Saturday, September 10, 2011

Good morning everyone,
As promised today I'm going to show you what went on in our little
town on Labor Day and what all it takes for all this to take place. In
the header picture is the ribbon awards that I made to give to the
parade entries that were judged and won. Our town doesn't have a
lot of businesses that we can ask for them to sponsor the parade so
we make do with what we have, with this being the case I saved our
community days committee almost a hundred dollars in making the
awards and we still have material left for next years awards.
For many that don't know it takes months to prepare to put on a
parade. Fliers and letters have to be sent out inviting people to come
and be in our parade. There is insurance that needs to be bought to
cover and it has to be a certain amount of coverage dictated by the
city. Arrangements have to be made with the city for a staging area,
road closures, when the parade will start and end, and when the roads
can be re-opened. We have to find an announcer that will announce
the parade entries. The day of the parade we need volunteers that
will make sure everyone that has come to our parade is registered so
that we have a discription of the entry for the announcer. We also
need volunteers that will get the entries on the parade route moving
along in an orderly manner. If all of this is not taken care of then we
would not have some of the entries you see in the pictures below.
The Ritzville Float. The Royal City float.
Wardens' FloatAfter the parade everyone heads to Volunteer Park where the festivities
continue. All of this also takes months of planning. There is also a certain
amount of insurance coverage that needs to be bought for this event. Ads
are placed in the paper and craiglist as early as march to hopefully get a
wide variety of vendors. We do give those that were here the year before
first dib to return before we start seeking more vendors. Besides working
on the vendors we start looking for entertainment. We plan with the city
on getting portable out houses, portable drinking fountains, road closures
around the park, power at the right locations for vendors to use, water
availability for the vendors to use also. Then theres figuring out placement
of booths so not to have vendors with similar items next to each other.
Making sure that we have banners to hang up around the area. The day of
the event we mark off the vendor spaces. Pictured below is some of the
entertainment and vendors.
Our Queen Madison singing. I wish I would have taped this so you could
hear her beautiful voice.
The next two pictures are a couple of higschool classes working to make
money for their senior trip when they become seniors. They start
working on their trip fund as freshmen. This is Wardens' FFA class raising money for their trips. Believe me it's a lot of work, and only about half a dozen people did it.
Yet there are always so many complaints about the way things are done.
The money that is taken in sits for next years event to pay for all the
paper, ink, stamps, ads, awards, etc. I've been part of helping put this on
for three years and this is my last year doing it. I'm tired of all the
complaining and people not realizing what I spend out of my own pocket
in fuel, the quicker oil changes, running around taking care of some of
these things. I've been sick to my stomache the day after the event and
am still sick. I don't know if it is stress, the heat, or food poisoning. For
the sake of my health that is why I will no longer help with this event.
Sorry for the long post but I had to get this off my chest.
I wish next years volunteers the best of luck in continuing the event.
Hope you all have a Spledid Day!!!!!!!!

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