There is often a mistaken perception in Weyburn that there is “nothing to do” or, if children and youth are to be believed, “it’s boring here on the weekends”. If one takes an honest, good look at what is happening in and around Weyburn most weeks, there is no shortage of activities and events going on.
What tends to happen instead is some weekends groups pile event upon event to the point that some planned events will suffer, because people can’t divide themselves or their pocketbooks to go to everything that is on.
Perhaps this is a reaction by organizers to the mistaken perception that nothing is happening here, and the result is that non-profit groups see a less-than-stellar response to their carefully-planned and organized fundraiser event.
At times, there are competing non-profit fundraisers competing for people’s attention, such as the upcoming weekend of Aug. 24-25, when the United Way is presenting a concert jam on the Saturday, and Weyburn Minor Football is also holding a fundraiser event on their new football field.
This is not a slight on either group, as they are both valuable organizations, and both events are very worthy of support — but they may end up hurting each other if people decide they can only go to one or the other, but not both events.
The advantage in this case is these are two very different organizations, and the simultaneous scheduling may not affect them very much — or, in the best scenario, people will decide to attend each event, and give support to both organizations.
One other factor that impacts on many groups in Weyburn is the tendency to wait until the last minute to buy tickets for things, especially if advance ticket sales are needed.
This doesn’t just happen once in a while, this happens as a regular occurence, and any volunteer organization or group who puts on an event to garner public support can tell you how this affects them.
Even groups like the Weyburn Concert Series and the Rotary Club have found this to be the case, and there have been fundraisers cancelled for the simple reason that there wasn’t enough support in advance to be able to hold the event. (An example is the Lobsterfest that the Rotary and Comp SRC were going to hold in May, which had to be cancelled.)
Weyburn is a very good city for both volunteerism, and for supporting charitable events and fundraisers. What needs to happen is some way to coordinate the efforts of groups in the city so they don’t conflict with each other, and to provide support ahead of time when it’s needed, then the support can be spread throughout the community to benefit everyone.
