The longtime Weyburn tradition of the Quota Carol Festival on the first weekend of December will partially be fulfilled this year, but it will also be shown on the second weekend as well.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Carol Festival will not held in person this year, but it will be shown virtually online and on the AccessNow TV community channel.
But as organizer Heather Sidloski of Quota explained, in a Zoom presentation to the Weyburn Rotary Club, complications arose as Access’s Regina office decided not to livestream the show, but will show it on the community channel on Sunday, Dec. 13.
This was a problem for Quota, as the 67-year tradition has been for the first Sunday, which is Dec. 6 this year, so Sidloski pulled together some video performances she had access to, including the 2020 performances which were submitted to Quota as well as some past ones, and these will be put on Facebook this Sunday.
“We don’t fully understand Regina’s programming needs, but the Regina office (of Access) decided no, they wouldn’t livestream it, so we were pretty disappointed,” said Sidloski, adding they agreed late in the week to post a link for the show. “I’m not sure how long that link will last, but we’ll be sharing that link with Facebook.”
She explained there may be copyright issues with some songs, and if Facebook algorithms feel a song is under copyright they may stop it from being shown.
“It may not work, so you may have to go to the Access website. That might be the best version of the program.”
In order to put something up on Dec. 6, the Quota members decided to put together a short video that they will post, which will include this year’s performances and some videos of school choirs. Sidloski said she had put a request out on Facebook for other videos, but there was a short space of time before she had to finish making the video so it could be ready to go up on Facebook on Sunday.
“It’s a little bit complicated, and it’s caused us a little bit of stress, but this video will air on Dec. 6th, and you can watch the virtual Carol Festival on Access on the 13th,” said Sidloski. “When you see the excitement on kids faces, that tells you a little bit as to why we love the Carol Festival, and why it’s an integral part of our Christmas tradition.”
Rotary member Brenda King commented, “For Bob and me definitely the Carol Festival kicks off our celebrations.”
She passed on her congratulations to Quota and to the Weyburn Review for the insert in the paper on Dec. 2 that included historical photos of past Carol Festivals, as well as quotes from various people about their favourite memories of the Carol Festival.
“It gave us the opportunity to reflect on those who are near and dear to us and are now gone, like April Sampson and Isabelle Butters. We’re really looking forward to your show, and we thank you for thinking of a new way of organizing this for us this year,” said King.
Another Rotarian, Mal Barber, recalled when the Rotary choir was perform at the Carol Festival and the power went out.
“Tom (Schuck) could play by ear, and there weren’t a lot of men singing, because we didn’t know our words, but Tom made the piano sound beautiful,” said Barber.
Sidloski noted that the Rotary choir has been at the Carol Festival every year, although she admitted her records didn’t show if they were involved from the very start.
A fellow Quotarian, Melanie Sorensen, noted that Heather should get much of the credit for the hard work she has put into getting the virtual Carol Festival up and online, which she pulled together in about three weeks’ time.
“So when she says it hasn’t worked out the way we had hoped, it’s amazing it’s worked out at all,” said Sorensen, adding that June Fletcher was also a big help on the project as well.
“Heather took it and ran with it, and she really needs to be acknowledged for that,” she added.
“One of my best memories was of Gordon Liddle,” said Tom Schuck, the club’s pianist, making reference to a longtime former Weyburn Rotary member. “He was our music director for a very long time, he’s always have us over for Christmas cheer after we did our duty. I hope to be able to do that some Christmas. Gordon was a great contributor to the music scene in Weyburn.”
“I think we’re very lucky, both for the music festival and the Carol Festival. Music has been such a big part of Weyburn, and we’ve had some amazing music directors, like Colleen Weimer and April Sampson, and Kate Myers always did the Christmas story,” said Sidloski, adding they were able to have Jean Fahlman read the Christmas story for the virtual festival this year.
