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Organisers of the annual Myrtleford Show say planning for the October event is going full steam ahead, including poultry and avian exhibits remaining a fixture, despite the slow spread of bird flu across parts of the country.
Myrtleford and District Agricultural and Pastoral Society Inc. have been in contact with the Department of Agriculture and have been notified there is currently no need to remove the poultry and the avian exhibits for this year's show, to be held Saturday 24 October at the Myrtleford Recreation Reserve.
"The Victorian Agriculture Shows board will keep a very keen eye on those announcements and if there is something we'll have to make a decision on, all ag shows and events in Victoria will be notified," Myrtleford Show committee president, Deb Geddes said.
"We will keep in contact with Agriculture Victoria's authorities and follow their advice if there's going to be a restriction on any sort of feathered bird sections.
"I know the Royal Melbourne and Adelaide shows have cancelled their poultry sections for this September, but we'll go by what the Department of Ag decides and remove the categories if they want us to stop showing.
"We're excited this year because we were going to have pigeons back again."
Overall, organisers' efforts for this October's show have paid off, as all entertainment has been arranged, all show ribbons have been ordered and 800 of the show's free program booklets are set to be released to the public at the end of August.
"Everything's booked, planned, ready to go; we're just waiting for the show schedule to come back from the printers," Ms Geddes said.
"There are a lot of local businesses who are our major supporters, such as newsagency, the supermarkets, the information centre and TAFCO; they will have show schedules for the public and we'll get them up to Mount Beauty and Bright as well.
"We're going to set the web page live to start taking entries once we distribute the show schedule around town.
"Our stewards have spread the word and encouraged people to keep an eye out for when the system becomes live.
"A number of community groups are booked in to help with fundraising efforts and volunteering... we're ticking all the boxes and hoping for beautiful spring day."
The Myrtleford Show Committee was one of five organisations recently announced as recipients of the Alpine Shire Council's maximum Event Funding Program grant of $10,000.
"We're very happy council has come on board again and supported our show and we're very supportive of all the events council approves every year," Ms Geddes said.
"The Myrtleford Show has now become one of those calendar events which everyone pencils in now, which is great.
"We have a wide selection of attractions this year, so we always keep in mind we've got to [provide] a family event and cater for all age groups."
Ms Geddes said a new program the committee would try out this year is the Friday afternoon tea for the seniors, to correlate with October's Seniors' Month.





