John Fox AM

John Fox grew up on a farm in New South Wales. He attended agricultural college and learned wool classification before moving to Victoria to join a wool broking firm in Geelong. He was in his early twenties when he first attended the Royal Melbourne Show. John’s relationship with the Show continued, and in 1989 he accepted an invitation to join the RASV Council. At the time, John was working as a commissioner for the Rural Finance Corporation.

… it was a privilege to be asked to be associated with [the Council]. Every time they had a vacancy there were usually more players than spots to fill, and quite a bit of lobbying went on amongst councillors.

John was part of the Council when the RASV structure changed: taking on a more corporate composition, the governance was put in the hands of a board. This was a difficult decision to make, but as John comments: ‘it was vital for us to be seen to be running a business on a sound commercial company footing … without that change in governance, there was no possibility of being funded in the way that it was necessary to continue’.

The second major change John was part of was the redevelopment of the showgrounds. John was Vice President of the RASV Council during the redevelopment and President the first year of its completion. It was challenging to try to preserve as much of the historical integrity of the grounds while also complying with health and safety standards and trying to turn the showgrounds into a viable, year-round asset.

I think if you were looking for the tick of what the redevelopment has done, it turned a site that was sort of built like topsy, with no real planning at all on people flow or flow of livestock mixing with people … into a site that was built firstly for people access and safety, and the general comfort and ability to cater for a crowd, and it is superb ... So whether you like it, or you don't like it, or whether it could have been better or not, it's certainly a damned sight better than what we had.