Almost 15 months after losing its home at Morrow Park and then failing to meet the requirements for a $500,000 buy-out payment from the City of Peterborough, the Peterborough Agricultural Society will be holding a meeting early in the new year that will determine whether the 180-year-old organization will continue.
At its annual general meeting that takes place at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, January 15 at the Peterborough Legion, the society will be seeking new volunteers to join its board of directors.
According to a media release, the current board has announced its decision to step down at the end of the current term and, without new board members, the society will begin the process of permanently ceasing operations.
“This is a critical moment for the Peterborough Agricultural Society,” says general manager Louise Dobbin in the release. “The current board has faced numerous challenges, and we are calling on the community to rally behind us. Without enough committed individuals to lead, the organization cannot continue, and we risk losing this historic society for good.”
The board is seeking volunteers with skills in governance, finance, strategic planning, event management, communications, and agriculture to help guide the organization forward. Board members must reside within the city or county of Peterborough and commit to attending 10 meetings per year.
Those interested in volunteering can email Louise Dobbin at generalmanager@peterboroughag.ca.
Founded in 1844, the Peterborough Agricultural Society ran the four-day Peterborough Exhibition at the 27-acre Morrow Park property annually from 1845 until 2019. In 1938, the Morrow family gifted the Morrow Park property to the City of Peterborough, with a condition of the Morrow Trust that the property remain available for the use of the society, which was reaffirmed in the Peterborough Act of 1984.
In 2011, the society and the city began negotiating the future of Morrow Park, with the society insisting the park should always be available for the August Peterborough Exhibition and the city seeking the ability to develop the park, which was unused by the society for most of the year. In 2015, the city and the society reached an interim agreement that would allow the city to develop 60 per cent of Morrow Park for “parks and recreation purposes” as per the Morrow Trust, with 40 per cent of the park remaining available for the society’s use.
In 2017, the city and the society reached a seven-year agreement that would allow for the gradual redevelopment in Morrow Park, with the city agreeing to build two new horse barns, storage space, office space, and public washrooms for the society’s use at an estimated cost of $7 million. The agreement also included a buy-out clause where, if the city decided to end the agreement, it would provide the society with a $500,000 payment to assist with relocation.
In 2021, the city approved the construction of the new $62-million sports complex in Morrow Park. The society, which had already cancelled the Peterborough Exhibition in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic, cancelled it for a third time in 2022 due to a dispute with the city about the portion of Morrow Park that would be available for the society’s use as per the 2017 agreement.
In 2023, the city invoked its buy-out clause in its agreement with the society, meaning the society needed to find a new home.
According to a story by Mike Davies in the Peterborough Examiner, the society later reached a five-year memorandum of understanding with Trent University to use its agricultural property as the society’s new home. To receive the $500,000 buy-out payment from the city, the society was required to provide the city with documentation from the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs that it still met the requirements of an agricultural society in good standing, and also to demonstrate to the city that it had purchased or leased another location.
Not only did the society miss the deadline to provide the city with the required documentation by three days, the Examiner story states, but the city did not consider the memorandum of understanding with Trent University as meeting the requirements for the buy-out clause, and advised the society it would not be providing the $500,000 payment.
