Cancelling exhibition a ‘sin’
Voting to cancel this years Niagara Regional Exhibition was devastating for the board members, said Niagara Regional Agricultural Society director Bill Foote.
Foote suspects it will also be difficult for many of the people from throughout Niagara, who have looked forward to the region’s 163-year-old annual agricultural fair every year.
“It’s just a sin. It really is,” he said. “I can’t blame it on the board members, because they have all worked exceptionally hard.”
“I think it’s just a change in the times and the fact that community is not aware of how much time and energy and money it takes to run something like this.”
Foote said the decision was particularly difficult for some of the longest-serving board members, such as “Art Gill and Ray Ravazzoli Sr., who have been on the board for over 60 some odd years.” “It was devastating to them.” Ravazzoli, for instance, started visiting the fair as a child 70 years ago, showing off his prized Guinea pigs, pigeons and other small animals and remains an active board member today.
Ravazzoli son, Raymond Ravazzoli Jr., called it a difficult decision as well.
“I’m not very happy at all with it,” he said.
But as difficult as the decision was the society’s current president said it was necessary. “I want to right the ship and have it bigger and better,” Ravazzoli Jr. said.
Welland Mayor Frank Campion said he hadn’t heard about the cancellation from the society, but was saddened to hear the NRE is not running this September.
“It is a regional exhibition not just Welland, although it is held in Welland and it has been a big part of our lives the hundred years its been going on.”
Campion said he hoped “whatever the issues are, they will be resolved and we can see them again next year.”
Foote said it was a pleasure for board members to see people visiting the fairgrounds, and enjoying the attractions they helped make possible, and he’s certain, many of those visitors will share his disappointment.”
“I know all the high schools and the people in the community, they’re going to be very upset when they realize it’s not going to be here,” he said.
The exhibition, Foote said, is too important to the community not to save.
“This is one of those things that the people of Welland and the Niagara Region really can’t afford to see disappear. It provides something for every member of the community. The older people reminisce. The kids come out for the rides. The food is great. It’s a mainstay. It’s something we should continue to strive to maintain for the next 200 years.”
But the people need to support it.
“They need to put pens to paper and go after federal and provincial governments for grants so we can get back on a firm financial footing, and bring this back to the people,” he said. “If Wellanders want this to come back, they need to start writing letters to people.”
“They need to get involved in the promotion process, and not leave all of that on us. We’re all volunteers and we have a life besides the Niagara Regional Exhibition.”
Upper-tier and municipal politicians too need to take a “really close look at this and realize the value of having something like this in the community,” Foote said. “I don’t know how many times, I’ve gone out there just to walk around and talk to people that are in their late 80s, that said, ‘You know, I remember coming here as a little girl.’”