Community & Business
13 April, 2026
Join a Club: The Show Secretary
Adele Saville first became secretary for the Clifton Show Society in 1983. Adele talked to The Clifton Courier about what it’s meant to her, what it means to the community, and why she hopes that people will keep volunteering.
Adele has always attended shows.
Coming from a dairy farm at Forest Springs, Adele’s family would show cattle.
She was first asked to come and interview for the role of secretary in 1983.
Adele took the role and didn’t look back.
The Clifton Show is a huge affair, Adele spends the year organising the next one, after each show is complete.
Endless hours of organising, planning, delegating, all as a volunteer, and without much want for recognition.
Adele will tell you that the show is a window into the district.
But what she means by that might be a little abstract from what most people will read.
The window isn’t just for others to see everything the once million-bushel-town has to offer.
“Come to the show, have a look at what Clifton has to offer, but also it’s a community get together. That’s one of the big things.” Adele said.
Especially these days there aren’t many reasons for the town to get together.
The show is one such reason, as it brings us together it keeps us together.
It’s because of this, Adele finds the show is incredibly important to the community.
“I think we’ve all gone through drought, several times,” she said.
“It gets depressing for some of the people on the land in those times, and if we can get them to come to the show...they find that they’re not the only one being hit with the drought and doing it tough,” Adele said.
It’s in community that we realise we aren’t alone.
Adele sees that as vital.
“To get the chance to talk with other people, maybe sometimes they’ve been able to get support in some way or another too,” she said.
Around show week Adele is as busy as a bee, darting from one appointment to the next, organising this, organising that.
From competitors to those just coming to check out what’s on, if they need something at show time, they go to Adele.
The show’s competitions are also incredibly meaningful.
“I had one woman come up to me and tell me she had been living here for 22 years and, ‘I don’t know how to exhibit anything would you be able to help me?’” so, Adele showed her.
“So she said that’s really good and so she went home and got her neighbour and the woman across the road and they all put exhibits in,” Adele said.
The competitions are a chance for achievement, connection and ultimately a bit of fun.
While bigger shows have full time employees to organise and plan shows, like the Toowoomba Show and the Ekka, country shows like Clifton’s are run entirely by volunteers.
But Adele has seen a big shift in volunteering, not just in the Show Society, but around Clifton.
“When I first started it would have been whole families were volunteering, where now so many people have had to take work outside their properties and both Mum and Dad are working.” Adele said.
“I think because the work situation has changed too, it used to be five, at most five and a half day weeks, Saturday afternoon and Sunday were free but that’s just not the case anymore.”
“We’re just finding because Mum and Dad both work, we’re not getting those families in and a lot of the younger people have had to go away to work or study so they’re not here,” Adele said.
It’s the same strain on much of regional and rural Australia.
Without the show, Adele says a lot of local groups wouldn’t get the chance to display their work.
From Landcare to the CWA, the Show is a local ‘nexus.’
A place were all the little individual parts of Clifton, click in like gears to the greater show.
Moreover, its a huge financial boost for the community.
“Any money spent at show time goes straight back into the community.” Adele told The Clifton Courier.
“I think people would be quite taken back by the amount of money the show does spend here in Clifton.”
But the most important thing the show does, is it reflects Clifton back to itself.
One is able to see the groups, the producers, the artists, the farmers, the talents and tricks of Clifton.
“You know for people to walk around that pavilion and see their name on a prize card and that sort of thing, often can mean a whole lot more than we realise,” Adele said.
But for all she has given to Clifton through her work on the show, she’s also gained plenty.
“I’ve probably met people I wouldn’t have normally come across, so I certainly I enjoy the friendship and connecting side of it.”
Adele will also tell you that it’s given her a big boost of confidence.
“I’ve learnt a lot over the years...I’ve learnt how to judge...I’m quite happy to go and judge in the pavilion.”
Adele will judge handicraft and hobby, sewing, and flower divisions.
She’s also won a fair few ribbons herself over the years.
When asked how many times she’s won it, the champion secretary said, “I don’t know.”
Too many times to count, no doubt.
“It’s (also) given me the confidence to attend other shows.”
Something that for Adele, has become a bit of a community of her own.
One thing many may not know is that Adele is also coordinator of the Rural Ambassador and Showgirl events for the Darling Downs Sub Chamber of Agricultural Societies.
Having been on the show circuit for so long, when she attends other shows, she’ll without a doubt, bump
into someone she knows.
When one thinks of the show, dagwood dogs, rides, rodeos and the pavilion come to mind.
But in Adele’s mind, over all the years she’s been secretary, she sees it as a bit more.
Unlike the physical pavilion, the guard rails on the race track and the brick of the bar, the community of Clifton, at least in Adele’s eyes, is a fluid, living and breathing thing.
The Show is many of the beds in which that garden is grown.
But what this garden needs is gardeners.
Gardeners like Adele.
Because every single one of us loves the show.
