BARRHEAD – County of Barrhead councillors passed a motion at their July 18 meeting approving a $2,500 donation for the Barrhead Agricultural Society to assist with the running of Blue Heron Fair, which is set to take place Aug. 12-13, 2023.
County manager Debbie Oyarzun told council that the municipality’s financial contribution to the Blue Heron Hair “is not a perpetual grant that sits in your operating budget” and must come before council via the community grants policy.
Nevertheless, the request essentially ticks off all the boxes within the policy that must be filled in — they’re a registered non-profit society that provides services within the county, they have good standing within the community, and the event is a benefit to the municipality that can be accessed by the public.
Furthermore, the ag society has other sources of funding beyond the community grant and the $2,500 donation only represents a small portion of the event’s total budget, as the applicant is committing $49,000 of their own funds as well as volunteer hours.
Oyarzun said this was the seventh application received in 2023 for a donation through the community grant program.
They started with a $15,000 budget and had dispersed $7,250 so far, she said. If council approved this request, that would leave $5,250 in the budget.
Reeve Doug Drozd noted that, as part of the process of giving out such grants, the county would normally ask the recipient for a final report that detailed, among other things, a breakdown in volunteer hours.
“Is this necessary here in this case? Because we know it’s all volunteer hours, and our $2,500 of the total budget … is such a small part of it,” he said, adding that he didn’t want to pile work on the ag society.
Oyarzun said she didn’t see why the society couldn’t provide such a report, adding that as an event planner, they would likely be tracking the number of hours worked by volunteers anyway.
Coun. Bill Lane, who put forward the motion to approve the request, said the ag society was "a hard-working group” with some major plans for the future.
