Winner of the Gold Award for "Best Local Event" in the Oakville Beaver's 2006 Readers' Selection Award

Tips on how to put together a winning team!

Straight from last year's Best Community Float and Best Overall Float coordinator, Julie Harmgardt.

It all started with the 2004 Santa Claus Parade. There I was watching it with my family when I realized that only one local high school had entered a float. I thought “where is everybody's community/school spirit?”   I said to my mom that my high school, T.A. Blakelock, should have a float next year. My mom, who is used to all my crazy ideas, told me to go for it.

I checked at my school.  Apparently, many years ago Blakelock had a float, but no one seemed to know why that stopped. I do!  It's a lot of hard work.  

The planning and the actual day of the Parade are the easy parts. It's all those days in between that require commitment.   However, with a small core of dedicated volunteers it's amazing what you can put together. It's like planning for a huge special occasion like a wedding... It's over in the blink of an eye, so you want to savour each moment...the children's big smiles, a little boy's exuberant wave, a little girl's enthusiastic squeal, the crowds encouraging cheers. All of those things make all the hard work worth it!

The students on the float had a fabulous time and showed amazing school spirit. In fact, they were having so much fun they couldn't believe the Parade was over so quickly.

Anyways, even though it is lots of work and there were times when I wondered what I had gotten myself in to, as soon as it was over I started thinking about next year!  Oh, and learn from my mistake - last year I forgot to have a clean up crew in place which left me (along with mama, papa and brother elf) to dismantle the float and put everything away.

Blakelock can't wait to be part of the Parade again this year – and yes, I am doing the float again!  And we’re looking forward to seeing lots of school spirit in this year’s Santa Claus Parade.