Winter Show 2012

Hi everyone,
Just a heads up about a great opportunity to take part in a community orientated major city event next year.

The Waikato Winter Show Assn is reinventing the old Winter show as The Waikato Show at Claudelands Event Centre - see background and info below and it will be a much more community event. (it is not winter)

The huge venue is free, (although there are running costs in personnel etc) but I think it will be a fantastic opportunity to showcase environment and have fun as well - there will be a range of other community organisations, so it will have broad appeal for families. The theme is Waikato River.
So I will be talking with potential partners, and we are also looking at encouraging the event to be zerowaste, so lots of potential.

Because of Christmas and the holidays planning really needs to start now and the Winter show organisers are hoping to have undertakings from interested groups by the end of October so that the publicity materials can be put together.

As it is over a three day period, I realise that raises issues for organisations for manning a stand etc so I think a coordinated combined approach might be preferable.

Please start mulling this over -
- thinking how your group could participate, more from the aspect of putting together something interactive and fun
- whether your group would want to do something on their own or cooperatively as part of a larger stand.
- would you want inside and/or outside space - both will be available.
- would you want to run workshops (there are 3 rooms with AV upstairs available)

Keep in mind the cuts that HCC is likely to be making to services around the city, and think about how can we get more involvement from the general community.
So thinking hats on, let your imagination run freely! I will put out a form for more formal responses soon, but want everyone to have a good hard think about how we can really make the most of this opportunity.

The Environment Centre will be able to help groups to some extent through our support from Trust Waikato, so start thinking laterally.

cheers
Katherine

Waikato Winter Show Association was created in 1908 under the Agricultural and Pastoral Act. It was a group of businessmen in the Waikato that wanted to link the Agricultural community with the townspeople of Hamilton. Originally, the show was in Ward St, in the central city and wasn’t moved to Claudelands until 1968. The Waikato Winter Show Association and the Waikato A & P Association jointly owned the Claudelands Showgrounds, and the Waikato Show Trust was set up to manage this for them. When the land and buildings were sold back to the council, the WST continued to manage the investment and now both associations get a grant every year to ensure their continued operation.

As part of that sale and purchase agreement, both constituents have the right to all the land and buildings for 14 working days each year, unencumbered. This means we do not have to comply with the existing contracts that the Claudelands Event Centre have within their venue i.e. Montana Catering.

The Waikato Winter Show has had some significant changes in recent years, and took on an entertainment theme. This has proved to be an unsuccessful enterprise and these days we are going back to the historical roots and bringing the community back together. We will run a 3 day event that is focussed on attracting loyal and large numbers to the show through strong working relationships with all the various community groups around the Waikato, including business, sporting, cultural, service groups, education, agriculture and many more.

The proposal is that we The Waikato Winter Show Association provide the space within our show, and the enviro centre can effectively utilise that space to promote themselves and other community groups within it, to create an interactive and engaging presence within our community.

There will be no charge for the space used, but all costs that you incur will need to be covered. We want to work with you to create and build these programmes for the next 3 years and beyond. This will be advertised within our promotion and marketing material, and we encourage you to do your own advertising as well.

The Waikato Show will run over the 27th - 29th April 2012 and the opening times will be:

Friday 12:00pm - 8:00pm
Saturday 10:00am - 8:00pm
Sunday 10:00am - 4:00pm