It didn’t take long for organizers and the grads themselves to decide that another day would be a better day, and with that, the event was postponed to a date in the near future.
“I’d have been willing to go either way, but the grads are worried about their dresses, they’re worried about it getting chilly and it just being an ugly day in general,” said parade organizer Jody Chell. “And with the storms that were happening in Calgary [Saturday], I don’t have an emergency plan and I’m not willing to put that many people at risk in case we get stuck in inclement weather down there.”
Calgary was hit with softball-sized hail, brutal wind and rain and even had a tornado touch down in the area. While that storm wasn’t tracking into the Moose Jaw area, the potential for something like that happening in the middle of the event – and especially in Hamilton Flats, which has never handled rain well -- was too much of a risk.
“And it’s a crappy day, anyway, so why not have some sun and some nice pictures?” Chell said.
One positive is being a simple cars-and-people event, there’s little that has to be changed in order to simply pull it off next weekend if things point in that direction.
“That’s the great thing about a COVID event, there isn’t any equipment, it’s just cars and dresses. It’s not that hard to postpone it, there’s not a lot of stuff to deal with and it’s easy to just pick another day,” Chell explained.
One thing that’s for certain is when the March and Parade do happen, it’s going to be something special. Based on replies and information on the Facebook page dedicated to the event, there was the potential for 100 or more grads to take part, along with their families, friends and well-wishers.
And with at least another week to get the word out and bring more grads into the fold, the March and Parade could be even bigger than what we’d have seen this past weekend.
“We’re trying to figure out what day we can hold it, hopefully next weekend will be really nice,” Chell said. “We’ll wing it and see what happens.”
