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Volume 40 - Issue 2 Spring 2019
B C A S S O C I A T I O N O F A G R I C U LT U R A L F A I R S A
N D E X H I B I T I O N S
Rooted in tradition,
growing for tomorrow.
#20-16655 64th AVENUE, SURREY, BC V3S 3V1 | PHONE 778-574-4082
www.bcfairs .ca
LiveWire
We gratefully acknowledge the financial support for this
publication, by the
province of British Columbia.
BC Association of Agricultural Fairs
and Exhibitions
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Growing BC’s Communities
As a long-term partner of the BCAAFE, we're
committed to supporting agriculture in BC.
Ask about our exclusive BCAAFE member program.
For all your insurance needs, contact
SUPPORTINGRobert Fiume, CAIB Commercial Risk Advisor
250 869 3815 [email protected]
Daniel Tassoni Commercial Risk Advisor
250 860 2426 [email protected]
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3LiveWire - Spring 2019
ABOUT THIS PUBLICATION“LiveWire” is the official newsletter of
the BC Association of Agricultural Fairs & Exhibitions.
All advertisements appearing in this publication are paid for by
the advertisers. Submissions must be approved by the BCAAFE. The
BCAAFE reserves the right to refuse to publish any
advertisement.
Who are we?
We are a gathering place for British Columbia’s communities and
regions; a social and economic force that has the ability to drive
and enhance the quality of community life!
BC FAIRS Mission Statement:
To provide leadership, resources and services to all association
members so they can effectively celebrate the diversity and
importance of local agriculture in communities throughout British
Columbia.
BC FAIRS Vision Statement:
A sustainable provincial association that represents its
membership and increases awareness of BC agriculture through
alliances with other industry related organizations.
2019 BCAAFE
OFFICERS
PRESIDENT:
Tom Harter [email protected]
1ST VICE PRESIDENT:
Karen Streeter [email protected]
2ND VICE PRESIDENT:
Ann Siddall [email protected]
FINANCE CHAIR:
Pamela Brenner [email protected]
DIRECTORS
Allison Bowers [email protected]
Keith Currie [email protected]
Sylvia Layzell [email protected]
Shari Paterson [email protected]
COMMERCIAL/
ASSOCIATE
DIRECTOR
Ben James [email protected]
TABLE OF CONTENTSMessage from the President
.....................................................................................................Page
4
Message from the Executive Director
................................................................................Page
5
Commercial Members Corner
.................................................................................................Page
6
4-H BC Rabbit Show Update
.....................................................................................................Page
7Celebrating the rich tradition of Agricultural Fairs
............................................Pages 8-9
Meet the Keynote Speaker at the 2019 BC Fairs Conference
..........................Page 9
Digital Marketing - What Is Programmatic?
................................................................
Page 10
Livestock Traceability FAQ’s
....................................................................................................
Page 11
Welcome
LiveWire IS PUBLISHED BY
BC Association of Agricultural Fairs and Exhibitions#20 – 16655
64th Avenue, Surrey, BC V3S 3V1
Phone: 1-778-574-4082 • [email protected] • www.bcfairs.ca
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4 LiveWire - Spring 2019
News
Welcome to another addition of the Livewire. As another season
of agri-cultural fairs and exhibitions begins, our association is
proud to recog-nize several fairs that will celebrate milestone
years in 2019, as well as continue our work within the
agricul-tural community to create lasting and positive
connections.
Our members are certainly resilient in these changing times, and
have faced unexpected challenges. Kudos to the Lakes District Fall
Fair in Burns Lake; in 2018 the fire situation caused them to
cancel their event, so instead
of marking their 75th anniversary last year, they will celebrate
it this year. The Bulkley Valley Exhibition endured last year’s
environmental haze in the northern region of our province, and this
year will celebrate 100 years. One of our smaller fairs, the
Peachland Fall Fair in the Okanagan, also marks its centennial this
year, and one of our bigger members, the Vancouver Is-land
Exhibition in Naniamo, turns 125.
I would like to recognize and thank every fair for their
contribution to the economic health and vibrant spirit of their
respective communities, and
the history, traditions, education, and overall goodwill that
each of these fairs provide is incredible. Without each of these
fairs all the history and traditions that make their community what
it is today would be lost and the children of today would have no
idea how and why the agricultural aspect of this great province got
to be what it is today.
Lastly, I want to say good luck and wish each of our
agricultural fairs a wonderful and prosperous year.
Tom Harter BC Fairs President
A Message from President Tom Harter
Join us Aug 17-Sep 2 for the best part of summer!
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Join us Aug 17-Sep 2 for the best part of summer!
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5LiveWire - Spring 2019
News
Greetings and Happy Spring every-one! There are several programs
that I want to bring you up to date on, so I’m going to get right
down to it:
2019 Buy BC initiative – I have been working together with the
Innovation & Adaptation Services Branch of the Ministry of
Agriculture to define the criteria for this year’s Buy BC project.
Unfortunately, at the time of printing for the newsletter, we are
still work-ing out the details. I will ensure that every fair
receives the information as soon as we have signed off on the
agreement!
2019 Guide to BC’s Fairs & Exhibi-tions – Thank you to all
of our adver-tisers for their support of the guide! The brochure
will be delivered to BC Fairs office from our printers on April
10th, from here a dedicated team of volunteers will be helping me
to package up and ship out the guide to more than 300 locations
across the province! Every member will be receiving copies of the
guide for dis-play in your office, but if you would like additional
copies to share with your supporters, please contact me at
[email protected]
2019 Provincial Awards program – you’ll find a summary of the
award categories in this issue of LiveWire, as well, for our
members, a hard copy of the full program will be included with this
newsletter mailout package. Or, visit our website to download the
2019 Provincial Awards Program! Dis-cuss the categories with your
com-
mittees, ask everyone to take lots of photos and plan to be a
participate in this year’s awards program!
Livestock Traceability – Over the winter, I received several
inquiries from our member fairs about live-stock traceability.
Later in this issue of LiveWire you’ll find a terrific FAQ on this
topic, and I want thank Christina Franc, Executive Director at CAFÉ
for compiling this information for all of us! On April 9, I will be
participating in a teleconference meeting with all the other
provincial associations and CAFÉ to further discuss traceability
requirements for agricultural fairs. As information is confirmed,
again, I will ensure that this is passed on to you!
BC Fairs 2019 Conference
Don’t Stop
Believing!2019 BCAAFE Conference – October 17 – 19, Sun Peaks
Grand Hotel
The Conference Committee are excit-ed to announce our Opening
Keynote Speaker for the 109th Annual BC Fairs Conference has been
confirmed! Mr.
Brian Casey, past president of the Hants County Agricultural
Society in Nova Scotia, will address “Small Fairs – Their relevance
and how to help them survive” and “Keeping Ag in your fair while
keeping up with the changing times”! I hope you’ll take a few
minutes to read Brian’s bio later in this issue!
2019 BC Fairs Annual Scholarship and the Bingo Hauser Memorial
Schol-arship application deadline is April 30th, please help us
promote these wonderful opportunities to the youth in your
community! Applications are available to download from our
web-site.
In closing, I just want to remind ev-eryone, over the past
several years, BC has experienced an increase in devastating forest
fires – many of our fair members and their communities have been
adversely impacted either directly or indirectly. Nearly half of
all wildfires in BC are caused by hu-man carelessness. Let’s all
help to promote public awareness and forest fire prevention!
Best regards, Janine Saw
Executive Director
A Message from our Executive Director
BC Association of Agricultural Fairs
and Exhibitions
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6 LiveWire - Spring 2019
Commercial Members CornerA message from Commercial Director Ben
Lefler
A Message from AssistExpo
Calling all fairs!!! As we embark on an exciting new era with
great initia-tives being launched to share and discuss new
information and issues that affect all of us in the fair industry.
It could not be a better time to grow our base of knowledge by
welcom-ing new members on board. As the commercial members
director, I have created an initiative to start reforming our
commercial members base. This will be an effort to bring more value
to
fairs by way of variety, uniformity, an expansion of ideas and
knowledge.
I am hoping you can all dig up some referrals for some potential
new and reputable commercial members of contractors and suppliers
that have delivered services to your fairs in the past.
Once I have collated a list of potential new members, I will
begin canvass-ing these referrals and presenting
the vast benefits of being a BC Fairs member.
I appreciate your time, thoughts and co-operation on this and
look forward to seeing you all on the other end of the log real
soon.
Please email me at [email protected]
or call 604-765-8836 to pass on your referrals!
I’d like to thank the BC Fairs Associ-ation for inviting
AssistExpo last Oc-tober to demonstrate our software at the annual
conference; it was a great opportunity for AssistExpo and we’re
proud to be a member of BC Fairs as we believe we can make a
difference!
To all the BC Fairs member who are interested in using
AssistExpo, we want to apologize for any delays in responding to
your requests. We’ve received more inquiries than usual
and had to reorganize our team to meet the increased demand. I
am very pleased to advise, that we now have new staff in place and
their train-ing will be completed shortly.
AssistExpo has been praised for our exceptional software and
quality of support service. Maintaining that rep-utation is why
we’ve taken the steps to ensure AssistExpo will continue to provide
the same quality and service.
In closing, I’d like to thank all the BC
Fairs members who are already using
AssistExpo; thank you for your contin-
ued support and we look forward to
working with you in 2019!
Michel St-Pierre
President and Founder
mailto:[email protected]
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7LiveWire - Spring 2019
4-H BC Rabbit Show Update2018 was a challenging year for 4-H
rabbit clubs and for fairs and exhibi-tions hosting 4-H rabbit
shows around the province due to the unfortunate outbreak of Rabbit
Haemorrhagic Disease (RHD). RHD is an extreme-ly infectious and
lethal disease of rabbits; it does not affect any other species.
Multiple rabbits on Vancou-ver Island and the Fraser Valley were
confirmed to have been killed by RHD in the spring of 2018.
Following the outbreak, on the advice of our consulting
veterinarian, all 2018 4-H rabbit events were cancelled or put on
hold. Later in the season, 4-H rabbit shows were permitted outside
of the directly affected areas, but only for animals who had
received the RHD vaccine.
Looking ahead to 2019, 4-H BC has determined that in areas where
rabbit deaths occurred (Fraser Valley and Vancouver Island) only
rabbits with vaccination certificates should be present at 4-H
events until the end of June. After June 2019, if no further
outbreak occurs, rabbit activities in
these areas can return to normal with no vaccination
certificates required. 4-H rabbit events and shows hosted in areas
other than Fraser Valley and Vancouver Island can proceed as per
normal starting in January 2019, with no vaccination certificates
required.
We’d like to thank everyone involved in this difficult situation
for their cau-
tion and attention to biosecurity best practices. Hopefully 2019
will be a safe and fun year for 4-H rabbit club members and their
projects.
Thank you,
Aleda Welch Manager
4-H British Columbia
News
CHO CES
The Youth Development Program where
YOU HAVE
4-H BC Clubs offer a variety of projects within our 4
pillars.Visit 4hbc.ca for more information or call 250 545 0336
4-H British Columbia
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8 LiveWire - Spring 2019
News
Celebrating the rich tradition of Agricultural Fairs
Last summer I had the opportunity to experience a number of our
Vancou-ver Island Fairs. Each fair unique in its own way. The
Cowichan Exhibition and the Saanich Fair celebrated their 150th
birthdays in 2019! This is a testament to the resilience of the
community fair. Although staying with their roots they provide
relevant and important information to the local farmers and
constituents of their communities and beyond.
The Saanich Fair was created in 1868 when ten farmers, all
located in the Saanich region, decided to host an agricultural
fair. The event allowed the farmers, and other community mem-bers,
to compare their livestock, crops and crafts in friendly
competition, it also allowed bragging rights for their
accomplishments. The first fair was held on a field owned by one of
the ten farmers, and each year the fair would move to another farm
field until even-tually moving to its permanent home in 1992 on
Stelly’s Cross Road in Saanich.
Exhibit Hall at the Saanich Fair
The 2018 Saanich Fair theme was “150 - Years Then and Now”
featuring ‘A Fam-ily A Fair’. The organizers created dis-plays that
gave fair visitors a glimpse of what the fair was like 150 years
ago with many of the volunteers and orga-nizers dressed in period
clothing. The
opening ceremonies included local, provincial and federal
dignitaries, in-cluding the BC Minister of Agriculture, Lana Popham
and Federal Green Party Leader, Elizabeth May. Members of the BCAFE
board, including our Ex-ecutive Director, were also invited to the
ceremony. The highlight of the ceremony was the ribbon cutting,
with some of the decedents of the original ten farmers. It was
exciting for me to see Parker Springford, from Nanoose, as part of
the ribbon cutting ceremony.
I was struck by the Saanich fair, in that, although the fair
offered new and ex-citing exhibits, yet the commitment to promoting
agriculture was woven throughout the grounds. The high-lights for
me included the Farmer’ market, the livestock and poultry dis-plays
and who couldn’t miss the ‘men’s Apple Pie baking contest. Didn’t
know how many men in the Saanich region could actually bake
pie!
The Cowichan Fair located in the Co-wichan Valley just north of
Duncan also celebrated their 150th birthday last September! The
fair’s theme was ‘150 Years of Growing’. This fair be-gan in 1868
and moved to its present location in 2009.
The 150th Cowichan Exhibition opened on Friday September 7th;
there were many invited dignitaries including the Honorable
Lieutenant Governor of Brit-ish Columbia, Janet Austen, and it was
an honour for our BCAFE representa-tives to have the opportunity to
meet her. Her worship was keenly interest-ed in activities that
were underway at the fair, especially, the exhibits in the Exhibit
Hall.
Cowichan Exhibition 150th Anniversary Exhibit
The return of the “Loggers Sports Competition” was a special
anniversary special, the last time this competition was held at the
fair was in the1980’s! The competition honours the deep history of
logging in the Cowichan Valley and it’s return to the fair was a
tremendous success.
The Mellor Hall (Exhibit Hall) display was fantastic; it was one
of the best displays of crafts, baking, flowers and horticulture
that I have seen, most memorably was the ‘Decorated Hat’
competition! The hall itself was dec-orated with flagging
identifying each section and the 150th theme was cre-atively
carried throughout.
Both the Saanich Fair and Cowichan Exhibition provide a
testament in stay-
Continued on next page...
Opening Ceremonies at the Saanich Fair
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9LiveWire - Spring 2019
News...Continued from previous page
ing relevant to their communities in pro-viding agricultural
education and providing healthy competition for community mem-bers
to show their skills. Each of these fairs mix the old with the new
and have been successful for 150 years!
I believe that agricultural fairs are a signif-icant part of our
communities, from small to big. They provide a place where
families, old and young, can look back to when times were simpler
and learn about our agriculture history. They give children the
opportunity to touch and see animals that they may not otherwise
have in their daily lives. They offer support to other community
non-profit organizations and bring economic benefits to local
businesses!
A number of fairs have expressed concern over a decline in
exhibit entries; this is a call-out or call-to-action for fair
organizers to bring the young millennials into the fold and teach
them the importance that agriculture plays in their lives and the
significant roll that agricultural fairs play in bringing awareness
of our farming communities.
Currently there are over 2,000 fairs that op-erate each year in
North America! BC Fairs have nearly 50 agricultural fair
associations in our membership; of those members, near-ly half are
celebrating 100 years or more in 2019, which I believe, proves that
agricultural fairs provide an important legacy to each
community.
Allison Bourne Director, BC Fairs
Meet Brian Casey, Opening Keynote
Speaker at the 2019 BC Fairs Conference!At the present time
Brian, along with his wife Janice and his daughter Courtney, show a
6-horse hitch of Clydesdales and breed and raise foals. At the age
of 14, Brian became an active participant at local shows, bar-rel
racing, as well as helping his father Keith show draft horses.
After graduating from Nova Sco-tia Agricultural College in 1976,
he and his father bought a dairy farm. This led to the start of
showing dairy cattle. During this time, he became involved with the
dairy and draft horse committees at his local exhibition. In
2005-2006 he was president of the Hants Coun-ty Exhibition, North
America’s old-est agricultural fair. In 2007-2008 Brian was elected
president of the Exhibition Association of Nova Scotia; he was then
elected to the CAFE board in 2008. In 2014 he was re-elected to the
position of president of the Hants County Ex-hibition and helped
guide this fair to celebrate its 250th anniversary in 2015 as the
oldest Agricultural Fair in North America. He held this position
until 2016.
Brian’s involvement in various community organizations has been
constant throughout his ca-
reer. He is a past president of the Hants County Federation of
Agri-culture; the West Nova Holstein Club; the Nova Scotia Holstein
Association; and the Nova Scotia Animal Breeders Association. His
efforts are not limited to the world of agriculture, although he
does offer farm tours for various local 4-H groups, school groups,
and local community groups. He also sings in the church choir and
is President of his local cemetery association.
Although retired from the CAFE board, Brian is still involved in
fairs and exhibitions, sitting on various boards and committees.
Brian is a firm believer in small fairs; it is the small fairs that
are the backbone of the industry and it is the small fairs who need
to continue to educate the public on the importance of the
agricultural industry.
We need to preserve our heritage and continue to impress upon
the ever-growing population, the important role that agriculture
plays today. The trick is, we need to educate and entertain at the
same time so people will have fun and learn at the same time. A
daunting task to say the least.
A handmade hat on display at the Cowichan Exhibition
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10 LiveWire - Spring 2019
News
As organizations continually look for competitive advantages and
ways to grow, programmatic has presented a unique opportunity to
target audiences with incredible precision plus it`s very
inexpensive!
This form of digital marketing relies on software and algorithms
that display your Fair`s advertisements in real time to your
audience across any device they own with internet connectivity.
It also provides the ability for your Fair to measure their
return on marketing investments down to the penny.
To keep things simple - as market-ing buzz words are
manufactured on a near daily basis - we refer to programmatic as
any form of on-line advertising where a computer is bidding for the
right to display your ad to someone on an online platform.
These include, but are not limited to Google AdWords, the Google
Display Network (GDN), program-matic display networks, mobile
phones and tablets, social media apps and websites (Facebook,
Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, You-Tube)
To advertise on these platforms effectively, you need to
identify your audience through three pa-rameters. Where is your
audience located, who are they and what are they doing online? Once
these
questions are answered a blend of the platforms are used to
accom-plish your objectives.
You could market directly to vis-itors of your physical location
or website, attendees to other events in your market, or to an
individual who has a similar profile to those existing guests that
visit your Fair. There is a near limitless variety of uses for
programmatic advertising - the important thing to realize is you
can target specifically to reach only those you identify as
possible attendees to your Fair. Each time someone fitting the
parameters you`ve selected opens an app on their phone, surfs the
web, search-es on Google or visits a social me-dia platform, they
are shown your ad. The objective being to drive them to your
website, call your of-fice, fill out a form you need or get them to
your Fair.
The good news about program-matic and digital marketing is that
it makes a wide-variety of mar-keting opportunities accessible to
anyone with a computer or internet access.
Need help getting your program-matic program going or have more
questions - send me an email [email protected] or call me
at 1-250-897-5055. It`s easier than you think!
Keith Currie Director BC Fairs
DIGITAL MARKETING:
What Is Programmatic?
FRIDAY NIGHT
SOCIAL
Friday, October 18, 2019 Sun Peaks Grand Hotel, Sun Peaks
BC Association of Agricultural Fairs
and Exhibitions
• Costume Contest • Prizes • Games •
BC Association of Agricultural Fairs and Exhibitions’
FRIDAY NIGHT SOCALThis Year’s Theme: Zombie Apocalypse
ZOMBIEAPOCALYP
SE
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]
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11LiveWire - Spring 2019
News
Livestock Traceability FAQ’sWhat do I need to do this summer for
livestock traceability?
There is nothing different you need to do for this summer.
However, since 2014, fairs and exhibitions have been deemed
responsible to ensure all animals who arrive on the grounds have
approved tags. The best prac-tice to be compliant with this is to
tell all exhibitors that their animals will not be allowed on the
grounds if they are not properly tagged. You can include these in
your rules and regulations and include signage on your grounds at
at your entrances to support this regulation.
What is going to possibly change?
There are proposed changes that will mean your fair or
exhibition will be obligated to record and submit when animals
arrive on and leave your fairgrounds.
When will these changes likely hap-pen?
We have just received notice that the earliest these changes
will be dis-
cussed is Spring/Winter 2020. Which means likely final approval
will not occur until late 2020. You will likely have to implement
changes in 2021.
The regulations need to be published in the Canadian Gazette
(Spring/Win-ter 2020) with a 75 day comment peri-od. The comments
are then reviewed and the final version will be published in the
Canadian Gazette. Once the final version is published, the rules
will be implemented.
Why did the Canadian Cattle Iden-tification Agency (CCIA) email
me?
As part of the proposed changes, you will need to get a premise
identifica-tion number, and the CCIA is working to collect these
numbers because they are the “responsible adminis-trator” for
livestock traceability (aside from pigs).
What animals are subject to live-stock traceability?
The proposed changes would mean that cows, cervids (ie: bison),
sheep and pigs would all be subject to
livestock traceability, if they aren’t already.
Where does our industry stand on this?
The provinces and national organi-zation (CAFE) have signed a
position statement on livestock traceability. We are not in favour
of fairs and exhi-bitions being responsible for tagging and
reporting.
What should I do?
More information will follow on how you can support the position
state-ment before and during the 75 day comment period mentioned
above. It is important that we have a unified voice in advocating
for change. At this point, you should:
1. Amend your regulations to speci-fy that all animals arriving
on your grounds require approved tags
2. Sign up for a premise identifica-tion number and inform CCIA
of this number (it will be required regardless of whether fairs and
exhibitions are responsible for submitting when animals arrive on
and leave the fairgrounds)
3. Monitor your inboxes for emails from CAFE and BC Fairs
regard-ing next steps.
If you have any questions or con-cerns, do not hesitate to
contact Christina Franc at CAFE, [email protected]
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[email protected]
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