FOURTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART III 229 



SYSTEM IN FAIR MANAGEMENT, 



BY J. I. I.AUER OF WAVERLY. 



It seems to me if this discussion kept up much longer I wouldn't have 

 had anything new. Some of us say that at least they would rather ap- 

 pear on the program first, others last. It seems to me though Mr. Rigby 

 kind of picked out those men who are new at the fair business. The 

 gentleman just preceding me has had one year of experience, and I have 

 had two strenuous years. When Mr. Rigby first mentioned this I thought 

 perhaps his was a case of misplaced confidence. In his notice to me 

 in regard to this meeting, and incidentally that our dues were due as 

 members of this association, I in my reply was loud in my praises of the 

 work that had been, was being and could be done in a meeting of this 

 kind. 



I finally told him I would accept, but I hadn't gone very far into the 

 preparatory work on the subject that he appointed me before I realized 

 myself or felt that I was inoculated with this disease, misplaced confidence. 

 The subject assigned to me was "System in Fair Management." He was not 

 quite satisfied with that and also told me to be prepared to give an out- 

 line of organization work as pertains to the fair of Bremer county. That 

 is covering quite a bit of territory, but I will try to give you a synopsis 

 as pertains to our fair up in Bremer county. I don't know as it is a 

 great deal different from any other fair. We think we have a fair con- 

 ducted along the lines of the others. When we started, of course Waver- 

 ly seemed destined to be the place for holding our county fair. There 

 was a great deal of feeling that these things should be moved back and 

 forth. At the time we had a fair ground that was ideal. We went out 

 amongst the merchants, and they were advocating going out to advertise 

 among farmers, but we thought that as Waverly was a place to hold the 

 fair we had better get tha merchants. There was no trouble, they found, 

 in getting stock enough to organize a county fair. They organized a county 

 fair, but started different from the majority of county fairs. Taking 

 Waverly as the center point and working out they started out and drove 

 from Waverly and worked both ways. 



We started with $10,000 worth of stock. The shares were $10.00 each. 

 Now the shares in our association are not assessable at all. We are not 

 organized for any pecuniary profit. It is simply a matter of anything 

 we get we put back into the fair. We are still selling the stock, and at 

 the present time we have nearly $9,000 worth of stock sold. In our meet- 

 ings each stockholder as a stockholder is entitled to one vote. It does 

 not make any difference how much stock you have you are entitled to 

 one vote, and you have to be there to represent that stock. There is no 

 game of freeze out. We are not organized that way. 



Our purpose, of course, is similar to all fairs as far as that is con- 

 cerned. In regard to the county indebtedness that has been incurred we 

 can only incur one-half of our paid up capital stock. Now as I say we 

 have about $9,000 paid up capital stock. That means that we could 

 only incur a debt of four and one-half thousand dollars. In regard to our 

 board of directors, we have a stockholders meeting each year. When 



