The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
The 27th Annual Denare Beach Winter Festival has been canceled due to a declining level of community support. Although a handful of people have come forward with offers to volunteer during the festival itself, no one at all seems interested in forming a Planning Committee. Faced with this growing problem year after year, the Recreation Board made the difficult decision to call off this long standing event. Without a Winter Festival Committee, the three day event is too difficult to take on. Public notices and articles in the community newsletter invited residents to attend a Winter Festival meeting on November 29. No one showed up. The meeting was rescheduled for December 7. Again no one came. Currently only three people sit on the Denare Beach Recreation Board; six seats have been vacant for an extended period of time. With such a small recreation board and no community members willing to sit on a Winter Festival Committee, the decision was made Wednesday to cancel the event. It appears that the mention of the word committee will send people running for the door. "It's not just this year. Each year it has become increasingly difficult to form this committee," says Mary Wright, Vice Chair of the Denare Beach Recreation Board. "People just don't want to commit to something. They don't mind volunteering for an hour or two and flipping a few burgers, but what we need are people who will help plan the festival and take on the responsibility of a specific area." Back in 1999, Denare Beach saw its last Beaver Lake Day due to the same lack of interest. It takes a whole team of people to divide the workload of such a huge event and these days most people say they are just too busy. The generation who started these events are now entering retirement. Their kids have grown up, and their interests have changed. No one else seems willing to pick up the ball. Things have changed. Twenty years ago we all didn't have the Internet, Playstations or 200 satellite channels to keep us entertained all winter. "Maybe it's because people's priorities have changed," says Recreation Director, Natasha Thomson. "With all these other forms of entertainment so readily accessible, maybe people don't feel the Winter Festival is as important as it once was. The need for socialization and entertainment is being met in other ways." The Denare Beach Winter Festival was something we will all miss, but it was designed to be a community event ? put on for the community, by the community. Without a dedicated team of community members taking charge of old events, planning new events, and pulling it all together, it became too much for the too few left holding the reins.
