CLIP Team Marches in the San Francisco Chinese New Year Parade

Meyerholz/Miller Clip participated in this years Chinese New Year Parade on Feb 24th, 2018. The kids did a wonderful job as the weather was briskly cold but no rain. Unfortunately, we did not get any TV time this year, as the camera crews cut to interview and commercial, although you could see a glimpse of our team in the back!

This year's theme and Story was that of a dog that becomes a prince by saving a princess with a terrible skin ailment. Hence becoming the first people/settlers of Bulan near the southern part of Taiwan.

In our marching troupe this year were two guards, the main princess, and a dog who wore a beautiful
custom-made two-person dog costume made by our own Clipco board member Jon Campbell.  We
cannot thank him enough for another year of creating another masterpiece.  The dog was followed by 12 jr princesses which comprised mostly of 1st thru 3rd graders who wore beautiful blue dresses to go along with our theme/story. Following our jr. princesses were our 6 dog marchers who were outfitted with royalty tops . The dog marchers were also mostly comprised of 1st thru 3rd graders. After them came our 10 drummers playing a spirited beat placed on our colorfully decorated wagons with lights. These drummers were mostly 3rd graders through 8th graders due to the nature of pulling and maneuvering the drums through the streets of San Francisco parade route. In total participants there were 34 kids walking the parade. Holding our Banner was the principal and vice principal of our respective schools.

We would like to acknowledge and give a special thank you to several key persons.
- First and foremost is Eileen Voon, she has the experience and knowledge of the previous many years of the parade and set a high standard of excellence of participation and reputation among parade organizers.
- We'd like to also thank all the committee members:
- Barbara Wang for handling all the preparations making sure things are in order.
- Edison Chiu showing the guards and the Dog Head and main princess in setting the pace for the parade.
- Mirna Wu for teaching the Jr. Princesses the dance routine to match
the drumbeat and Aileen Lai for assisting with that.
- Sandy Baba for teaching the dog marchers the routine and taking good care of our young marchers.
- Aaron Chao for assisting in parade.
- Matthew Heydinger for help with the drummers .

Judging awards has not been determined yet, but regardless we are very proud of the kids for doing an exceptional job!

by Alan Fong
CLIP Parade Committee Chair