Apple Blossom Tyme Festival 2018

One of the local projects that I sit on the committee for is the organizing committee for the local Apple Blossom Tyme Festival. This festival has been running for 30 years and has been organized by a small group of local community members. There are about twelve people sitting on the committee.

My role there has been to represent the Legion and provide whatever support the branch has been able to do. This has usually been in the form of us hosting a dinner as part of the festival weekend. This year it was the kick off event for the weekend.

Since I wasn’t involved in the preparation of the dinner as I’ve often been in the past, I was available to help out at the festival. This was a first for me to actually be down on the festival grounds in all the years I’ve sat on the committee. I looked after the information booth on Saturday.

The photos in this post are not presented in any particular order. They are a sample of the shots I took from the booth.

The festival is held on the grounds of the local arena complex with activities both inside and outside. The information booth was located outside at one end of the outside activities. I didn’t stray very far from the booth so the photos I took are limited to that area. There was much more going on though.

The festival is funded through sponsorships from local businesses, donations and the modest fee vendors pay to come to the festival. It’s a small community, so the funding is not very large. Some hard choices had to be made in order to deliver the festival that we did.

When I take a look at the resources which we available and what was delivered, I can fully appreciate the huge effort which went into the festival. Literally on a shoestring, a two day musical lineup was arranged with music available in the beer tent outside and the arena.

The kid zone included a reptile zoo, inflatables for them to play in, a rockwall to climb and a wataball activity. Only the watable had a charge to take part. There was also facepainting available. Buskers roamed the grounds over the weekend.

The fire department brought in static displays which included an extraction demonstration on each day. The police were present with displays and a couple of constables circulating around chatting with the attendees. Realtor Remax brought in their hot air balloon to give people rides in return for a donation to charity.

Inside along with the music cafe, were the bulk of the vendors selling their goods. Activities inside also included the baby contest, spelling bee and pie eating contest. Food vendors were available outside on the grounds and they did a brisk business.

On Saturday there was a tractor show with many antique tractors brought in to be put on display. Sunday was the car show which attracts over 100 cars of all vintages. Also on Sunday was a demonstration by the national award winning drumline from the local public school.

Later in the day than expected on Saturday the festival goers enjoyed a flyby from CFB Trenton of one of the Hercs as it flew low over the festival grounds and circled it a couple of times before heading back to base.

Since no admission is charged and people come in from various directions onto the grounds we have to estimate attendance based on crowd observations. The estimate was a few thousand people enjoyed the festival this year.

At the information booth I had opportunity to visit with many of those attending and getting feedback from them about their experience. For the most part it was very positive. We did get some complaints, some left me shaking my head like the mom who complained about the fee for the wataball and didn’t care that the rest of the kids zone was free for the kids to enjoy.

I can definitely say our furthest away guest came from Korea. The husband picked up a brochure of events at the booth. Perused it and pointed to the heading which told him the festival was 30 years old and asked, “really?” I nodded yes. He wandered off and returned with his wife who was more fluent in English.

They had landed in the States, crossed the border and was travelling along the lakeshore headed to Quebec. Saw the signs as they passed through the area and came down to check out the festival. They were thrilled.

A little while later a lady from a community 40 minutes away told me she had trouble finding the festival and that we didn’t have very good signage up. I expressed my surprised she had problems after a couple from Korea found us.

My kudos to the committee and the hard work they do. They did an amazing job, often in the face of local grumbling.

Until Next Time — Just Steem on

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