Apologies issued to six residences for ‘heartbreak’ and tears over stranded RAG floats

The disappointment of the group of North-West University’s residences that could not participate in the annual RAG float parade in Potchefstroom because of an organisational blunder came up at the residence council dinner on 4 August when Dr Corrie Rheeder, the executive director of student life, offered an apology to the affected six: Wanda, LaVaria, Dinki, Veritas, Heimat and Pukdorp.

According to students who attended the event at the Snowflake venue Rheeder asked the audience to applaud the house commitee members of the six residences, who were also requested to stand as part of an acknowledgement of what happened to them during RAG, or Jool (in Afrikaans). 

“We are grateful for the apology, but unfortunately what we lost we will not be able to relive,” said a housecommittee member (HC) after the event.

According to the HC member the six affected residences would still like to have the opportunity to display their floats – something they could not do during the rag procession, which took place at the end of July for the first time in two years.

The float parade, which has been a colourful procession of students through the streets of Potchefstroom since 1942, is an opportunity once a year for students to collect money for charities and student projects.

On Saturday, 30 July,  following countless hours of building floats, day, and night, the work was done by 6am. But when the floats and students took to the streets, those built by Wanda, LaVaria, and Dinki, alongside Veritas, Heimat, and Pukdorp remained behind as there were not enough trucks to pull them through the streets of Potchefstroom as part of the parade. 

By the time the problem emerged, it was too late for these trailers to be linked to others as most of the trucks already left the Joolplaas (building site).

Ivan Beck, the RAG representative on the Potchefstroom campus’ student council, said initially smaller floats would have been linked or pulled by bigger floats, but later on the situation changed to a truck per float. The department of student life assured students there were enough trucks to pull all the floats, but due to a misunderstanding about the linking of trucks, some were left behind. 

But Beck said as the event organiser he felt he should take responsibility for the mishap. “I am the event organiser and this is an accident that happened.”

Conrad Kruger, a fourth-year Veritas resident and one of many students who survived on as little as three hours sleep during the week of building the floats, went home with the hope that his house committee members would call him to let him know that the trucks arrived. This never happened, leaving Kruger  “sad, upset, mad and frustrated.”

Martine Hattingh, a second-year humanities and psychology Dinki resident, said: ‘We were one of the first residences to finish our float, just to be told that it won’t join the parade. It was heartbreaking.”

According to Catelyn Muller, the RAG house committee member of Wanda residence, it was a bitter pill to swallow, sitting there waiting and hoping that the trucks might come.

She said after this entire disaster, the students of Wanda residence and the students of Veritas residence found renewed appreciation for the float they built together, when they all cried and prayed together afterwards. – By Elizmi Fourie, Palesa Maretlwa, Keegan Koegelenberg, Cornelia Hitge, Jason Knoetze