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.
Certain popular aspects of this summer's Trout Festival are on the endangered species list due to a lack of volunteers. Without chairpersons for the Queen Mermaid Pageant, Main Street Days, and the Canada Day Parade, the community will not enjoy those time-honoured segments of the festival. "We're not going to write off any of the events until the last minute, but we need people to chair those committees or those events won't happen," said Trout Festival president Greg East. The loss of any of those events would be an unfortunate change for the Trout Festival, a Flin Flon and area institution for more than five decades. However, that wouldn't be the only alteration on the way. One change this summer will likely see the Fish Fry rock social move from the Whitney Forum to the smaller confines of the R.H. Channing Auditorium. The reason is simple: crowds have been smaller in recent years and the event has been losing money. "If it sells out this year, we will look at going back to the bigger venue," said East, adding that the R.H. Channing Auditorium can accommodate just under 600 people for a social. Trout Festival volunteers this year are working to help ensure the summertime tradition, which was in the red last year, at least breaks even this year. This will "enable us to ration out the nest egg that was put together over the last 50 years so that it can last into the future," said East. "To do that, we're going to have to make sure that we don't hold events that people don't want to attend." Of course, the Trout Festival isn't the only local volunteer endeavour suffering from a volunteer shortage. East said he realizes the public is busy but expressed hope that enough people would be found to make the festival go ahead in its entirety. The Trout Festival Committee will hold its next meeting on Thursday, February 19 at the Trout Room/Flin Flon Bomber office at the Community Hall. The meeting will get underway at 6 p.m. East encourages anyone interested in volunteering, or who has any ideas to improve the festival, to attend. East may be reached at 362-2331 for more information.
