Community
The festival spirit during Stampede extends throughout the city. Parade day serves as an unofficial holiday as many companies give employees half or full days off to attend. People of all walks of life, from executives to students, discard formal attire for casual western dress, typically represented by Wrangler jeans and cowboy hats. Many Calgarians have reduced productivity during the event because they take a relaxed attitude towards their usual workplace and personal responsibilities. However, the community and corporate events held during the Stampede create social networking opportunities and help newcomers acclimatize to the city. The Stampede is an important stop for political leaders as part of their annual summer tours of the country, sometimes called the barbecue circuit.
Read more about this topic: Calgary Stampede
Famous quotes containing the word community:
“This is the only “wet” community in a wide area, and is the rendezvous of cow hands seeking to break the monotony of chuck wagon food and range life. Friday night is the “big time” for local cowboys, and consequently the calaboose is called the “Friday night jail.””
—Administration in the State of Texa, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“The people needed to be rehoused, but I feel disgusted and depressed when I see how they have done it. It did not suit the planners to think how they might deal with the community, or the individuals that made up the community. All they could think was, “Sweep it away!” The bureaucrats put their heads together, and if anyone had told them, “A community is people,” they would not have known what they were on about.”
—May Hobbs (b. 1938)
“Populism is folkish, patriotism is not. One can be a patriot and a cosmopolitan. But a populist is inevitably a nationalist of sorts. Patriotism, too, is less racist than is populism. A patriot will not exclude a person of another nationality from the community where they have lived side by side and whom he has known for many years, but a populist will always remain suspicious of someone who does not seem to belong to his tribe.”
—John Lukacs (b. 1924)