I’m not a professional writer, I’m just a simple person that likes to put the
pen on paper (and this case the computer keyboard) when I get an idea.
My grammar may not be perfect especially my spelling, but I hope even
with my bad writing skills I can make my point.
I’m not here to compete with the professional press of our community
they are the professionals and they do their job very well covering the
parade events. This is only a description of what I experienced the last
couple of years of being around the people that work for these events. I
say events because is not only the parade, the parade is the culminating
event of the Greek Independence Day calibrations.
So here I go.
The first Greek parade that I saw outside of the student parade in
Kerkira was the Greek Independence parade on Fifth Avenue in 1972.
As I young boy I didn’t exactly understand what a big undertaking it was
to throw A Greek Independence day parade in New York, while in Greece
we had the so called revolution of 21 April. And one of our own
Erikousioti Mr. Anastasios Manessis helped organize that perticoular
parade, and eventually became the president of the Federation of
Hellenic Societies of Greater New York, which has organized the biggest
Greek Parade, west of Athens and Thessaloniki
Science 1938. I’m not going to write of past parades or to tell you if they
were successful because every parade for the past 70 years was
successful, for the simple reason that they were done.
The first order of business for the federation is to elect the Chairman the
vice chairman The Secretary and the Treasurer of the parade and the
chairmen of the various event committees.
About 2 months before the parade the Panomogeniakes Synedriasis
start and are held every Thursday 8:00pm at the Stathakion Center the
home of the Federation, and the meetings last till the Thursday before
the parade. In these meetings (which all the members of the Federation
are welcome) the Chairman of the parade gives updates and discusses
its progress, along with the rest of the event chairmen. In this meeting
over 150 members of various societies that are members of the
Federation attend to discuss the when and how of all parade issues. The
biggest issue of the parade of curse is the fundraising, it takes over
$350.000 to organize a parade of the size and magnitude and every
penny is collected thru the various events, telethons, corporate
sponsors, member participation fees, the parade journal, the parade
lottery and the donations of people like you. All of this hard work is done
on
a volunteer bases by allot of hard working and dedicated people. A week
before the parade the order of the participants is decided by lottery that
is held at the Stathakion Center. The only participants that are not a part
of the lottery are the last 10 groups that marched in last year’s parade.
They automatically
moved up to the first battalion. As you can read I haven’t mention any
names ,is not done accidently or maliciously, but all the people that work
for this great event work equally hard so I won’t forget any one(and I’m
terrible with names ) I decided not to write their names . This year’s
parade theme is dedicated to Democracy, Macedonia and Cyprus, If you
love Democracy you will come and join us either
march or view the parade, if you don’t like Macedonia to become a Slav
state come and join us, if you don’t want northern Cyprus to become a
Turkish Republic come a join us. The only thing that Politicians like is
numbers either in dollars or people, and if we want to protect our
heritage and history we have to show them both.
pen on paper (and this case the computer keyboard) when I get an idea.
My grammar may not be perfect especially my spelling, but I hope even
with my bad writing skills I can make my point.
I’m not here to compete with the professional press of our community
they are the professionals and they do their job very well covering the
parade events. This is only a description of what I experienced the last
couple of years of being around the people that work for these events. I
say events because is not only the parade, the parade is the culminating
event of the Greek Independence Day calibrations.
So here I go.
The first Greek parade that I saw outside of the student parade in
Kerkira was the Greek Independence parade on Fifth Avenue in 1972.
As I young boy I didn’t exactly understand what a big undertaking it was
to throw A Greek Independence day parade in New York, while in Greece
we had the so called revolution of 21 April. And one of our own
Erikousioti Mr. Anastasios Manessis helped organize that perticoular
parade, and eventually became the president of the Federation of
Hellenic Societies of Greater New York, which has organized the biggest
Greek Parade, west of Athens and Thessaloniki
Science 1938. I’m not going to write of past parades or to tell you if they
were successful because every parade for the past 70 years was
successful, for the simple reason that they were done.
The first order of business for the federation is to elect the Chairman the
vice chairman The Secretary and the Treasurer of the parade and the
chairmen of the various event committees.
About 2 months before the parade the Panomogeniakes Synedriasis
start and are held every Thursday 8:00pm at the Stathakion Center the
home of the Federation, and the meetings last till the Thursday before
the parade. In these meetings (which all the members of the Federation
are welcome) the Chairman of the parade gives updates and discusses
its progress, along with the rest of the event chairmen. In this meeting
over 150 members of various societies that are members of the
Federation attend to discuss the when and how of all parade issues. The
biggest issue of the parade of curse is the fundraising, it takes over
$350.000 to organize a parade of the size and magnitude and every
penny is collected thru the various events, telethons, corporate
sponsors, member participation fees, the parade journal, the parade
lottery and the donations of people like you. All of this hard work is done
on
a volunteer bases by allot of hard working and dedicated people. A week
before the parade the order of the participants is decided by lottery that
is held at the Stathakion Center. The only participants that are not a part
of the lottery are the last 10 groups that marched in last year’s parade.
They automatically
moved up to the first battalion. As you can read I haven’t mention any
names ,is not done accidently or maliciously, but all the people that work
for this great event work equally hard so I won’t forget any one(and I’m
terrible with names ) I decided not to write their names . This year’s
parade theme is dedicated to Democracy, Macedonia and Cyprus, If you
love Democracy you will come and join us either
march or view the parade, if you don’t like Macedonia to become a Slav
state come and join us, if you don’t want northern Cyprus to become a
Turkish Republic come a join us. The only thing that Politicians like is
numbers either in dollars or people, and if we want to protect our
heritage and history we have to show them both.
Photos from one of the panomogeniakes synedriasis