October 22-24 was to be the 135th annual North Coast National Lismore Show at the Lismore Showgrounds. This historic and valuable community show was cancelled in May because of the coronavirus pandemic. Two years ago Will Jackson had a chat with local legend and president of the North Coast National Agricultural and Industrial Society John Gibson. John had just marked 30 years as president so Will wanted to learn more about John and the future of the North Coast National.

I first got involved with the show society because I worked for AK Barnes and Son. They displayed and had retail sites at the show and I was involved in that. I was also showing poultry and cattle. I went on the board of the show society in about 1979 and became president when James Gordon, current treasurer Andrew Gordon’s father, stepped down in 1988. The 30 years since has gone very, very quickly.

My family are generally from the area. They were dairy farmers, and grew bananas as well. My father left the land for a while and had a mail contract - delivering mail out through Dunoon, Dorroughby, Rosebank those places - and then bought a post office at South Gundarimba before getting back into dairy farming.

I started working for AK Barnes and Son, who were builders in Lismore, when I finished school and worked there for 19 years. I got married in 1971 to a pharmacist and in ‘79 we bought a pharmacy in town. We were involved in pharmacy for about 27 years. In the meantime we were running a farm as well, where we lived at South Gundarimba. We started with about 70 acres and we're running on almost 400 acres now, which are all side by side farms, and we also run an angus stud.  

I’ve show poultry since I was about seven years old. My father showed poultry, so as kids we just started showing them well. It grew and I've been privileged enough to judge some of the biggest shows in Australia over a long period of time. It gives you a lot of joy. As you get a bit older, you've got grandkids and things change but I still do that.

It's interesting, you get people from all walks of life that show poultry. Travelling around and going to various shows you'll have judges, doctors, down to pensioners - no reflection on pensioners - but just ordinary people, workers or farmers. You don't have to have a lot of money and you can still enjoy it as a hobby.

Showing poultry is very detail oriented. There's a thing we call the book of standards and you've got to know all the different breeds and their characteristics. They're all a bit different. I showed a lot of white fowls, leghorns and things. The way you can improve something is amazing if you wash them and do them up, and that gives you a lot of satisfaction. So does breeding or producing something and seeing how it has turned out.

I guess I’ve got something of a competitive nature because I’ve also shown cattle and that's the same sort of thing. It's about the way you present them and how you look at the breed type and characteristics and all that type of thing.

A lot of the people that show animals, these people will have started with breeding chooks and one of the reasons for that is you can see your results very quickly, within six to nine months you can see what you've produced. While if you're breeding cattle it's much longer. Of all the hobbies, it's one of the cheaper ones. In the days gone by it also gave people eggs and meat as well; it was referred to in those days as a poor man’s hobby.

I think it’s a good thing for families. It’s good for kids when they're growing up to have some sort of responsibility, going out and feeding the chooks and collecting the eggs.

My first year as president of the show society was 1988, which was the year of Expo at Brisbane. There was a heatwave that year and a heap of busses left Lismore and went to the Expo in Brisbane. Well, we couldn't compete against that and it was one of the worst shows we’ve had.

The show wasn’t doing very well at the time. We didn't have a lot of commitment from the council or the Northern Star. The mayor, Harold Fredericks, called a meeting at the Workers Club and in ‘89 the Northern Star became our major sponsor and for some time they were the naming rights sponsor of the show. That gave us a bit of confidence because at that stage we felt we were just over there by ourselves and didn't have the support of the town.

We also learned a bit from Expo and so we also brought more in more entertainment. We introduced, and not everybody would probably like it, but we still do it today, we brought circuses to the show, a free circus. We brought professional rodeo, which was just starting to get going. And we were able to do all that because some sponsors got behind us and helped us and that kept the crowds coming.

Things have been up and down along the way as the economy changes at times and one thing and another. But it's very important to have the support of the community and businesses of Lismore. Without them we haven't got anything.

The show has changed a lot over the years. When I came in as president, the dairy industry was still very strong. We might have had 300 or 400 head of cattle in dairy alone. The beef was starting to grow but not as big as that. And so you were assured entries in the dairy and the beef cattle being a good section.

Well, as we know the dairy industry has changed so much and we've got nowhere near the dairy we had in 1988 so that section is nowhere near as big. But the beef cattle has continued to grow and now we've got a beef show that's probably recognised as the biggest in NSW outside of Sydney Royal.

I think if those who could remember what the showground was like back in 1988, with the improvements we've got there you wouldn't recognise the ground now. A lot of the buildings were in a bad state back then, much worse than they are now. That's not to say we don't need improve them, because they're ageing, but I think one of the achievements over there is that we’ve kept our showground viable in a time when entertainment and things are changing.

We have a lot more events there now. Much more than we used to. There's the organic markets, the farmers markets, the 4wd show, the gem show, and at New Year there's the Tropical Fruits which are major events and in amongst that we've got people doing horse shows, poultry shows, there's an auction every about six weeks and the speedway. These days people using showgrounds all over australia for caravans and that's become a pretty busy part of the Lismore Showground as well.



Like all organisations you have ups and downs. WIthout support and sponsors and putting on what people want, it can be up and down in one year. I think if I come back or you come back in 10 or 15 years the show won't look like it does today, everything has got to evolve. Just where we're going to be I'm not sure. I don’t know whether we will still have dairy cattle at the show in 15 years time, but there will still be people growing vegetables, and doing pickles and all that type of thing. People will still be showing something.

And that's what it's about. When the show started in 1885, the business people would have displayed a horse drawn plow or something, and that's what shows were about in those days. Down the track they were selling milking machines and then new cars and that's still what it's about it's about. It’s about going out there and displaying the best of what we've got in the district, in livestock or one thing or another.

How we do that changes. We're working on getting meat displays now. All of us eat food differently, whether we like it or not, to what we did even 10 or 15 years ago. There's much more marinating and that type of thing done today and we've got to display that type of thing. The blueberries that we’re growing around here today, 30 years ago you didn't hardly see any. Macadamia nuts. We've got to promote what's in the region.

We've just received a grant to develop a master plan for the whole showground. We can then apply for more development of the ground that might help the city of Lismore. We'd like see the infrastructure upgraded because it is quite old. Another thing we should explore is looking at a new type of pavilion or museum which involves a history not only of the show society but our indigenous people as well. The showground, we're led to believe, is on what was a meeting place for the aboriginal people long before we were here so I think we should honour that as well.

I think one of the reasons I've been involved in the show society for so long is because there is something very special for the town in bringing people together from all walks of life. We have so many different people involved in putting the show together. People might just show a chook or a cow, or show vegetables or flowers. It's quite across the board.

And it's not only during the show. As a community, we've got to have a meeting place and if you go over there on a Saturday, we get 500 to 1000 every week for the markets. It's not a huge market, but it's a good market. People sit down, have a cup of coffee and talk about what’s happened during the week. I think that's important, that people communicate with one another. There's not enough people sitting down and having a talk with one another these days, rather than fight one another we can actually gain a lot more by having a conversation.

You can't go on forever. Within the next few years, I won't be there as president I don't think. Sooner than later, if you know what i mean. I don't know how long it'll be. It will be interesting to see who puts their hand up to take over. It will just be interesting to see what happens. There could be somebody out there that's not involved even. Show societies, from time to time, need new people.