Society members dismiss board of directors for Cape Breton's iconic Celtic Colours festival

Members of the society that runs the Celtic Colours International Festival have fired their entire board of directors, citing volunteer complaints, a deteriorating visitor experience and senior staff resignations.

Longtime employee Shauna Walters, who resigned last year, said the festival office had lately become toxic and the board simply refused to take serious steps to fix things.

"There's a difference between a festival dying a natural death and being murdered and unfortunately, we were watching it being murdered," she told CBC's Mainstreet Cape Breton host Wendy Bergfeldt.

"The onus was on the membership to address it, because literally that's the only mechanism that exists when a volunteer board is dysfunctional."

Former board chair and longtime volunteer Jacquelyn Scott said the problems go back three years.

She said members tried to get the board to act earlier this year, but nothing changed.

'This wasn't a coup d'etat'

"This wasn't a coup d'etat," Scott said. "We wanted to help and our help kept getting rebuffed."

The iconic fall festival, which began in 1997, consists of a weeklong series of concerts and activities in community halls around Cape Breton Island near October's Thanksgiving holiday, when the changing colour of the leaves on trees is at its peak.

The Celtic Colours Festival Society appoints the board that runs the overall event.

Society members called an extraordinary meeting over the weekend to present a lengthy list of serious issues and ultimately to vote on the board's dismissal.

According to a document handed out to society members and discussed at the meeting, venues were not being looked after properly, with some having little or no notice of changes in their bookings.

It also said concertgoers were complaining about some of the operations, such as a group of tourists left out in the rain outside the festival club.

With five senior staff resignations, including three since the end of this year's festival in October, Scott said the members did not have confidence in the board to hire replacements.

Scott says members couldn't wait longer

She said they couldn't wait any longer to right the ship before planning gets underway for next year's event, especially since meetings last spring had no effect.

"We did not want to be put in the position of having more delays to get a meeting, more non-response to whatever the meeting required and it would just get messier and messier," Scott said.

Volunteer Gerardette Brown said the board of directors left the membership no choice.

"It was always the same: stonewall, stonewall, stonewall."

Festival will go on: O'Neill

Multi-instrumentalist J.P. Cormier, who's played at every Celtic Colours festival since its inception, said he's noticed the problems lately and it's about time someone took control.

"There's a move being made to make a change in it and I feel if that change isn't made now that the festival is going to go under."

Volunteer and musician James (Jinks) O'Neill said the concerns are valid, but the festival will go on, despite the membership's dismissal of the board.

"Those people took it upon themselves to come to this extraordinary move to ensure the continuance of the festival," he said.

'Scratching our heads': board chair

Celtic Colours board chair Marcel McKeough said the meeting over the weekend only included about a third of the society's membership.

He said according to legal advice given to the board, the organizers did not follow the society's bylaws.

"They called the meeting, but they didn't have the right to call the meeting, so the consequence of that is we're sort of left scratching our heads," McKeough said.

"They think they have the authority, but they actually don't."

McKeough said the board is calling a full meeting of the society in January and he expects the majority of the membership will back the board of directors.

He said the festival has had a couple of good years financially after incurring a "significant deficit" and he's sorry some of the society's members are upset.

But McKeough said the board is receiving applications for staff replacements and he's confident of another good year to come.

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