Barham/Koondrook Show News

By Graham Minnis

Perhaps this should be called the “No Show News.”

Yes, as announced in The Bridge a couple of weeks ago, there will be no Barham Koondrook Show this year. The committee reluctantly came to the conclusion that it was not a viable option to continue with the organisation of a show which would almost certainly not be able to go ahead anyway. The social distancing requirements alone would be impossible to police and would be against the whole point of having a crowd interacting with each other during the show. It would have meant that we would have been setting up an organisation and making financial commitments that we would not have been able to follow through with, so it was decided that we should call the show off at this stage. Our apologies to our loyal entrants, backers and those who attended our show each year.

Most of the other shows in the Northern District which normally have been held during the spring time have been called off. Swan Hill, Mildura, Bendigo, Kerang and Boort have been cancelled. 

We hope to be back better than ever in 2021. This will be our sixtieth show so we will be making a special effort. We are encouraging everyone to keep up with the Art and craft work, cooking, growing plants etc. so that you can really show off next year. We need someone to knock Rocky off as the carrot cake champion. With the lockdown, many people have been working in their gardens more than ever. We hope that we will have more gardens entered in the show and the plant sections will be looking even better than they usually are.

We do have some good news, however. We have been successful in gaining a grant through the Murray River Council for an update to the main pavilion. Details are still being worked out but the pavilion should be a much safer and attractive venue for the show in the future. Hopefully we will be able to give more details soon. We have also been successful with a grant from the Council to buy a new display fridge for the canteen area.