LRA president Cory Dunlop told LakelandTODAY.ca Thursday morning the association will instead go into “limp mode and if something changes, we will be ready to go.”
Last week, Dunlop was confident the season would have to be cancelled and it would be just a matter of the official decision being by the LRA board. But he said the group ultimately decided the ball was in the court of individual rodeo committees on the circuit to make the call on their event depending how things played out over the next several months.
“Some of the committees are organized and they would be ready. They’d probably only need two weeks to try and pull it off. Those are some of the ones who have said ‘look, if something happens late August or September we’d still like to try and have a rodeo’. That’s why we decided we are not going to cancel.”
Several LRA sanctioned rodeo events are already cancelled on the circuit and with Dr. Deena Hinshaw’s, Alberta’s chief medical officer of health, announcement that the order prohibiting gatherings of more than 15 people would remain through the summer months, Dunlop was pretty sure last week the LRA would move to cancel the season.
However, as many have already found out, trying to nail down plans for anything concrete over the next few months is a moving target.
“Right now, we are just playing it by ear and being in contact with our committees and seeing what their thoughts are. Some are holding off until the end of May to make some decisions. It’s a waiting game, we don’t have any definite answers on anything, kind of like everyone else in the world right now,” Dunlop said last week.
Whether or not the LRA’s decision last night will have any impact on the rodeo finals in St. Paul in September is, at this point, too early to tell.
Rodeo sponsorship through the season was already an unknown for the LRA.
“We haven’t even approached them because we just felt it was not appropriate to. When sponsors are laying people off, we’re not going to go and ask them for money.”
Weathering the storm
The LRA Finals is the premiere event for the St. Paul Ag. Society as the community host and it is St. Paul’s largest event of the year, running over four days.
“Rodeos are really dropping like flies right now,” president Doug Drolet said in speaking to the Journal last Wednesday.
The ag. society has already had to cancel the traditional spring high school rodeo, the Critter Auction is off the list and the Ag. Corral is closed so there’s no revenue coming into the organization through barn rentals.
However, Drolet is confident the organization will be able to ride out the year. He credits the late Dorine Kuzma, a longtime executive member, for setting up an account to enable the society to survive, which has been maintained through the years.
“If we ever had a wash of a year, we could weather it,” Drolet said of the rainy day fund. “We can hold our own.”
This may not be the case for some of the province’s 293 ag. societies.
Earlier this month, the Alberta Association of Agricultural Societies (AAAS) announced the province had agreed to expedite the annual grant funding process to ensure the organizations receive their grant monies as early as May compared to the early summer, as is generally the case.
“During this unprecedented lockdown period expenses to maintain facilities, even at minimum levels, will continue to mount. With no revenue serious cash flow problems have already occurred due to cancelled event,” AAAS CEO Tim Carson said. “What are now viable ag. societies may not survive. The demise of these volunteer driven organizations would negatively impact the viability and vibrancy of communities across Alberta.”
