The Story behind the Canning Agricultural, Horticultural and Recreational Society

Dianne, shown here with club member Michael Metcalf came to the role of CEO from a background of involvement in the Racing Industry.  She was a Project Officer for the Greyhounds Racing before joining the Racing and Gaming Department where she was responsible for looking after the country race courses - from Esperance to Broome.  She had contact with all 3 codes of racing - thoroughbreds, harness and greyhounds.  Moving on to to become a Project Officer for the City of Belmont, she was delighted when this job became available and even more so when she was given that job. 

 

The Canning Agricultural Society has been around for many years and held its first Show in 1892.  They have held Shows on their site every year (except during the war years) with some 120 Shows having been conducted.  A very notable achievement particularly when you look at the surrounding areas and realise that there is very little agriculture, or horticultural activities being performed.

 

They have about 13 acres of land under their care; and were responsible for planning the redevelopment of the land.  After some major negotiations they were able to continue to house Greyhound racing on the site, and redeveloped their premises and relocating the race course to a new site on their premises.  Greyhound will continue to lease their premises from the Agricultural Society.

 

More recently they have leased a further pocket of land to Bunnings which provides them with a secure source of income for the next 60 years.

 

They have had to wrestle with the fact that they have a great asset (the land); they have a strong source of income from the two leases; but their membership was aging so they needed to find ways to increase that membership.  They have done so by offering 'free' events to local people who sign up for them.  They now have over 200 members, with approximately 125 of them being active in the organisation.  So they have grown from 35 active members to the 125 they have now.

 

They provide facilities to house a Men's Shed - with a peppercorn rent - in one of their outbuildings.

 

They also provide rooms for other groups such as knitters, stitchers and drama groups.  In total they have 9 clubs and groups that use their premises regularly, either weekly or monthly.

 

Their big event every year is the Canning Show.  People from all over Perth are invited to exhibit their handicrafts in any one of some 673 class/categories.  Everyone is encouraged to enter, from 5 year olds to 95 year olds.  She challenged us to consider entering something into the Show because she said they had 'something for everyone'.

 

They have about 10,000 people come to the show over the 2 days that it is run.  In the past it has been 2 full days, and may become so again with the re-introduction of a gymkhana in the next few years.

 

They host about 500 events every year and and hoping to start planning to re-develop their facilities so that they can have new community facilities up and running within the next few years.

 

Members may recall that for the past 2 years our Bricktober event has been held at the Canning Agricultural Society premises.

 

Thank you Di for your very informative talk.