Interview with Judy MCWHIRTER - BUCKHORN COMMUNITY CENTRE

Judy McWhirter
Buckhorn Community Centre

Interview with Judy MCWHIRTER - BUCKHORN COMMUNITY CENTRE

Celebrating 35 Years

"The Concept"  

"THE INSIDE SCOOP" continues speaking with Judy McWhirter, Manager of the Buckhorn Community Centre. I go on to ask Manager Judy McWhirter.

Some festivals/events gear their activities and focus on specific demographic makeup of attendees? In other words, it is helpful to identify the types of visitors attend the many diverse Festivals & Events offer. Judy tells us their focus is towards many groups, including ... Young couples, school groups, seniors, geographic areas travelled from to visit, economic status, attracting each at some point during the year. In discussing this, we wondered what the philosophy and thought process of the decisions in respect to the concepts, activities, themes, events at the Buckhorn Community Centre? Ms. McWhirter states ... "When the BCC was built; members of the Community felt Buckhorn needed a larger place to hold dances ... that had indoor plumbing". As stated on the Buckhorn Community Centre's website ... "Would you mortgage your home to help build a community centre? Well, incredibly, 30 years ago a group of very special people had a dream and a vision. They saw the need for a community centre in Buckhorn. These courageous and generous people actually did mortgage their homes to realize their dream. With the help of Wintario funding, they built our Buckhorn Community Centre." "Construction of the original building was started in the fall of 1977 and completed in the spring of 1978. For the original building, the designer was Dave Rome, the architect George Hilton and the builder John Chretien. The Buckhorn Community Centre opened its doors to the public in March 1978 with activities such as dancing, bingo and floor hockey that year. That spring, President Bob Creighton approached local artist Edwin Matthews with an idea to have an art show as a fundraiser to help pay the mortgage. That is how the Buckhorn Wildlife Art Festival and Sale began. At the time, no one knew if people would want to come to a little hamlet like Buckhorn to enjoy and buy art. Various committees were set up by the Centre to start the process. Edwin Matthews organized our "Buckhorn Wildlife Art Festival" project with incredible enthusiasm and vision and the rest, as they say, is history. By 1994, many of our events had outgrown the facility. Ontario Infrastructure funding enabled our Centre to build an addition doubling the size of the building. In 2007, the Buckhorn Community Centre celebrated 30 successful years of service to the community".
 (To Be Continued)