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L. A. F. F.
Email:
laffadupre@yahoo.com
Website: laffnet.org
A Publication
of the Louisiana Association of Fairs and Festivals
Al Dupré, Jr., Editor
February 2008
To: All Past LAFF Presidents
Subject: 2008 Convention Banquet –February
23rd
Please note, that as in past years, you and
your guest
are invited to the Saturday night banquet.
Complimentary tickets will be in your convention packet. We hope that your
plans will include attending the entire convention. Please note the reduced
price (without cost of Saturday night ticket) for your (and your guest’s
registration) –see laffnet.org – convention, and previous
information..
So that I may arrange special seating for
Past Presidents, please R.S.V.P. by February 19, 2008, if you will be able
to attend.
Al Dupré
Secretary
A Request from the
Past President if any event/associate or individual member would, like
to assist; we could use some help to feed the queen contestants, Friday
night. Anyone that would be able to bring food or donate money….please
advise Dennis……..
PRESIDENT’s
MESSAGE:
Greetings LAFF Friends
It has been an honor as
serving as LAFF President and greatly look forward to February 21 - 24, 2008
at the Holiday Inn Select in Baton Rouge. Jim and his committees are working
hard to make this convention a success. If you would like to help with
anything, just call Jim or let your District Director know. I feel certain
you will enjoy this convention more and we certainly welcome your time and
talent.
Please make arrangements
to send as many representatives to convention as you can. There is always
the opportunity to learn something new and develop new friendships. The
board needs your comments and support to keep our organization strong.
Remember to support your
neighbors and your fellow LAFF members. If you need help with anything,
please do not hesitate to contact me. I am proud to be serving this year as
your L.A.F.F. President.
I hope to see you soon.
s/ Paul Magee
VICE-PRESIDENT’s MESSAGE:
LOVE
PEACE
LAFF
Hope
everyone had a very wonderful holiday season. It is now time to totally
concentrate on the convention scheduled for February 21 – 24, 2008 being
held at the Holiday Inn Select in Baton Rouge. The deadlines have come and
gone for the early registration for delegates and the queens. There is still
time to do so with a late fee but you must hurry because the time is running
out fast. I hope all the essay, poster and awards have been received because
those deadlines have passed and now it is too late to send in anything. The
judging has to be done on these items as we need to have the plaques and
awards done for convention.
I have spoken to T C Cary and she would like to
remind everyone that if you would like to donate food items for the
hospitality room she would deeply appreciate it. They are asking for any
items you would like to donate. If you need information you can call your
district director or T C Cary and they can help you with your donations.
The time has come for me to thank the entire LAFF
board members for their assistance throughout this past year. If I needed
anything all I had to do was call anyone of them and they were there to
help. The job of convention chairman is not a one person job. It takes
everyone working together to put everything together for the good of LAFF. I
hope everyone will have the opportunity to participate and enjoy the 2008
convention. Come out with the attitude of having a good time as we go back
to the Sixties. On Friday night everyone is more than welcome to dress up in
their favorite sixties costume and have lots of fun.
I would like to thank the Louisiana Association of
Fair and Festival members and the board of directors for allowing me the
opportunity to serve as their vice president/convention chairman for the
past year. It has been a great but short year as the convention is almost
here already. I had the pleasure of meeting and working with many people
that will forever leave an impression on me. Looking forward to working with
everyone next year.
Until next
month. LOVE
PEACE
LAFF
s/ Jim Meaux
SECRETARY’s MESSAGE:
Please make the information in the newsletter available
to your fair/festival members. If you wish anyone else in your event to
receive the newsletter via email, please either type or print very clearly
these email addresses and send to laffadupre@yahoo.com. Also, check the
website (www.laffnet.org)
for the newsletter, updates and other member information.
If you need any help with your fair or festival,
especially in judging a pageant or other type of contest or just needing
any assistance in general, please send an e-mail to: GOTOBUTTON BM_1_
laffadupre@yahoo.com or call me at: 985-447-4658 or write: 2402 Elizabeth
Street, Thibodaux, LA 70301
DISTRICT 2 DIRECTOR
Greeting LAFF Family
Hope your Christmas was Merry and Santa brought you
everything from your wish list. Prior to Christmas I had the pleasure of
judging Christmas on the Bayou in Cotton Port for Sharon Tassin and Manny
McCoute. They had a great turn out and really treated us as royalty.
As we venture into the New Year 2008, Louisiana will be
kicking off some of the many great festivals that it is known for. In
District 2, Louisiana Fur and Wild Life and Southwest Louisiana Mardi Gras
Twelfth Night will start the festivities on January 5, 2008 at Lake Charles
Civic Center. Following those events are the Black Heritage Festival
beginning February 16, 2008 at the Lake Charles Civic Center and the Eunice
Mardi Gras Celebration February 25, 2008.
District 2 members if you received your letter from Mr.
Curtis Hue in reference to updating your festival information for the guide
that the State is willing to print please, please send in your information
prior to January 15, 2008 so your event may be included.
Then theirs convention, February 21-24, 2008. PEACE,
LOVE & LAFF! Which I’m sure will be a blast!...Jim Meaux and the
committee have been working really hard to make this a memorable event. If
there’s anything that I can assist you with at your event, etc. or if you
have any questions please contact me...Peace, Love, & LAFF...
Peace, Love & LAFF!
s/Equilla Victorian
DISTRICT 6 DIRECTOR
I hope everyone
had a Merry Christmas and best wishes toward a Happy New Year. It seems as
though Christmas gets here a lot faster than it did when I was a kid!
I hope
everyone got their convention packet and didn't have any problems getting
them in the mail by the deadline. I am looking forward to a successful
convention this year. I hope everyone will enjoy themselves and benefit
from all LAFF has to offer their festival or fair.
I traveled to
Colfax the first weekend of November. On Saturday, Paul McGee and I rode in
the LA Pecan Festival parade representing our "titles" in LAFF. We were
just missing the crown and banner! I attended the Queen's luncheon; where I
enjoyed one of the festivals famous sausage sandwiches and a piece of pecan
pie. There attendance was a little more than last years. There were
probably 50-75 vendor booths set up. They also had a carnival. Friday
night was their kids night; where they had a petting zoo set up for all the
kids. The weather was really good for them. Congratulations to the LA
Pecan Festival on another successful festival! See ya next year!
In November,
I also attended the Provencal Fall Festival. I watched the parade. The
parade didn’t seem to have as many units in it as the year before, but it
was good. I enjoyed the music of Mauva Bell and Hot Water. There was
plenty of political candidates on hand to tell you who to vote for- whether
you wanted to know or not! The crowd seemed to be a bit bigger than last
years and everyone seemed to be having a good time.
On November
17th, I helped Tamara Jones at her Many Christmas Festival Pageant. Her
new Queen is Kelli Sepulvado from Zwolle. Tamara had a lot of participants
in the pageant. Carol Ware, Dorothy Martin and Amber Ware judged for her.
Congratulations to Tamara on a successful pageant.
The first
weekend of December, I attended the Natchitoches Christmas Festival. The
festival was huge. They had two parades this year. A children's parade
that morning and a big parade in the afternoon. The fireworks display was
awesome. The Christmas lights were beautiful. The singing Christmas tree
is probably my favorite. They had beautiful weather for the parade and
festival.
The second
weekend of December, I attended the Many Christmas Festival. A lot of the
festival queens met at the Taylor House again this year before the parade.
The Taylor House is a shelter for abused women located in Many. We meet
there each year and donate household items to the families in need. We
bring Christmas presents for the girls and boys who are staying there with
their mothers. I watched the parade and then went to the fairgrounds where
they had food booths, arts-n-crafts booths and live entertainment. I
enjoyed the fireworks show at 6:30 that night. Congratulations to the Town
of Many on a great festival and a wonderful fireworks display.
I traveled to
the community of Ashland. The Ashland Spring Festival Queen, Katelyn Yates,
help to host a Christmas party sponsored by the Ashland Community Mayor,
Gahagan Lee. Santa was there taking pictures with all the children in the
community. Katelyn passed out goodies to all the children. Special thanks
to Miss Robeline Festival Queen, Mollie Jordan, and Jr Teen Miss Battle of
Pleasant Hill, Courtney Yelverton, for helping.
On January
5th, 2008- I attended the South West Louisiana Mardi Gras pageant at the
Lake Charles Civic Center. There were a lot of visiting queens there and
the pageant seemed to run very smoothly. The new Miss Queen is Danielle
Harrell. Congratulations to all the lovely new royalty. Congratulations to
Fae and Jackie Bergeron on a successful pageant.
We have our
next LAFF quarterly meeting in Baton Rouge on January 19th. Anyone who
would like to attend are certainly welcome. It will be held at the Holiday
Inn Select. Please contact me or anyone on the board for more information.
s/Alisa Yelverton
DISTRICT 7 DIRECTOR
I would like to extend my belated wishes for a safe and
happy holiday season. For some reason my newsletter information did not
reach the secretary. The years end has proven to be another successful year
for LAFF due to the continued combined effort of the Executive board and
Directors in overseeing your affairs. The effort that was put forth was an
example of the kind of leadership that you, the members of LAFF, have seen
fit to allow to run YOUR organization during the year. There have been many
discussions, sometimes heated that have made this organization the success
that it is. We have always left the board meetings as friends and have
always had the best interest of our LAFF family foremost in all our
decisions. I do hope that all of you have registered for the convention.
I also hope that you have considered nominating someone for the LAFF Hall of
Fame; these nominations should have been submitted to our Secretary Al
Dupre. As the convention draws near I do hope that you have all been
practicing your singing and prepared you voices for the Thursday Night
competition and Karaoke fun that we have planned. If you have anything to
donate to the District baskets to be given away during our general sessions,
please contact your District Director so that he can prepare the basket. I
would like to compliment our Queen of Queen’s Mallory Spinner for a
fantastic job this year. I would also like to commend all the beautiful
young ladies that represented their festivals throughout the year, for a job
well done. It is always a pleasure to see so many of these lovely young
ladies visiting the many pageants and festivals to show their support of the
festivals and their queens. Jim Meaux has done a great job throughout this
year organizing the upcoming conference and I want to extend my thanks for
his effort and to his committee’s for their untiring efforts to help make
this convention an educational and fun event for all of us. I would like
all the festivals in District 7 to submit to me either by e-mail or snail
mail their festival information for the coming year so that we can have the
correct information on our website. I want to thank Gale LuQuette for his
efforts in keeping our website going for us, as he has done all this as a
volunteer. During the year the website has had some problems beyond our
control and I want to thank him for all his efforts. Hoping to see you all
at the convention in February;
s/ Warren Deemer
QUEEN of QUEEN’S
Hello Everyone!
I started December off with a trip to LaRose for the A
Bayou Christmas Pageant on December 1st. It was a wonderful night as I
watched Ariel Gorsha crowned queen.
Amy Johnson, 2007 Queen Cotton, organized a table for
visiting queens at the Make-A-Wish Tea in Belle Chasse. On December 9th, I
attended the tea which raised money to make the wishes of terminally ill
children come true.
With the arrival of the New Year, I realize that my
reign as the 2007 Louisiana Association of Fairs and Festivals Queen of
Queens is ending. I have had an amazing year traveling around
Louisiana and experiencing all of the
wonderful things our state has to offer! I still have a few events left to
attend, but the 2008 LAFF Convention will be here before I know it.
Thank you for the opportunity to represent each of you
and your event. I wish everyone a Happy New Year, and I will see you all at
Convention!
Love, Peace and LAFF
2007 LAFF Queen of Queens
s/
Mallory Spinner
SEQ CHAPTER \h \r 1ELECTION GUIDELINES
1. Require that an
individual MUST be or have been a “board member, officer, staff person
chairperson and presently a member in good standing.” of their Fair or
Festival in order to be nominated for the LAFF officer or board election.
2. Once elected to a
LAFF officer or director position the individual may serve out their term.
3. Nominations MUST
be made in writing by a convention delegate (or a current officer) of your
fair or festival (which must be a paid up member of LAFF) to the nominating
committee anytime prior to the closing of the Friday business session of the
annual meeting or 5 pm which ever is the latest.
4. Nominating
committee shall present a slate of candidates for all officer and board
positions no later than the Friday business session of the annual meeting.
5. Nominations from
the floor may be made ONLY by a voting Convention delegate (or a current
officer) of the LAFF member fair or festival.
6. Nominations from
the floor will be done ONLY at the Friday afternoon business session and
nominations will close at the closing of the Friday business session of the
annual meeting or 5 pm which ever is the latest.
7. The Secretary will
prepare a ballot for the election of Officers. The Secretary will prepare a
ballot for the election of Directors, that will include the names of the
Officers nominees where more than one person is nominated.
8. Required that
Directors be elected from designated areas of the state.
9. Required that
candidates for Treasurer and Secretary be bondable.
10. Establish a definite
make-up of the nominating committee. By-laws requires that the president
“appoint the nominating committee for the election of officers and directors
consisting of not less than three (3) members but no more than five (5)
members.
11. The State of
Louisiana will be divided in six (7) LAFF District for the election of board
members.
2008 Elections will be held in District 1 &
5.
2009 Elections will be held in District 2, 6
& 7
20010 Elections will be held in District 3 &
4.
.
District elections will be held every three years in the same
order as stated above. Only members of the individual districts will be
allowed to vote in these districts.
POSTER CONTEST RULES
1.
Subject of poster shall be: “My Fair/Festival”.
Name, location and date of event must be on poster.
2. Any
public, private, or parochial school student may participate.
3.
Poster will be judged in four categories:
A. Grades 1 - 3
B. Grades 4 - 6
C. Grades 7 - 9
D. Grades 10 - 12
4.
Poster must be displayed on 14" X 22" white poster paper. (½ sheet of
standard poster
paper).
5. All
work must be vertical. Nothing horizontal will be judged.
6. All
lettering must be free-hand. Do not use Stencils.
7.
Medium used shall be: Crayon; Water Color; Acrylics, Felt-Tip Pen; or Oil.
No
Cut-outs nor Collage.
8.
First, Second, and Third place winners in each category are eligible for
state competition.
Limit of Twelve (12) posters per event.
9.
Posters will be judged and points awarded as follows:
Originality 35%
Theme 25%
Neatness 25%
Spelling 15%
10.
Poster Prizes:
Third Place $25.00
Second Place $50.00
First Place $75.00
One Best Overall $100.00
11.
Information cards (5X7 index cards) should include the following:
Name Address
Telephone Parents
Category Fair/Festival
This should be placed on the
left top corner of poster in such a way that it can be flipped
over from front to back.
12. All
posters must be presented by 5:00 PM on Friday of the annual convention.
Chairman: Kaye Ladner
LAFF District IV Director
27280 R. F. Ball Rd.
Franklinton, Louisiana
707438
985-848-5937
Fax 985-839-9164
Email: wpfairlady@yahoo.com
Convention 2008
“Love, Peace & L.A.F.F.”
Holiday Inn Select Baton Rouge
February
21st – 24th, 2008
EVENTS TO ATTEND
With the recent storms, information has been updated as
available, always call before going!
February 2008 Events
District #
Black Heritage
Festival Pageant (2)
Lake Charles, LA 70616
Event Dates 22nd thru 24th
Cynthia Metoyer
337-436-0855 - Cell 540-0172
Email:
cynthiametoya@bellsouth.net
Courier de Mardi
Gras (3)
Church Point, LA 70525
Event Dates 1st, 2nd
& 3rd
Amia Mimi Doucet
337‑684‑3645
Email:
churchpointmardigras@hotmail.com
Eunice Mardi Gras
Celebration (3)
Eunice, LA
70535 Event Dates 1st,
thru 5th
Ginny Moody 337-457-7389
Email:
eunicela@hotmail.com
Mardi Gras of
Northwest LA (6)
Natchitoches, LA
71457 Event Dates 1st,
thru 5th
Alisa Yelverton
318-352-8362 or 256-6943
Email:
alisa.n.yelverton.hxjo@statefarm.com
Mardi Gras of
Southwest Louisiana (2)
Lake Charles, LA
70616 Event Dates 1st,
thru 5th
Jackie Bergeron
337-439-7889
Website:
passagoodtime.org
or visitlakecharles.org
March 2008 Events
District #
Amite Oyster
Day (4)
Amite, LA 70422
Event Dates 15th, 16th
& 17th
Jeri Robertson
985‑748‑7156
Ashland Spring
Festival (6)
Ashland, LA
71002 Event Dates 28th&
29th
W. G. Lee 318-544-0044
Fax: 318-544-0064
Festival
Ray*La*Ne* (3)
Rayne, LA
70578-6627 Event Dates
22nd
Marlene Habetz
337-334-4470 C# 581-0480
Email:
mmhaetz@cox.net
Iowa Rabbit
Festival (2)
Iowa, LA
70647 Event Dates 14th
& 15th
Johnny Guillory
337-582-3044
Email:
iowarabbitfestival@yahoo.com
Jonquil
Jubilee (5)
Gibsland, LA 71028
Event Date 1st
Holly Henley
318-843-6228
Fax: 318-843-9961
LA Crawfish
Festival (7)
Chalmette, LA 70044
Event Dates 28th thru 30th
Cisco Gonzales
504-329-6411
Email:
lacrawfishfestpublicity@cox.net
LA Nursery
Festival (6)
Forest Hill, LA 71430
Event Dates 13th thru 15th
Tim West/Mary Pringle
318-748-6300
Email:
info@foresthill-la.com
LA Redbud
Association (5)
Vivian, LA
71082 Event
Dates 15th
Merle Collins
318-375-3893
Email:
pg71082@vivianla.com
Oak Alley
Plantation (7)
Vacherie, LA
70090 Event Dates 22nd
& 23rd
Connie Becnel
225-265-2151
Email:
oakalleyplantation.com
Patterson Cypress
Sawmill Festival (1)
Patterson, LA 70392
Event Dates 28th thru
30th
David Bourdier
985-395-3720
Email:
King1@Teche.net
Spring
Fling (6)
Boyce, La.
71409 Event Dates 22nd
& 23rd
Donnel Muller
318-793-5590
Washington Catfish
Festival (3)
Washington, LA 70589
Event Dates 13th thru 15th
Becky Richard
337-319-1635
Email:
townofwashingtonla.org
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