After three years working on the St Lawrence float, Paul Whiteside is entering the parade with his own teams this year: Whiteside Family and Friends Seniors and Juniors.
The 29-year-old said that he has always wanted to enter his own Battle float and has loved taking up the challenge.
‘After being involved with St Lawrence juniors for a few years, I decided to take the big step of producing my own float – something I’d always wanted to do,’ he said.
‘I first got involved with St Lawrence through Mike Judge, who I worked with, and I really enjoyed it. So after last year’s Battle I made the decision to start my own team.
‘The Baker family, who used to be with the St Lawrence team too, came with me and they have been an amazing support, doing loads of fundraising for us and supplying us with food.’
Paul said that his team had started out at around 25 but had more than doubled because when they went out selling raffle tickets, they kept recruiting more supporters. The team bought their own marquee and have been building the two floats in the car park opposite The Vic in the Valley.
Both floats are themed around the Monsters Inc movies, with the 25-ft senior entry called Monsters LTD and the ten-ft junior float called Little Monsters.
‘The movie Monsters Inc 2 was due out this month, but unfortunately Pixar have delayed the launch to next year,’ explained Paul. ‘I designed both floats back in October and made scale models of them and got all the legalities of entering a float sorted.
‘Around Easter we started welding our chassis at Le Coie Farm – we had to build it from scratch. Because it was our first year and we were starting from scratch, a lot of organisational stuff had to be done, too.’
Jersey-born Paul, who was educated at Victoria College and works at the Ambulance Station as an ambulance technician, said that so far everything was on track with the building work and that the team were aiming to finish flowering both floats by Wednesday lunchtime.
‘People said I was ambitious doing two floats in my first year, but I had heard in the past that young people who have never done this kind of thing before don’t really get a chance to stick the flowers on. I wanted everyone to be involved, so I thought I’d let the younger team members have their own float. The kids have built the float themselves, with our help, and we’ve been teaching them things along the way. I’m very big on teaching the young ones.’
During the two parades Paul will be in costume, walking alongside the driver and assisting him.
Commenting on how it feels to be entering his own floats, he said: ‘It feels absolutely fantastic. I’m so proud of my team – to go from nothing to this in just a few months is fantastic. Everyone has worked so hard.
‘I definitely plan on doing at least a few more Battles, and hopefully next year the children will be able to design the junior float themselves and maybe even form their own junior committee.’
Paul added: ‘I’m so grateful to the Vic in the Valley, who have given us the use of their car park and free electricity and have even done a few barbecues for us.
‘We’re also really grateful to Romerils, who replaced a load of tools that we had stolen and who have provided us with sponsorship.’
