The Mansfield County Fair was a neighbourhood fair inspired by similar events elsewhere in Nanaimo and other communities to connect neighbours and celebrate the community. The origin story of the fair goes back to April, when I put up a few posters near Mansfield Park inviting my neighbours to reach out if they were interested in pulling together a community celebration; eventually we got enough folks together to start an organizing committee and off we went. Over time, we worked to bring together sponsors, local businesses, community groups, performers, and neighbours to host a fall fair featuring live music, a magic show, zucchini races, and more!
Over the process of organizing the fair, a key learning was how to organize things in a way that built on the strengths and offerings brought forward by the people and organizations helping out. Leaning on the networks and connections of everyone involved, and being flexible to adapt the event with each new connection, helped to spread our reach so much further. Being new to the neighbourhood, it was a big learning curve to engage with the history of the community and past events and initiatives to build upon that momentum wherever possible.
Working to leverage that broader reach helped us to overcome some of the key challenges we faced. By putting out the call to our organizing committee’s networks, we were able to connect with many different people with many different skills they could offer. As they say, it takes a village!
In the end, we managed to host a very successful event with 4 main stage performances, 5 food trucks, 8 community groups/vendors, 22 zucchini racers entered, and an estimated 300-350 attendees over the course of the day. There was lots of excitement to see this become an annual event, and we connected with more neighbours keen to help out to make that happen.
Thank you so much for the support from the Nanaimo Foundation, Neighbourhood Small Grants and all our sponsors and supporters.
