OXFORD — Sleigh rides, barn dances and flea markets are some of the ideas the directors of the Oxford County Agricultural Society are considering for year-round and fair activities on the Oxford Fair grounds following a communitywide forum last week.

“These are just ideas that were thrown out,” Director Ann Bellwood said of the public forum held Jan. 15. Despite bad weather the forum was attended by about 20 residents from Oxford County, including some from Norway, Paris, Oxford, West Paris and Woodstock. A second forum is planned for March.

“We want community input. We want to know what the community wants,” Bellwood said. The society includes all of Oxford County towns and Poland, Mechanic Falls and Turner in Androscoggin County.

Directors of the 170-year-old association have said over the past few years that maintaining enough cash flow to operate the massive complex of buildings on the 100-acre parcel on Route 26 off Pottle Street with a small group of volunteers and revenues largely from the annual fair has made the operation increasingly difficult. While there has been good support from the businesses, there has not always been the type of support they need from the community at large.

“I think most of it is economics. People just don’t have the money to spend at the fair,” Bellwood said.

In 2006, the Maine Association of Agricultural Fairs presented the Oxford County Fair with the Most Improved Small Fair Award at its annual conference in Portland, but the struggling economy has caused a decrease in the number of fair-goers over the past five years, Bellwood said.

About $1.2 million has been spent in improvements to the fairgrounds over the past seven or eight years. Barns, including a $400,000 structure, and exhibit halls have been built, along with a racetrack and betting parlor. While directors said the construction changed the face of the annual September fair, and brought old-timers back to it, about 80 percent of the nearly $1 million in revenues the society pulls in each year is dependent on the Big O, also known as the Oxford Fair.

With the exception of stall rentals and winter barn storage space, the rest of the society’s revenue is garnered through donations and fundraising events, Bellwood said.

An attempt by the board of directors to infuse new money into the operation in 2010 by bringing in the highly anticipated Nateva Festival was not the ongoing salvation the society hoped for. And a highly touted $3.5-million amphitheater project on the fairgrounds never materialized.

The recent community meeting was intended to bring the communities’ interest back to the longtime institution and to help bring in ideas that would generate money to keep it operating. Ideas were initiated for both the fair, which is held in September, and year-round use of the property that was acquired by the society in the 1960s after the state took their previous site on Route 26 on the Norway/Paris town line for construction of the Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School.

Bellwood said ideas for the fair included a firemen’s muster, more community exhibits, truck loading and pulp loading contests, a bean hole bean supper and more local nonprofit craftsmen.

Other ideas for use of the property year round were bean nights, a chili and chowder fest during the winter, a barn dance, chicken barbecue, flea market and sleigh rides.

It was also suggested that the society’s website have a space where the public can make comments. Bellwood said comments can now be made on the society’s Facebook page.

The directors are also looking at a cookbook as a fundraiser and in the future they will be asking for recipes from the community. A Chinese auction is in the works for later this winter.

While some of the ideas, such as a chicken barbecue, are already done, others, such as a barn dance, could not be conducted on site in the winter because the barns are used for storage space. Years ago, the society held barn dances in an East Oxford barn, she said.

Directors say changes are already in the works, one of the biggest being the change in dates of this year’s Oxford Fair.

President Jackie Young, who is also Oxford Fair’s livestock superintendent, said next year’s fair date is a return to the Wednesday through Sunday schedule that has been used successfully in previous years. The dates are Sept. 12-15. Some ticket prices might be lowered, too, Bellwood said.

More information about the next community meeting will be available soon, Bellwood said.

ldixon@sunjournal.com

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