New chairman at the helm for Bo'ness Children's Fair

Mr McBride had been at the helm of the event’s organising committee for a number of years – having seen a full round of the town’s primary schools and staying on through the pandemic making some tough decisions. However, at the committee’s annual general meeting on October 27, he retired from the role and was choked to read his final message to those at the meeting.

He hands over the reigns to Frank McGarry, who has been on the committee for a number of years and was previously vice chairman. It’s a role Mr McGarry is looking forward to taking on and continuing the Fair tradition in the town.

He said: “I’ve been on the committee for a lot of years now. About six years ago I took over the vice chairman position and when Scott decided he wasn’t going to continue I volunteered to take over. I’m told I’m the 30th chairman and I’m looking forward to the role.

"It’s great to be back on track and having the big Fairs again. So many people told us afterwards how much they had missed it for the two years hit by Covid. There’s going to be some financial challenges going forward, but we’ll do our best to get through them.

“Our funding from Falkirk Council has changed radically in the last couple of years. Before we got a grant but now we need to apply for revenue expenditure. There’s a lot of charities that are going to be in the same boat, so we’re going to have to be innovative with our fundraising this year.

“We used to do door to door collections for a week. We did a bit online during Covid as people were not always happy with someone coming round the doors. We’d usually get around £12,000 from our door to door collections, but this year we only got £6000. Our fundraising is going to be extremely important for us this year.”

Outgoing procession convener Tom Burns was nominated as vice chairman. Among the other notable changes were two younger faces taking on committee roles.

Rhys Struthers takes over as procession convener doing the necessary arrangements to organise the procession after shadowing Tom Burns. He will be assisted by former Queen, Nicole Bell, who takes her first role on the committee making them the youngest members of the new team.

Mr McGarry added: “We have attracted about ten young people who are in their 20s to come onto the committee – they are going to be the future. We’re an aging committee, most of us are in our 50s or early 60s so it will be nice to give the younger members the opportunity to develop their knowledge and skills.

"The Fair is the glue that keeps the social side of Bo’ness together. People come together for the event and it means a great deal to both the people of Bo’ness and to the businesses. We’re pleased that the future is looking quite good with younger people wanting to get involved and keep the tradition going.”