[Indydealmaker]

Originally Posted by jflynn1

Please send to everyone you can think of to help get this reversed

Entertainment Department verified that starting in 2013 there would be no more parades (352-750-5411). Y

ou may wish to attend a meeting this Wednesday at Savannah Center 1:30PM . It is the AAC Amenities Advisory Committee to let them know how you feel. If many Villagers show up it may influence them. Even if attending the parades is not your thing it is important to show the developers that we care about The Villages and what it has to offer- that you would like to be a part of the decision of what is removed.



Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2012 10:07 PM
Subject: Re: News -IMPORTANT
Nadia, the Entertainment Dept. organizer/contact for The Villages is telling all the club leaders this. She is the one who schedules all the clubs/performances for each festivity, what time and square, etc. All this was just announced to the clubs within the last week (or less). What additional info I learned today is that all parades for 2013 (and beyond) are canceled, no longer happening. The "Fest" activities will tentatively include additional performances from the clubs/groups (in addition to the nightly music)...IE: the Italian Fest may have performances from say, the cheerleaders and belly dancers, provided they wear the appropriate colors and dance/perform to the appropriate music, IE; Italian music (which isn't a biggie as I think the groups try to do that anyway). But, subject to change. They are not giving a specific reason, however, speculation is it all boils down to dollars and cents. If they feel they're not making enough profit they stop doing it. Irregardless of the fact they use these festivities to lore folks here to live. I spoke with the ex-president of the Maryland club who filled me in on a little insight. She said that because folks here are retired they'll all wait for someone else to do something about this. If we only have a few folks upset nothing will happen. If, as a huge group of 80,000, we stand up to the developer and say we aren't happy about this or how can we take this over and handle it ourselves in the future, we might have a chance of getting a positive result. As the Maryland group, they used to rent the polo grounds/table area and kitchen to boil their own crabs for 200 people. They would rent it for one day from 8am to 9PM and cook the crabs for $200. When the developer took the grounds (back) over they raised the fee to $600 and said the club would have to use one of their caterers, either La Hacienda or Katie Belles, cause of course, they own them. Needless to say, the Maryland group stop this event.
Everyone I've talked to about this is extremely upset. I know some are posting stuff on facebook (I don' know how to go about this). Some are talking about letters to the editor (a joke of course, as the developer won't let those be put in the Daily Sun).

The only chance you have to salvage parades is to promote funding it sans developer. Get with the retailers and the clubs. The developer is only making business decisions. The only thing he gains from the parades and many other subsidized activities is marketing of homes. As the build-out approaches, you can expect the developer to stop subsidizing everything. Just like in most communities, it will fall to the retailers. If it makes money, it will be done.

Try putting a charity fund-raising spin on the parades (of course this will take donations) but this might induce the developer to stay involved in some fashion.

It is time for all Villagers to realize there is no free lunch. If it cannot be paid for with amenity fees, all of the freebies will either come to an end or shift to the retailers. It is what it is.