HomeMy WebLinkAbout2016-03-23-TCC-min
Minutes
Town Celebrations Committee
March 23, 2016
Cafe, 201 Bedford Street
Members present
Lorain Marquis, Rich McDonough, co-chairs; Suzanne Caton, Kim Coburn, Linda Dixon, Carol Flynn,
Karen Gaughan, Cerise Jalelian, Paul Jenkins, Linda Levitt, Melanie Lin, Sondra Lucente, Julie Miller,
Wayne Miller, Henry Murphy, Bill Mix, Geetha Padaki, Sandy Podgorski, Bob Tracey
Members not present
Diana Bishop; Dave Taylor, Sam Zales
Business
The Chair declared that a quorum was present.
The minutes of March16, 2016 were approved.
Brief Committee Assignment Reports
Paul Jenkins: MEMA radios will be available for the parade. He asked for 14 but it will depend
on what’s available on the day. It is still not known if Dave Taylor will be available to help on
Patriots’ Day.
Bill Mix: Mentioned that the Coast Guard will be bringing an extra vehicle. He will follow up
on the details. He also mentioned that an elderly former Minuteman is planning to attend the re-
enactment this year, which means that 4 tickets will be needed for the morning reviewing stand
for him and his party. Also, a golf cart may be needed to move the party around.
Bob Tracey: He plans to ask for 20 cases of water.
Cerise: She has all the tickets for the events and the parking tags. Cerise mentioned that she
has 3 sets of tickets, one set for the morning bleachers, one set for the reviewing stand for the
re-enactment, one set for the parade reviewing stand. Tickets will not be distributed until closer
to the date.
Sondra: Susan O’Keefe will be the announcer for the afternoon parade. Lorain will give the
media forms received from parade units to Sondra to give to Susan O’Keefe. Parade float
judges are all set.
Sandy: Mentioned that the Colonial Times magazine did a great job of putting the Patriots’
Day weekend calendar into the latest edition.
Melanie: Dropped off a set of programs at the Community Center. The Chinese dragon may be
available for next year’s parade. She reached out to sponsors of the Chinese New Year
celebrations to be sponsors for parade units.
Julie: Will call Barry Cunha to clarify his ticket requests for Cerise.
Suzanne: Will send email to sponsors saying thank you for their contributions and to let them
know that the process of assigning sponsors to marching units is ongoing. We will let them
know who they are assigned to sponsor when it is decided. She mentioned that Bedford Car
Wash contributed a $50 coupon book. Rich McDonough offered to pay for the coupons and
contribute the $50 to the Town Patriots’ Day gift account.
Linda: Has recruited about 10 Parade Ambassadors so far and she is expecting more next week
as her committee puts in more recruitment effort. Geetha and Melanie will ask CAAL and
IAAL to provide some ambassadors.
Kim: Handed out the list of accepted parade units.
Patriots Day, Monday, April 18, 2016
Golf Carts: Bob wondered how many golf carts are really needed. After some discussion by the
committee, 8 carts were determined to be required number. Linda Dixon to ask Dick
Michelson if he needs a golf cart for the parade.
Tickets: There was some discussion by the committee about who should get tickets and it was
clear that the committee is unsure how many seats are available for the morning re-enactment
and for the afternoon parade review since new bleachers have been purchased by the DPW.
Lorain will talk to DPW to find out the exact numbers of seats that will be available.
Parking for weekend events: Lorain asked about publishing a map showing parking locations
in town for the festivities. Lorain will ask Kathy Santos to update the existing map, making it
more viewable and reproducible and to post it on the website.
Morning Parade: Participants should assemble at 7 am at the entrance to Munroe Cemetery.
Afternoon Parade line-up: Lorain gave Karen Gaughan the set of index cards from last year
that list all the marching units and asked her to check them against this year’s accepted units,
adding new cards for new units and removing cards for units not in this year’s parade. The
index cards will be used to determine the marching order for this year’s parade.
The meeting was adjourned at 8:50 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Suzanne Caton, Co-Secretary
Future Meetings
March 30; April 6; April 13; April 27; May 11; May 25; June 8; June 22.