By: Timothy Kays
The Coronavirus pandemic is impacting entities and organizations across the board, and the teleconferenced April 16 meeting of the Williams County Agriculture Society showed that that the Fair Board is by no ways immune to the trend.
“Just so everyone is aware all rentals through May 1 have been cancelled,” said Board President, Matthew Kennedy. “That is basically as such per the stay-at-home order issued by the Governor of Ohio. That’s where we sit right now.”
“Looking through building rentals into the future, just so that everyone on the Board is aware, there are no building rentals in the Gillette building until August at this point now, so incomes from buildings and ground rentals are going to be slim.”
Kennedy continued, “Just so everyone is aware, the computers in the Ticket Office need to be replaced as they will not support an upgrade to Windows 10. They are currently at Windows 7, which has gone end of life. The estimated cost to replace those is going to be roughly $1,000…not looking to spend that just yet.”
“Looking at the Fair Book, I’m still waiting on a lot of updates for most of the classes. I know Scott has his ready, I just need to get together with him. The only other one that I’ve received is for needlework, crafts and baking. So please reach out to me if you need to get those updates or you have any questions, concerns or issues of getting that information to me. Sponsorship…roughly half of what we have at the free entertainment stage is currently sponsored.”
“We have spoken with the Defiance County Fair Board in regards to working gates,” Kennedy added. “They’re going to get back to us with the exact days, but it sounded like a Tuesday and Thursday at their Fair.”
“So we’re going to need some volunteers as we get closer to that. We should be able to solidify that up. Basically, if we give them two evenings worth of work, they’ll reciprocate the same to us for covering the gates.”
“Yes, as far as grounds keeping and mowing,” said Dave Page, “…we’re going to go off the same pattern we ran last year. Right now the Gravely is down. It’s not really down; the tank of gas is empty. We’re not going to fill it at the present time to conserve our money. The fuel is in it. We’re going to use that to mow up around the office, because that one can get into the tighter places.”
“So we’ll be running the John Deere, the New Holland and the big John Deere. Everything is all hooked up been completely greased and gone through. Everything is ready to roll. I would like to do this on a mass text to everybody that’s interested. Make sure you get a hold of me; we will put you on a mass text.”
“When you mow a section, please do the mass text. That way everybody knows, because we had a little bit of confusion last year. Guys would come in to mow, and it was mowed. We’re just trying to save some people from running in to mow when it’s already done.”
“As far as the sprayer goes,” Page continued, “…the part is ordered to fix the leak in the bottom. As soon as that’s fixed, we will be getting to start spraying. I’m just waiting on the part to come in. We had a bad fitting.”
“In regards to buildings and grounds and whatnot,” Kennedy added, “…just to make everybody aware that the main breakers in all buildings except for the Thaman and the maintenance barn have been turned off to see if that will help in reducing the electric bill.”
“All but about six security lights have been turned off as well. The only reason those are still on is I couldn’t find the switch or a way to turn them off. We’ll see if that reduces our electric bill off that three phase meter down from the $1,200 range when nothing’s going on.”
“We have postponed the interviews for Queen competition,” reported Danyel Wortkoetter. “We haven’t set an actual date; we’re waiting to announce that when we know everything’s good. 4-H – I had a meeting last night with the dogs…not face to face. 4-H is not allowed to be face to face and socialize.’
“We’re looking at the Queens not doing interviews at least till after that. We did talk a little bit about dogs. They’re working on trying to get numbers up on that. We still don’t know for sure. We won’t know until the end of April or the first of May how many dogs people were looking at.”
“I’m pretty excited with where we are in light of the pandemic,” said Stacey Perry, 4-H OSU Extension Educator. “I really thought our numbers would be hurting this year, and today, our enrollment broke 550. I nearly cried a few days ago when we hit 500, because that was really my new goal.”
“Once we started sheltering in place, I thought we’d be doing lucky with that. So our numbers have held steady, rivaling what we had last year. Pre-pandemic, my goal was to hit 600, but I’m pretty excited that we’re just maintaining what we had last year.”
In old business, Kennedy said that this would have been the meeting to review the committee budgets for approval. “It’s a big stack,” he said. “It’s kind of difficult to for people to do off of their phones or what not to look at them, so we’re looking at hopefully the next meeting we can meet face to face and we’ll review them at that time.”
In new business, Kennedy said, “We need to begin the process to of accepting bids for services for the week of Fair. We can review those for approvals at the June meeting. Just so that everybody is aware, we do not need to post them in the newspaper. I have confirmed that with our District One rep.” The Board approved the request without dissent.
The Board then addressed a request from Dan Ankney to have a 9/11 Memorial Fundraiser during the 2020 Fair, using the grandstands for a step climbing event. “Looking at the when the grandstand is not being used,” Kennedy said, “…the only available date we would have would be Sunday.”
The original request was for Friday, September 11, but that was seen as not practicable. “I let him know that that’s haul-in day for livestock. That’s entering for merchants, vendors and concessionaires. It’s a really chaotic, hectic day, and it wouldn’t be something that I think we’d be able to do on that day, just simply because there’s a lot going on.” Dave Page moved to table the item until more specifics could be received, and the Board agreed to the motion.
Timothy can be reached at tim@thevillagereporter.com