Support needed for lantern parade

The Peninsula Australia Day Lantern Parade which has attracted thousands of residents and visitors from far and wide is threatened by a funding cut.

This year it has been reduced to a token gesture because Gosford Council is withholding the necessary funding required for the street parade to continue as a community participation event.

Since the inception of the parade in 2006, the community has grown to love the Individual participation and family involvement with the lantern parade.

The feature lanterns, which include a whale, a pelican, a multicultural heart, a ship and a memorial flame are popular with the crowd and they all hold significant symbolism for the people who live in the Gosford Council area.

But this year the lantern parade will not have any feature lanterns.

These symbols are inextricably linked to the Peninsula's history and culture.

This parade is a unique cultural and community participation event that has grown more popular every year.

It is estimated that approximately 15,000 people lined the Woy Woy waterfront for the lantern street parade, community drum circle and fireworks in 2011.

Supporters of the Woy Woy Lantern Parade recognise that Gosford Council must be accountable to its ratepayers.

Yet, with official celebrations on Australia Day beginning at Wagstaffe in the morning and extending through to Gosford City through the day and Woy Woy in the evening, some serious questions are being asked in the community about any cost saving associated with the deliberate dismantling of this significant community participation event.

In January 2011, members of the Woy Woy Peninsula Australia Day committee presented Gosford Council representatives with an alternative Community Ownership Proposal for the Lantern St Parade to continue as it had in previous years.

While not completely ignored, it was overlooked by council representatives as an option for 2012, and yet council sponsorship has not been forthcoming to help establish the lantern parade as an annual community event.

The community, including local drummers, dancers and artists, have rallied to keep the lantern parade on the Woy Woy Peninsula alive.

With the interest and inclusion of the Kariong Arts Barn in association with Brackets and Jam the lantern street parade and community drum circle has enough people support to continue in 2013 and beyond.

Without the official support and financial sponsorship of the Gosford Council, however, the Peninsula Oz Day Lantern Parade is destined to become just another popular community participation event that was destroyed by bureaucratic mismanagement and ignorance

Email, 20 Jan 2012 Darren Maxwell, Umina