RELATED: Rising river no risk to field days
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RELATED: Community spirit shines
The Elmore Field Days committee believes the event’s strength comes from history and heritage.
It’s a strength that only time and connection to community can build – a strength that offers benefits which sometimes can’t be measured. Those connected to what is now one of the country’s leading agricultural field days know their event has largely been what has kept their town and the people in it, strong.
The event started more than 50 years ago, when a volunteer committee set up a display of farming machinery along the Campaspe River. As the event evolved, and moved to a new location closer to Elmore, the need for more support and volunteers grew. Now, it takes a dedicated committee and almost the entire population of Elmore to pull it together. Few who lived, or live, in Elmore can say they haven’t volunteered at the field days. It’s a badge of honour for those who take so much pride in saying they’re from the small central Victorian town. Because every person who volunteers their time at the event knows how much is then invested in their community. In the event’s 53 year history, almost $3 million has been given back to the local area – no small sum given the population is less than 1000.
Today, tomorrow and Thursday, you will see volunteers everywhere – they will be serving food and drinks, monitoring the car park, helping site holders, running the office and keeping an eye on the weather.
As president Derek Shotton says, conditions this week are challenging, but site holders and the committee have united. None of them mind a little mud on their boots. “We’ll have more staff on to help people out, and while operationally there might be a few gray hairs, we’re not expecting there to be too much of an impasse while people look for car parks,’’ he says. “We wouldn’t want to be complaining about what we’re copping here given what others are dealing with elsewhere in the state.”
The committee takes pride in the fact it remains connected to the past – as the website states: “We have never lost sight of our original purpose – to give primary producers the opportunity to learn about the very latest in farming, and to give manufacturers the opportunity to display and demonstrate those innovations. By staying true to these purposes, Elmore Field Days is as relevant today as it was more than 50 years ago’’.
And it’s the great people of Elmore who continue to make the event the success it is.
Nicole Ferrie, editor