Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Order By Rule":

Let me introduce an unthinkable idea. What if the Party could actually generate revenue? Or maybe even pay towards itself? Just an early thought but I can see the service clubs working together. The Market could put on something special for the occasion. Others will have better ideas than I, but we should think positively rather than negatively. It could be good for Aurora, not just a sucking sound that produces zip.
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It is not an unthinkable idea. It is how the July1st celebration came to be .  
Every club and organization was involved. Revenue was pooled , the bills were paid with enough left over for start-up the following year . 
The parade was the biggest cost. 
The beer garden was the biggest revenue maker.
Service clubs took turns operating the beer garden.
It was hard, sweating labour. Some clubs were smaller than others. And younger. 
Only in the first year did the town provide seed money which was repaid.
The program was  fantastic. All organised by volunteers. 
We had a town administration of  half a dozen people. . 
But the planning and organisation took twelve months. People get tired. Service clubs  have their own mission.
Volunteers became harder to recruit.
It was more like conscription.
Twelve months go past in a flash  and the monumental task was always at  hand once again.
At one time I suggested we should do it once every five years and come back at it with fresh enthusiasm
But nobody wanted to give it up. 
In the end, Dorothy Wardle and Collen Gowan, deputy treasurer and deputy clerk respectively, had been  carrying much of the load.
then it was Dorothy. 
Finally in later years,  the Leisure Services Department reported no-one could be found to organise the parade.
It had been a lack-lustre affair for a couple of years. 
Events in the parks for the children  had become popular and fewer lined the streets  to watch the parade. 
I think a sesquicentennial could  give new life to the July 1st Celebration. 
I think Aurora knows how to celebrate without  filching  hundreds of thousands of dollars from the hydro reserve fund.