Members of the Cochrane & Area Events Society (CAES) gathered last week for their annual general meeting with a renewed hope for a year of in-person events.
Held on March 15 at the Cochrane Royal Canadian Legion, the meeting focused on the successes of the last year and the outlook for 2022, which members say is poised to be a return to normalcy.
"We're going back to normal," CAES president Erika Richards told members. "Our outlook for 2022 is that it will be slightly more boring than the past two years. We're not going to have as many fires to put out, and hopefully, we'll be going back to normal."
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, CAES has continued to put on community events, but a large portion of them have been held virtually. Still, like the Labour Day parade, others were altered to fall within public health regulations.
"It's something we're exceptionally proud of," Richards said. "We stayed COVID-19 conscious and compliant the entire time."
As the organization looks towards a year that looks more like pre-pandemic times, they say they are on the hunt for a renewed volunteer base after some of their volunteer numbers dropped over the course of the pandemic.
"We still need more volunteers," said CAES board member Lucille Johnsrude. "We rely on our volunteers, but a lot of them are ... people who are older and therefore are often a little more concerned about COVID-19, so it was a bit of a double-edged sword in that they had the time but were at a higher risk, so it was a bit more difficult to rely on the people we usually count on."
With their first major event of 2022 slated to be Canada Day celebrations, CAES is hopeful they'll be able to draw the same volunteer numbers they typically had in years before COVID-19.
"We need about 60 to 65 volunteers on Canada Day to function," said board member Marina Chabbert. "It's a big draw and we need people to step up to the plate."
Those interested in volunteering can reach out to CAES through their Facebook page or website directly at cochraneevents.ca.
According to the organization's board, there's also a need for more sponsorship. Due to COVID-19, some of the traditionally available funding to groups like CAES was not given out. This year, they are hoping to replenish those missing funds.
"We'll have to write the letters, send out the packages, follow up and just chase people for sponsorships," said Richards. "In the last couple of years, even though we were putting on events and getting support, the finances weren't there from grants because they weren't issuing a lot of grant money and some sponsors were just unable to step up to the plate during that time. So we will have to do a big push."
However, there has been good news as CAES announced they received $7,000 in grant funding from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts. The money is distributed to organizations that hire Canadian artists to reimburse a percentage of the cost associated.
CAES said they received the total amount of funding from the program this year.
