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Sesame Street sculpture Students from St. Ann's Roman Catholic Separate School raise their arms in a victory salute. They finished second in the elementary school competition dur- ing the Winterama festivities. St. Ann's won the competition the previous two Another successful Winterama years and plans to enter again next year. The winner? Another Sesame street character: Snuffleuffagus. (Photo by Robert Risk) Robert Risk Staff Writer This year's problems of not having in- surance coverage, which prevented some events from occurring at Winterama, may be avoided at next year's festival. Lack of insurance forced the Winterama committee to abandon the idea of holding a scoot race, the BMX bike race, puddle jumping and caused the helicopter rides to be held off town property. The trend in the last. few years has been toward large lawsuits being brought against municipalities for damages and injuries, which has made insurance coverage a necessity. Unfortunately, said Winterama chair- man Steve Robillard, the committee didn't have the funds to pay for the insurance. "We could solve the insurance pro- blem by looking at insurance policies being covered through the service clubs who hold the events ... like the Lions Club's demolition derby was." Overall, the weekend went very well, said Robillard, especially the smash up derby at Waterfront Park Sunday. "There was about 1,500 people there watching. The Lions Club was pleased with the format of having three heats and a final instead of just one big pile- up like before. The two remaining cars running at the end of each heat advanced to the final match, which finished around 5 p.m. The overall winner was Lefty Duncan and his Blue Zone mobile. The best per- formance was won by Dale Gadsby and his car, The Gambler. "One nice thing was having more cars -- 48, compared with 35 last year. Another surprise was how much pea soup was sold. The legion said they could have sold another 10 barrels of it,' said Robillard. Something else he plans to avoid is the delay in getting Winterama into its planning stages immediately after the last festival, instead of one month before, such as this year. "Tt comes from not having a Winterama chairman chosen in the summertime as it's been in the past. We need to get more volunteers to hold more events. With more time to get ready for next year, that should hap- pen. In addition, Robillard said people who criticize Winterama should volunteer their services to help make the festivities better. "The people, who have the most fun, are the volunteers. I know | had a lot of fun and so did a lot of other people who came and visited." The winner of the open snow sculpture competition was called 'pan- ning for gold,' which showed a beard- ed prospector who had two nuggets of gold in his pan.