes, to keep a club’s books and how to write a report for the local newspaper. I see some of that still in place with 4-H, but I see a lot of other organizations that don’t seem to teach maintenance. In 4-H it was expected, demanded and most of the time appreciated. under the guidance of a head leader, the young people had opportunity to be president, vice-president, secretary, treasurer and reporter. It’s still happening to some extent in 4-H but it seems to be a dying art.

With towns having numerous groups, Neepawa has 85 just in case you were wondering, it’s tough to keep it all going. In some areas, there was an amalgamation of groups many years ago. In the early 1970s, Arden had  a skating rink committee, a hall committee, a curling rink committee and a parks committee. In the collective wisdom of the community, they realized that having a president, vice-president, secretary  and treasurer didn’t make a lot of sense.

The Lansdowne Recreation Commission was formed and many of the community events carry on today because of the efforts of people involved in the LRC. The Arden Hall is in pretty good shape and is active; the park isn’t as active as it once was but the curling rink is in good shape and is very active.

Some communities still have the capacity to keep going with a full set of facilities. Some will not. It will apparently depend on how well the organizations function and how well they are able to keep up their facilities. People have higher expectations today and while one might also question the imposed provincial regulations on food preparation, the various community facility kitchens are coming under ever-increasing scrutiny and pressure.

I have yet to see a town or an organization that couldn’t become more efficient if they set their mind to it. In our communities, we have wonderful people, wonderful events and there’s a great need to build our communities. Let’s make sure we build each other up rather than tear each other down. Let’s make sure our communities and our committees don’t end up like that little two sheet-curling rink.

Communities and committees can collapse if their walls and foundations get overcome with the snow and wind load of neglect and criticism.