The Olds Regional Exhibition's first female president said her premiere priority for the organization is to make it "sustainable.
The Olds Regional Exhibition's first female president said her premiere priority for the organization is to make it "sustainable."
"We have to make sure things are in place for the long haul," said Anne Burgess, who was elected to her post in May and also serves as the general manager of the Canadian Limousin Association, an organization that assists producers with marketing Limousin cattle.
She said the exhibition needs to be more "self-conscious" of its finances while finding a "balance" between the cost of hosting agricultural events in town and the revenues such events bring in.
"We're finding out that there's got to be a happy medium, that sometimes more is not more. While you have more events and more booked days and more things happening, it also takes more staff, it takes more resources, more power," Burgess said, adding the trick is finding the "sweet spot" where exhibition facilities are busy enough to keep the organization's current staff well utilized while bringing in revenues that keep pace with expenses.
"I think that's what we have not achieved, maybe, in previous years. It's up and down. We've made some investments that were well justified at the time that were made but something along the way happened that it turned out they just did not give us any return on investment."
An example of such an investment, she said, is the exhibition's MegaDome.
While the facility is used frequently, it has taken up a great deal of the exhibition's resources while expected financial support for the facility from the province did not come due to changes in government and a faltering of Alberta's economy, Burgess said.
As for the exhibition's recent loss of events such as the Team Roping Canada Finals to facilities in other parts of the province, Burgess said such changes have allowed the exhibition to save on some expenses such as staff time and power costs.
Serving as the exhibition's first female president is something Burgess considers a "milestone."
"It meant a lot because when I think of agriculture in this area, it's very much a family business and there's been many, many females on the board and even actually right now we have a majority of ladies on our board. So to be the first one is first off a little bit surprising but it just adds to the honour."
Having grown up on a beef cattle farm in Quebec, Burgess graduated from Montreal's McGill University's agricultural program.
"Agriculture is in my blood and in my everyday life," she said.
When asked why it has taken the exhibition, which was founded in the 1890s, this long to elect a female president, she said it came down to "timing."
"When it comes time to selecting executive members it's not a matter of being a male or a female. It's a matter of understanding the objective for the organization, having the time to commit to an organization of that sort," Burgess said.
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