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The Citizen, 1994-07-27, Page 20r ?0 THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JULY 27,1994. It took a tough decision to repair Hall There would be no Blyth Festival today if a courageous decision hadn't been made in 1974 to undertake extensive renovations to Memorial Hall. It wasn't an easy decision. BY KEITH ROULSTON Looking back on it now, it may have been the best $8,648 the council of the Village of Blyth ever spent, though there was doubt about it at the lime. That's how much, an article in the Aug. 13, 1975 issue of The Blyth Standard reveals, that it cost the taxpayers of Blyth to put Memorial Hall back in use in the fall of 1974. By comparison, the Blyth Festival (which wouldn't have been started if village councillors hadn't stuck their neck out and invested the money) today pays $6,000 (?) a year in property taxes on its properties in the village. But as 1974 dollars were bigger than today's, as the gamble seemed large for councillors who didn’t even know there would be a Blyth Festival, let alone that it would grow to what it has become today, a $1 million a year operation and a major employer in the village. Back then councillors were looking at spending money they didn't have to repair a building that was seldom used. The theatre auditorium in Memorial Hall had come to the point of being used only once or twice a year by the early 1970s. The paint was faded, the dust was deep, and there were half-century old, painted backdrops on the stage. But in the summer of 1972 the potential had been recognized by the Blyth Board of Trade under the leadership of Helen Gowing. When asked by the Blyth Agricultural Society to host the Queen of the Fair contest for the Fall Fair, Mrs. Gowing felt the old theatre would be a fitting place. The Blyth Recreation Committee, under Chairman George Hubbard, agreed the hall should be spruced up. With the work of a large group of volunteers and materials supplied through donations, crews worked in the old hall during the summer of 1972 to clean and repaint the building. But there was more wrong than a spit and polish could erase. The 52-year-old building did not meet modern fire codes and fire officials let it be known that the Queen of the Fair Concert would be the last event held in the theatre until proper fire escapes were built. It was one thing to get a few donations for paint, but getting money to build a fire escape and. install a new fire door was a bigger project than volunteers could manage. Supporters of putting Memorial Hall back in action had to turn to village council, owners of the building, for support. Council held considerable discussion before agreeing to install the fire escape in the spring of 1973, but that was just the beginning of the fun and games. Before the fire escape could be installed, someone worried about the safety of the electrical wiring in the hall. An Ontario Hydro Inspector was called in and said that the wiring wasn’t pretty, and needed minor changes, but it wasn't unsafe. But one of the councillors with experience in building had been worried for some time about a sag in the roof of the building. Councillors agreed they shouldn't spend any more money on the building until an engineer made sure the roof was safe. The engineer indeed found that there was a design fault in the roof that made it structurally unsound. And now the debate really began. If the theatre was to be kept in use, the only alternative was to take the old roof off and put a new one on, which would meet the modern building code requirements. The alternative would be to put supports from floor to ceiling in the theatre to hold up the roof and allow the basement of Memorial Hall, which was busy nearly every evening with meetings, banquets and dances, to continue to be used. The debate continued for months between those in the village who thought it was a colossal waste of money to repair the building and those who felt the theatre should be kept in working order. In the end, those who felt the hall, built as a memorial to those who served in World War I, should be preserved, won out. But even then the story wasn't over. When village council called tenders for the project in June 1974, the July 3, issue of The Blyth Standard reported that the lowest tender was S47,750, well over the engineer’s estimate of $30,000. It would have meant a huge increase in the village lax bill to continue the project under the circumstance. Village Council again called a halt, sending a letter to supporting groups to see if they could come up with any additional money. But a new company, making use of the labour of Amish workers, later put in a bid of $30,000 to do the work and with some trepidation, councillors agreed to award them the contract the Sept. 11, 1974 issue of The Blyth Standard reported. The Oct. 2 issue of The Standard shows workers beginning the demolition of the old roof. In the long run, the cost to the Blyth taxpayers was only a fraction of the total. The village got a community centres grant for $8,648 and a winter works grant of $6,642. The Blyth Swinging Seniors received a $5,000 grant through the New Horizons program. Taxpayers ended up paying $2,092.74 a year over five years to put the Hall back in use. By the spring of 1975 plans for the Blyth Festival were underway. None of it would have been possible, however, without the councillors' courage to go ahead with the project despite their misgivings. Memorial Hall remains a living memorial to community’s soldiers If Blyth-arca residents who decided to build a theatre instead of a cenotaph wanted a living memorial to those who served in World War I, they have certainly had that in the past 20 years Since the new roof was put on Memorial Hall in 1974, there have been three significant renovation projects. The first began in the winter of 1975-76, after the Blyth Summer Festival's first season. With the help of a winter works grant which paid for the labour, the Festival undertook to restore the interior beauty of Memorial Hall's theatre. The scats were all removed and the old varnish, which had threatened to glue theatre patrons to their scats on hot nights during the first season, was painted over. The floors were sanded and varnished. All the woodwork in the auditorium and on the stairways leading to it, were Stripped and varnished. The walls were repainted. A little money and a lot of elbow grease went a long way in making the hall more beautiful, but it did nothing to solve the lack of space for dressing rooms, offices and storage space for sets. So in the fall of 1979, the Festival undertook its biggest project yet, an addition to the north side of Memorial Hall al a cost of more than S300.000. Most of the money went into Memorial Hall itself, however, to bring it up to building code requirements, including fire doors throughout the building and a sprinkler system. Still, the Festival lacked space for proper shops for building sets and costumes. For many years the work had been carried on under intolerable conditions in a donated vacant space above the town offices where the Masonic Lodge is today. In the late 1980s the Festival set out on a huge project which would see the old garage building it had purchased on Dinsley St. East expanded to provide shops for sets, props and costumes and a new rehearsal space. Memorial Hall itself would be expanded to the south to link up with the Festival's administrative building (the building that formerly housed the Bank of Commerce and Stewart's Groceries). This addition created badly needed washrooms, a fine art gallery, a box office with space enough to accommodate more people and a lobby and covered courtyard to allow theatre-goers to get out of the rain on unpleasant nights. /F The Township of Grey would like to congratulate the Blyth Festival on its 20th Season.V—- 4 4 t- J-fats off to tfie. ‘BCytft JcstivaC for its long run in support of Canadian Theatre Best Wishes for the future Chauncey’s Hairstyling Chances are you’ll love It! Blyth 523-9722 4 4* CONGRATULATIONS TO THE BLYTH FESTIVAL Visit us in Walton and see over 7 acres of farm machines McGAVIN FARM EQUIPMENT Walton On’. (519)887-6365.(519)527-0245 —’ x ■your snon-iine soeciansts senvicf with a EstaOhsnec ir ?936 shil[ IlFARM SUPPLY LTD »l 527-0245 WALTON 887 6365 FORD 1 /cAKXJtfO] I ‘The Village of (Blyth Council, (Public Utilities Commission and the residents, salute the (Blyth festival on 20 successful seasons and effend a sincere welcome to visitors and former members of ‘festival companies.