Time to start floating ideas for Dannevirke’s Christmas parade
Businesses, clubs and community organisations need to get their thinking caps on and come up with float ideas for the Dannevirke Christmas parade.
Chamber of Commerce chairman Bryce Galloway said the Christmas parade would be on December 4 at noon.
While Covid was a consideration, the chamber was taking a positive approach.
“We want to make sure that we’re all prepared for it to go ahead,” said Suresh Patel, of Shires Fruit and Vege Market.
If the worst happened, they could still pull out at a late stage, but the plan was for it still to happen.
This year, Shires Fruit and Vege Market would be taking over parade sponsorship from Mitre 10, which had done it for the past four years.
Galloway said he felt it was time to pull back and it was an ideal time for Shires to take it over, especially going into the shop’s 100th year.
The parade had never had a major sponsor until about five years ago when Mitre 10 started doing it.
“We were very proud sponsors for that time and we’ve contributed a significant amount.”
“As the organiser over that particular time, I’m so thankful that Mitre 10 came on board with their sponsorship,” Patel said.
He said their contributions towards running the parade and prizes helped.
Galloway said he’d seen the parade get better and better over that time.
“Last year we didn’t have as many floats, but certainly the quality of the floats has improved just out of sight over the last four or five years.”
He felt parades in other areas didn’t have a patch on what Dannevirke could do.
Patel agreed. “We get a lot of comments from people around that time of the year saying they’ve seen various parades around the countryside and quite often they’ll say that the Dannevirke one is as good as they see.”
It was hoped that schools, which didn’t participate last year, would be on board this year, as well as businesses, clubs and organisations.
“It doesn’t matter who you are,” Galloway said. “The more the merrier.”
Patel said he was thankful that Mitre 10 had come on board.
The chamber is also running a shopping promotion through November with at least three major prizes.
The competition winners will be announced just before the start of the parade.