By Andrew de Souza

Winter Festival out of debt, but short on help

Nov 18, 2010 | 5:13 AM

The Prince Albert Winter Festival is at a serious risk of being cancelled after 48 years in the community, if more people aren’t found to serve on the board and volunteer for the events.

“If someone were to ask me if, at this point, we were for sure going to have the festival, I wouldn’t definitely say yes,” said committee president Jim Stiglitz. “We need more people.

“If things don’t work out and people don’t come out it will die. And I don’t want that to happen—that would break my heart.”

The committee held their annual general meeting on Wednesday night and talked about what challenges that had been overcome and what the future would hold for the committee.

Everyone in attendance agreed that more volunteers were needed because last year’s festival had been a very large burden for those who helped.

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“I don’t think any of us are ready to do that again, there’s no way even if we wanted to,” said Stiglitz. “We did it and I’m proud of that fact, but there’s no way it can happen like that again.”

Stiglitz said while the need for volunteers was desperate, there was still a lot of hope in the festival, especially on the financial side.

In previous years, the festival dealt with a controversial debt that mounted to more than $35,000. This year, with a large contribution from the Prince Albert Exhibition, the group had moved out of the red and into the black, if only by a few hundred dollars.

“We’re just about at zero, but that’s a big jump ahead of last year,” said Stiglitz.

The committee discussed some options for new and different events as well as locations.

However they agreed that not much could be decided on if there wasn’t a festival at all.

The committee agreed to meet again in a few weeks to drum up more community support let more ideas percolate.

Stiglitz said the festival needed all the help it could get from anyone willing to help in anyway.

“We need people, we need bodies. I don’t care if a person has an hour of week to give, that’s great,” he said. “We just need for help from whomever, from whatever age, whatever time you have and whatever you’re good at—we just need help.”

The committee will meet again at the Prince Albert Tourism Office on Nov. 30 at 7 p.m.

adesouza@panow.com