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The Citizen, 2017-05-25, Page 11THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, MAY 25, 2017. PAGE 11. Countdown to TM Scott, committee, tackles hundreds of signs for IPM PARADE ENTRIES PARKING ONLY One of the bigger ones There are between 500 and 600 signs that accompanied the supplies from the 2016 IPM that needed to be organized, labelled and entered into a database to allow committees to find the signs they needed easily. It was no lean feat according to signage chair Ken Scott, shown with a large sign above, and took approximately 50 hours of work. (Denny Scott photo) Continued from Page 10 over by the inventory of signs, some of which he anticipates are a decade old. "We have signs for everything really, and any signs we don't have, we can get made," he said. "When we picked them up, we cleaned, sorted and moved them all so we could start getting them ready for the IPM" Scott said there are signs of all shapes and sizes as well as poles and stakes to display the signs. When all tallied, he anticipates there to be between 500 and 600 signs that came from the previous matches. "What we started doing at first was to make a database," he said. The database has a picture of each sign attached to its information to make it easy to locate the signs committees need, he explained. Scott's daughter Jane Haney and another volunteer, Nancy Denham, helped to create the database, which is now a huge file. "We can't really share it, but people come to the workshop and look up what we have," he said. While getting the signs was quite a job, taking the inventory could have been two weeks of solid work for one person according to Scott. "There was a lot of work involved with that," he said. "There were three nights of working for seven volunteers. Each night we spent two and a half hours working on it." Scott said the database has made it easy to help people get ready and was a great way to handle the sign inventory. He also started a new practice for the committee in finding crates to put the signs in. "The idea is that people will get in contact with me prior to the match so I can have a crate ready for them," he said. "The crate can be moved wherever it needs to go so there is less last-minute running around trying to find this sign or that sign." Scott pointed to one crate that has several signs labelled for Matt Townsend who is in charge of the RV Park. "At the end of the match, we hope people can put the signs back into the crates so they're easy to sort through for the next group of volunteers," he said. While his daughter helped with the database, Scott's wife Marina will be joining the IPM effort by volunteering at the match. Scott said getting signs made is a part of the job as well and, when committee members reach out to him, he takes their requests, gets the signs made and puts them where they need to be so they show up at the right spot in September. Having those signs made earlier is preferable, Scott said, to having to make them with a magic marker just before the match starts, but he is under no illusions. As the day approaches, missings signs will become apparent and they will need to be made. Not all of the 500-600 signs will see the light of day this year, Scott said. "We have some signs that aren't relevant to this year's match," he said. "We also purged many signs from the collection as we were sorting them. Some of them are banged up, some of them have too Get wedding advice and tips, see a case study and read about local brides on the Brides in Huron section of our website www.northhuron.on.ca many screw nails and some of them were just worn out." While Scott isn't directly involved in competitive plowing, he said the match has a way of getting people hooked on being a part of it. "Every time, at the end, you hear people say they are never going to do it again, but they come back as soon as they are asked," he said. "It's the people. You couldn't get better people than Jacquie and the people with which she's surrounded herself. The involvement and the excitement are great, but it's the people you get to work with that keep you coming back." He said that everyone has been great to work with so far and he hopes that continues as the match approaches and planning and preparing becomes more hectic. Scott said he couldn't have managed the job so far without his committee, including Kyle DeCorte, Sean Ryan, Rob VandenHengel, Con Melady and Ben Van derAkker. He also employed the services of Gerry VandenHengel of Seaforth as co- chair, though VandenHengel, through admitting he wasn't too busy, has found himself with other responsibilities as well. He was put in charge of the flags that will adorn the sign for the IPM on North Line just south of Walton. Seven flags need to be erected: Canada, Huron East, Ontario, the Ontario Plowman's Association, the Huron County Plowmen's Association, the International Plowing Match 2017 Committee's and Canada 150. When asked what struck him about the entire process, VandenHengel found, through sorting the signs, that a lot of them couldn't be used for this year's IPM. "The directional signs are fine, but signs for individual tents couldn't be used," he said. He said the experience has been an interesting one because the committee has had to find its way on its own. "We're very much feeling our way through the whole thing," he said. "No one has told us exactly what to do so we're just working with what we've got." While they may need to figure some things out as they go, one thing's for sure — keeping people going the right way when it comes to an event as big as the IPM is no easy feat and it takes an entire team of volunteers and countless hours to make sure everything points where it needs to. Fortunately for the IPM, Scott, with the help of VandenHengel and the rest of the committee, are on the job. Rubber boots for miles The 1966 "Mud Match" IPM has traditionally been known for two things: the incredibly wet weather that led to its namesake and the fact that, for years after, landowners that hosted the event found discarded rubber boots in their fields. Above, a young Joe Hallahan, Blyth native, did his best to keep the rubber boots out of the fields by driving visitors to the site and around the grounds. (Photo courtesy of Joe Hallahan) Support the Ride to Conquer Cancer Meet the Fire Riders �s < s� j�l� �r ,t1„ e' ; s � s.�',, •, •t s� y � i� y +�y ' l y s �: � �:��.+i�G�� � � ,�` ",�S"ti�.+.���.+��fa s� � i�•��J���: � �:ta i^�^:�H ��.gh1l•".°�=•�yN�� .h at their fundraising BBQ Sunday, May 28 - Noon - 2 p.m. at Scrimgeour's Food Market, Blyth Buy a "Beer For A Year" raffle ticket - draw at 2 p.m. Donate on-line at conquercancer.ca (search Fire Riders under teams)