The Darke County Agricultural Society discusses budgets and rates

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DARKE COUNTY – The Darke County Agricultural Society Board of Directors met Thursday evening during a special meeting. 

Directors Marla Werner, Dean Neff, Craig Bowman, Apollo Perez, Christoph Keller, Heidi May, Russ Skaggs, Curtis Yount, and Fair Secetary Laura Ahrens were all present. Directors Dave Singer, Jayden Hicks, and Greg Pearson were absent. 

Directors discussed the 2025 Annual Budget and 2024 Annual ODA Financial Report.

President, Marla Werner also discussed Department Budgets once again in more depth. 

“I would look at your department expenses because your premiums are the same yearly,” said Werner. “Your expenses are changing though.”

She explained that expenses are often going up in departments. The budgets quickly widened between judges, help and secretaries, hotels, and other needed expenses.

Directors also had a lengthy discussion about rates. The rating committee plans to discuss further plans at a future meeting however discussed ways to keep them down.

During the discussion, the Directors discussed promotion ideas to improve rates. Some of these ideas included naming barns for a set price, advertising in bathrooms, and along the fence, and many other ideas also bounced off of one another. 

“We have to make enough money in nine days to run all of those 355 days for the rest of the year,” said Director Dean Neff.

There was also discussion of bringing on or hiring someone who can take over promotion and work as a Sales and Marketing Representative for the fairgrounds who can help create packages for sponsors to help aid the fair’s cost.

“It goes back to what that talk was about in a couple of those sessions, building relationships with your local people,” said Director Christoph Keller. “And not just going out and asking for it. It’s called the 100 cups of coffee, you go out there and get your list of people.”

Directors shared many ideas and are looking forward to getting out and building relationships with local community members and businesses.

 They discussed some of their costs and how often in return they receive little to no payback for premiums however with sponsorships they believe the money that could potentially be generated from that could benefit them in keeping additional costs down. 

The Darke County Agricultural Society Board of Directors will hold its next regular monthly meeting on February 5, 2025, at 7:00 pm.