by PAUL RAYNER

Plans were for the success of the 2006 Homegrown Reunion to have an effect on the Turtle Island Festival, but the effects may be deeper than originally intended.

The festival committee held a meeting with the public on November 1. The purpose of the meeting, according to committee co-chair Jack Fuller was to get some of the spirit of this summer’s celebration into the annual festival, which is to return in the summer of 2007 after a one-year hiatus.

“We learned a lot of stuff this summer,” Fuller stated. “A lot of good things happened, and what was good was the whole town was involved.”

Fuller was referring to the fact that Homegrown Reunion committee turned over many of the events at the anniversary celebrations to individual groups in the community. The success of the event cannot be denied, and part of that success was due to the community involvement. The TI Fest committee would like to see something quite similar.

Fuller said they would be willing to give groups who took on individual events the profits of their work, minus an amount to help keep the festival going. As well, the committee would take care of basic advertising, although extra promotion would be the responsibility of the organizing group.

“There are events we would like the organizations to take over. We need volunteers and lots of volunteers.”

Fuller went through a few of the items they had planned already for TI Fest 2007. For example, there will be the Friday evening dinner, held in the past by the committee and the Town and RM. They are also looking at a Saturday evening dinner. Plans are for a scavenger hunt, as well as a wagon train as there was this summer. The church service will be a go, as will be the demolition derby, turtle races, and stage shows, held in a tent which can hold 500 people.

In fact, one of the stage shows for sure has an entertainer. The committee has already booked Robert Larrabee from Calgary, who does a Legends Show. An impersonator, he covers a wide variety of artists, including Buddy Holly, Dean Martin, Conway Twitty and both of the Blues Brothers. He comes widely recommended.

Some of these events are ones the committee would like taken over by other groups. However, there was a bit of a snag for volunteers due to dates.

The original dates for 2007 TI Fest were August 10-12, similar to previous years. However, dates in August have always clashed with those in the farming community. As Neta Mains explained, in the past it caused a strain due to harvest, which made it difficult if not impossible to volunteer for either the Turtle Derby, which eventually switched to July, or attend events.

“It makes for a very busy weekend,” Mains said. “You won’t get people there because they are on the land. I think this is a farming community. If you want farmers to help out, don’t hold it on a harvest weekend.”

Discussion among participants moved to July dates. However, there is the traditional problem of very busy weekends. There are many different events across the region on July weekends, as well as people taking holidays. As TI Fest and long-time Turtle Derby member George Dyck stated, the move to July was not seen as fortuitous for the previous festival.

“Once we switched the Turtle Derby,” Dyck said, “it went down, down, down. That is the scary part of July.”

One weekend considered was the middle of the month, July 13-15. However, there was a clash with a major event, the 75th anniversary of the International Peace Garden. As PG Vice President Ed Anderson explained, that weekend was the exact one of the opening of the Garden in 1932. It would be an event with quite a bit going on, although Anderson could not report exactly at this point in time.

Discussion moved toward whether or not this was a problem. To some, it was a major clash, which would hurt the Turtle Island Festival. Co-chair Wayne Robertson said they had a bad experience that way when the Cancer Relay for Life was held at the Peace Garden the same weekend.

“It wiped us out,” Robertson said. “There was nobody around the next day.”

Others said the Relay was an all-night affair which hurt the volunteer base. The 75th anniversary would draw people to the area and some felt it would be a complement.

“There would be thousands of people there,” said Irvin Goodon. “I think there would be more spill over from it than the festival could attract on its own.”

Some agreed, but others were still concerned. Robertson wondered how they would fill a tent with 500 people for a show if they were all at the Peace Garden. TI Festival member Roxanne Goodon felt that for “every three hours they are there, it is three hours they are not here.”

Mayor Ed Anderson interjected with another possibility. Why not stick to the dates that were successful for the Homegrown Reunion?

“What was wrong with the end of July,” he said. “We never seem to know when this festival is. If you set the end of July, everybody, both in and out of town knows. I saw nothing wrong with the weekend we had.”

The dates in 2007 would be July 27-29. The one concern coming was the Legends Show. As Fuller explained, they had originally booked him for August, but he was still open for the middle of July as well. Further in that month was not set, although the co-chair said they were early enough to have a possibility. They had already put in their deposit, which is something they certainly did not want to lose.

The committee originally decided to recommend to the rest of their members the permanent move to the last weekend in July. However, in order to get the dates set, they later decided to make the move, conditional to the availability of their primary entertainer.

One area that looked very positive for the festival was the continued participation of the Cherry Creek Metis. They held a highly successful Metisville at the Homegrown Reunion this summer and have been involved in past Turtle Island Festivals. Roxanne Goodon said they plan to stay with the festival, and the only question is whether they will stay at the Turtle site or move over to the fairgrounds with the rest of the events. Regardless, they will help the overall situation.

“We wanted to stay with the Turtle Island Festival,” she explained. “We’re trying to make a great weekend for the town of Boissevain. We had at least 1500 people last year. No matter what location, we can offer more entertainment, more food and more people.”

Fuller lamented the low attendance from community groups at the meeting, which prevented commitments over individual events. However, others pointed out groups’ will often take over established events when asked, as they did last summer. When concerns about the effect of the work of the Festival committee came up, Dyck spoke up.

“Boissevain is going somewhere,” he stated, “because we put time into it as a community. If we slow down, then we will go down. We need this.”