The Tribune

By Earyel Bowleg

JUNKANOO Corporation New Providence (JCNP) Chairman Dion Miller is considering Junkanoo parades starting earlier in the day instead of at night due to unpredictable weather conditions.

Mr Miller told The Tribune on Friday that there needs to be “progressive conversations on the way forward” to deal with erratic rainy weather.

“Now with global warming and everything like that, the weather is unpredictable. There’s a lot more showers, etc. So, we need a Junkanoo group to put that into account on our parades and maybe, that might just be maybe, we parading a bit earlier when the sun is up so we can see the weather. I don’t know but the conversation needs to be had because global warming is real and we are seeing the effects of it.”

Photo Gallery

Boxing Day Junkanoo Parade

Photos: Shawn Hanna/Tribune staff

This year’s Boxing Day Junkanoo Parade was delayed until midnight because of the weather. Not to mention that it squalled during the parade for nearly 10 minutes.

Genesis Chairman Shaune Adderley felt that the downpour did affect the group’s results— they came third place overall in the parade’s unofficial results.

“People didn’t get to see a full complete look of the group,” he said. “I think that we were not judged fairly by being wet and you know. Some of the groups were not wet. I don’t know how they judge wet costumes and dry costumes, you know, but different from that I think the group itself we did an excellent job.”

Yet, Miller argued the judges would have taken the weather into consideration.

He explained: “Well, judges judge off of everything. They judge what they see, so there is no platform to judge a parade based on rain or based on high wind or whatever. They judge what they see in the street. They’re trained on Junkanoo and costumes and dance and performance.”

Introduced this year was a complete digitalized scoring system and the handwritten score cards were replaced with mobile tablets. Miller admitted there were some glitches with the tablets, but it did not interfere with results

Judges can enter their scores, which were sent immediately to the server and viewed live by group observers on multiple TV screens. As the score was automated, no tally person or accountant was needed to calculate.

JCNP Chairman commented that the system “performed well” on the day and all the scores were in 10 minutes after the parades were finished.

Nonetheless, groups met with the parade management team at 6:30 pm on Friday to look at the scores.

Both Boxing Day and New Year’s Day parade results will be official by January 30, 2020.