St. Albert has never seen the likes of the scale and magnitude of the Rendezvous 2011 Picnic, perhaps because the whirlwind threesome of organizers, Kent La Rose, Celine Leonard and Cheryl Mackenzie never put their minds together before.
Once they got in cahoots with each other, and once they figured out together how to involve businesses and non-profit groups throughout the city, the Rendezvous 2011 Picnic took on a life of its own.
La Rose is the idea man. It was always his idea to host the biggest picnic ever and his dream was to inspire everyone in St. Albert to come down to the river and to join in the fun of celebrating the city’s 150th anniversary.
“I wanted a crowd of people to come and see the beautiful city this has grown to be and I wanted participation from every St. Albert group so that it would become a celebration of the entire community,” he said.
Leonard, who has strong family ties that go back three generations in St. Albert, is a natural historian. She is the roll-up-your-sleeves, get-it-done person who phoned seemingly every group in St. Albert and helped organize all of La Rose’s grandiose ideas.
For a time, the event was envisioned as the Guinness Book of Records World’s Largest Picnic. Big and beautiful as the concept was, it was also unwieldy. It was hard to count 25,000 people spread out along the river valley. The Guinness rules would have made such an event too expensive.
Mackenzie, who previously managed events for Northlands, Capital Ex and Edmonton’s Corporate Challenge, came to help with the picnic budget. She brought focus to the entire picnic project and made it feasible.
Mackenzie realized that, while the record-breaking component was exciting, it was also unrealistic because Guinness demanded a counting of every head. She helped to change the concept so that it remained the signature event of the 150th anniversary celebration, remained so large in structure that it encompassed the entire river valley and, at the same time, became more local in its personality.
“Instead of the world’s biggest picnic, it will be St. Albert’s biggest picnic. I wanted to take Celine and Kent’s vision and bring it to fruition,” Mackenzie said.
As much as possible, each of the 10 picnic sites will be organized by sponsors such as Telus, McDonald’s Restaurants, Fortis, Sarasota Homes and St. Albert’s Bourgeois family. The St. Albert Kinsmen, ACT/UCT, Ducks Unlimited and l’Association Canadienne-Française de l’Alberta will also co-ordinate and put on entertainment in different areas.
Still, the Rendezvous 2011 Picnic will cost approximately $120,000. Of that, $80,000 has been raised or is supported by business sponsorship, and those dollars will pay for entertainment. The $40,000 remainder comes from funds originally set aside by the City of St. Albert for the Rendezvous celebrations and will help pay for infrastructure and material costs.
“Some of the work we have done will also help the city for future events so there is a return to the city,” said La Rose, who explained that all the mapping of the river system, as well as mapping of various power outlets and water connections, will be of benefit to other event organizers in years to come.
“One of our early volunteers, Jack Riley, mapped all the parking spots in the city that could be available for Park-and-Ride. He drove around and found all the power and water connections. When we gave all that to the city, they said, ‘Oh wow! We don’t have anything like that.’ City staff were very appreciative of that information,” La Rose said.
The number of picnickers that will attend is estimated at 15,000 to 20,000 people. Entertaining such a large crowd costs money.
“We need things such as tents, sound systems, security, advertising, garbage pickup, portable toilets and insurance against storms,” said Mackenzie.
Together, these three have spent thousands of volunteer hours in the planning, and yet strangely, they seem far from weary. Instead, they are pumped.
“We have 10 areas along 9.5 kilometres of the river valley. We have 58 participating organizations and vendors, and the majority of them are local. We have activities for seniors and for the young. There is everything from martial arts, to painters and potters, to cars, to the military, to amazing challenges, to bouncy things and performing rabbits for the kids,” said Mackenzie.
Vendors will be selling food too, of course, but all three organizers hope that folks will bring their picnic baskets and simply sit in the valley and watch the spectacle. At the same time, it’s hoped they will visit with their neighbours too as they would have perhaps in the past at an old-fashioned community picnic.
“We’re not supplying the picnic. We’re just supplying the event where you can have a picnic. Come down and meet your neighbours. Come down and shake hands with St. Albert,” said La Rose.
