This year’s Rossland Fall Fair will feature a brand new category: themed table setting for two.
The fall fair will take place at the Rossland Arena on Saturday, Sept. 10 following the Golden City Days Parade. Attendees will have the chance to visit vendors, peek at some performances and take a gander at this year’s exhibits, including some creative table designs. For the first time, teams of a minimum of four people will compete to design an original place setting for two.
“They could, for example, use mismatched, funky dishes and centre pieces, or they could use some vintage dishes, or just have fun with that,” says Ursula Stephens, one of the fair’s organizers. “It’s something new that one of our section heads saw in a fair elsewhere and we decided we’d try it this year.”
There’ve been some other minor changes within categories as well. For example, photography now includes digitally manipulated photo images and sugar-free has been added to the breads and muffins category.
The wide variety of categories included in the fair is meant to make entry accessible to anyone, and everyone is encouraged to participate.
“[We] just encourage to look through their gardens and look through the photographs they’ve been taking,” says Stephens. “We really want to encourage everybody to participate.”
Prize money is given to the top three winners in each category —$3 for first prize, $2 for second and $1 for third — and of course there are ribbons to be won.
Those who want to enter the fair can drop off their entries on Friday, Sept. 9 from noon until 7 p.m. The fee for each entry is 50 cents unless otherwise noted in the Rossland Fall Fair brochure.
The day of the fair, spectators can once again expect to see the Golden City Fiddlers featured on the performance stage, and to see the Golden City Railway Modellers’ models on display. The Rossland Mountain Market will also once again be part of the fair, with plenty of local vendors set up outside the arena on Third Ave.
This year’s Rossland Fall Fair is funded in part by the Columbia Basin Trust’s Community Initiatives Program, which has funded the fair for the past three or four years.
“That’s been a huge help to us. It’s really enabled us to improve the fair,” says Laurie Karn, another fair organizer. “We’ve been able to make new permanent signage and provide things for the tables that we reuse over and over again.”
This year Karn bought 500 plastic tablecloth clips, so volunteers won’t have to go around carefully removing staples from the cotton tablecloths after the fair is over. In the past, they’ve also used the funding to buy tents for the fair’s outdoor vendors and petting zoo.
Stephens and Karn are still looking for more volunteers to help with the fall fair. Those interested can contact them at rosslandbc.fallfair@gmail.com. Rossland Fall Fair brochures and entry forms are available at businesses around town, including City Hall.