In common with many others, we took advantage of a sunny Sunday and headed for Central Park to visit the Boston Community Showcase – and came away wondering who it was really aimed at.

Collectively, the stands on show cover a wide range of activities – but individually many of them represent a slightly grim side of  life.
Illnesses and social troubles of every kind were represented – ranging from ataxia to victim support – beneath the surface impression of an ordinary summer fayre.
We went, as we say, because it was a nice day – and for a change Boston had something going on in the town that was easy to reach and free to enter.
But what we actually took away in terms of an overall impression is hard to define.
The event costs £15,000 to stage – which is a lot of money – and its aim is “Showcasing Boston’s Voluntary Sector.”
It was started in 2005 by the usual suspects – the Boston Mayflower Housing Association, Lincolnshire Community and Voluntary Service and Boston Borough Council.
From just 40 local organisations involved in the first event – it now hosts more than 100. And the organisers boast: “What we have developed is not just unique, but is at the spearhead of good practice in social cohesion nationally!”
We don’t think that this is why people go, though – we suspect that they turn out because the event is free and because it has a reasonable amount of non-PC entertainment to make a visit worthwhile.
The blurb tells us that the reason for starting the Showcase was to recognise the “growing cultural diversity in and around the town” with a primary aim of “targeting migrant workers/hard to reach groups.”
If that is the raison d'être, we are none too sure that much has been achieved – as few, if any, of the organisations promoting their services on Sunday seemed to have that target in mind.
This year’s sponsors are listed as the Boston Borough Council Community Safety Team, the Migration Impact Fund and the Len Medlock Charitable Trust.
We don’t know about you, but we would like to see more demonstrable action from the council’s community safety staff rather than simply chucking money to someone else to organise an event that allegedly addresses the problem.
If that had been done, we might still have more amenity seating around the place!
But overall, it’s a better event to have than not to have – although we think that it needs to move forward, so long as the costs can be contained.
So many of the organisations represented are usually needed on demand – when a family member is diagnosed with cancer, for example.
Frankly, we doubt that people left Central Park with a collection of information leaflets on ataxia, drug addiction,  hospices, diabetes, macular disease, Marie Cure Cancer Care, MS,  motor neurone disease, and Parkinson’s disease, just in case they have the misfortune to need advice at some time in the coming year.
What Boston needs is a broader local community event that includes more by way of entertainment.
By being less worthy it would attract more people, and be truly “cohesive”
There is plenty of room to do this, as Central Park was by no means jammed with contributors on Sunday – apart from the marquee, which was overloaded and as a result not as pleasant a  visitor experience as it might have been.
Boston needs a big event – other towns around the county have them – and after seven years, the Community Showcase cold be expanded to fit the bill very successfully.

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