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Jeff Rud
Times Colonist
Sunday, December 29, 2002A long-standing community festival that has showcased the colourful history of the logging industry may be chopped from the lower Vancouver Island summer calendar in 2003.
All Sooke Day, an annual July tradition for 68 years, has been cancelled by the Sooke Community Association.
The non-profit group says All Sooke Day, which has featured such competitions as axe-throwing, speed tree-climbing and log-balancing, has become too costly to stage. It has also become increasingly difficult to find enough volunteers to run the event.
Now it will likely be up to service clubs in Sooke to determine whether All Sooke Day can be preserved in some form.
"This (cancellation) has been talked about for quite a while,'' Harry Connor, president of the community association, said Friday.
The association owns and operates the community hall and both ballparks in Sooke. All Sooke Day has traditionally been its main fundraiser to maintain those facilities. But recently, Connor said, the event hasn't fared well financially. It lost money in 1999 and 2000, broke even in 2001 and turned only about a $5,000 profit this year.
In its heyday, All Sooke Day made "many times" that amount, said Connor.
But now there is greater competition for the public's attention, including the Moss Street Paint-In in Victoria, which drew more than 20,000 people on the same July Saturday this year. By contrast, All Sooke Day attracted only about 4,000 this year, compared to crowds of between 10,000 and 15,000 at its zenith.
The community association also raises money by renting its hall for convention business. But Connor said that without All Sooke Day, the organization would have to work on developing other methods to maintain its facilities and fund its charity efforts.
Besides being a disappointment as a fundraiser, All Sooke Day has taxed the association in terms of workload. As many as 100 volunteers, doing everything from parking to admissions to food concessions were needed to stage the event, traditionally held on the third Saturday of July.
"It's hard now,'' Connor said. "I think you'll find that a lot of people (in Sooke) are not really from Sooke any more. It's a growing community, but they're not all from Sooke.''
Connor said losing the event would "be a shock to the older people here. But it's a changing world.''
The community association will meet Jan. 6 to discuss the future of the event and the possible desire of local service clubs -- including the Lions, Legion, Rotary and Chamber of Commerce -- to keep it alive.
Sooke Harbour Chamber of Commerce president Rod Sluggett said he plans to call a meeting of service clubs, "so we will make something happen in 2003.''
"I think something will happen,'' he said. "I think it would be a shame to lose that weekend (for a Sooke event).''
But Sluggett believes the format must be changed. One of the problems with All Sooke Day as it has been staged recently is the prize money that had to be raised in order to attract competitors to the logger sports competitions. This year, it attracted about 60 entrants from as far away as New Zealand.
Sluggett envisions the event reverting back to something like it was at its inception in 1934.
"I see it being a big Sooke family picnic kind of a day,'' he said.
Sluggett envisages a number of events -- including a craft fair, the current Sooke Philharmonic Fling on the Flats and perhaps the bluegrass festival -- being combined into one major weekend festival.
Mayor Ed Macgregor would also like to see the event preserved in some form.
"It may change its format in some respects, but I don't think anyone wants to see it collapse and die,'' he said. "It's been around for 68 years. I've talked to a lot of people who have been kind of distressed."
The emphasis on logger sports may have to change, Macgregor added, because "the interest has changed in the community in general.''
"I think what they would try to do is make it more relevant.''
Former community association chairman and current Lions club member John Wilson believes the cancellation notice might be a positive thing, "now that they've got the community realizing they're going to lose this if they don't get behind it.''
