The countdown to this year’s Euroa Agricultural Show is quietly ticking away behind the scenes down at Charles Street.
It is by degrees that the Agricultural Society’s committee, led so successfully since March last year by its president Lyndal Dean, builds not only on the previous 133 years of history, but also on the day-to-day and year-to-year development of the showground site as needed.
Installing something as simple as a large cupboard and filling it with matching crockery and cutlery is no trivial matter for Euroa’s Ag Society as it adapts for the future.
Grant applications are always in the pipeline, as is expected for such a large volunteer-run organisation, and last week’s allocation of $10,000 to the society by Strathbogie Shire takes the well-developed kitchen to a more professional level which will in turn allow for more hiring out of the venue to generate further income.
“The grant complements what we have got already to help develop the facility over time,” Lyndal said.
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“This will attract hirers; this makes their decision making so much easier.”
The kitchen looks impressive already with commercial-standard benches, brand new gas stove, and large range hood.
Matching crockery in a safer and more accessible built-in cupboard is possibly the last stage needed to make the facility more attractive as a venue for hire and more functional as a place of last refuge in any natural disaster.
Committee member Andrew Douglas said the kitchen was still ‘a development’.
“You do it over time to the standard that is suitable,” Andrew said.
“So, the next stage, for example, is to put a dishwasher in.
“Matching crockery and a cupboard that is vermin proof will be up to the standards we have today.”
There is a timeline for other projects at the site, some of which may or may not be undertaken before 25-26 October, including the Charles Street fence which needs replacing after the 2022 floods, and roofing over the toilet block.
However, as both Lyndal and Andrew represent a committee who are all farmers, deadlines are met with healthy pragmatism.
“We might be able to get one more project done before the show if we are successful with the grant,” Andrew said.
“You’re working so hard to get the show going and organising your own energy levels – especially with this drought – remembering we’re all farmers or have a connection with rural communities.
“That impacts as well.”
Lyndal said that now more than ever in a post-COVID world and on the hoped-for end of a statewide drought, farmers need to come to this year’s show for the most basic of reasons.
“Just forget about the farm for that day, or a few hours, whatever it is,” she said.
She said the energy needed behind this year’s event was founded on the very challenges farmers now face.
“That's what my passion is: to get farmers realising that it's not the be-all-and-end-all to be on the farm every day.
“And you can do that when you're in here, because you're completely away from the farming environment.”
She glances at her watch: “And my husband is a classic example of that – he's on the spray cart right at the moment.”
Because of that very reason, the show remains for Lyndal a fundamental grounding space for farmers simply to chat.
“I think the biggest thing is that they just talk,” she said.
“Unless they go to a sale or some other farming related event, the show is the only other place that they talk, but I think the show is different, because it's social.
“They're not coming in for any other purpose other than to have a look at the show and a chat with others.”
Andrew said the event would also draw farmers away from the recent dry.
“It is not something like going to a forum where it's all talking doom and gloom about the drought,” he said.
“It's going to an event that everybody enjoys and becomes a distraction from the drought that they're all going through at the moment.
“I think people will come out of the woodwork, people who have been stuck on farms feeding out every day, and going through the day-to-day trauma of this drought, to get something positive out of an event like this.
“They just need that scope.”
The use of Binney Street shopfront windows during the pandemic to showcase what could be salvaged from the event during lockdown has remained as an option to promote this year’s event, and the committee is looking for businesses in town who can give up some window space for exhibits to get the town excited.
Andrew said the committee is planning to do ‘something down the street’ during September as a promotion.
“During COVID, people walked past windows and said ‘Oh, we can’t wait until the show comes back’.”
With record crowds during the last two years indicating a strong bounce back from one pandemic and two floods, the Euroa Agricultural Show will reign for another century yet.
Lyndal and Andrew, in their genuine style, have no time for such hyperbole – they need to get back to their respective farms.
Their day rolls on, but the Euroa Ag' Show is twelve-and-a-half weeks away from rolling into town.
