Words by Jelena Kovacevic
I woke up on the 17th of August with several goals: to make it to the bus stop without getting drenched, to buy three birthday cards, and to attend the ‘Proshession’ with this morning’s 5 am waker-uppers.
The first I achieved easily given a pleasant break from the sky’s temper tantrum. I only bought one birthday card because they were $7 each, and my sympathy prevented me from leaving empty-handed.
I stopped at the Guild Volunteering stall in the city around 9 am to pick up my own copy of PROSH, and- as I felt last year- I knew I needed to savour its contents. A brief flick through and a few laughs before I stopped for a chat with this year’s wonderful editors: Boa and Lexie. Lexie had the idea of styling the paper like the West Australian, and both of them worked on the back page of the articles. They mentioned having lots of submissions and that it was “a matter of choosing the best ones.” When I asked which was their favourite article, Lexie said the one about internal affairs and that “you could just hear laughter in the layout room.”
They’ve all put in a lot of work this year and deserve the credit. The Proshession was preceded by a series of congratulations delivered by Prosh 2022’s directors, April and Eleanor, and an address by the Guild President, Ami. The wonderfully diverse costumed clubs began a march through the street, assisted by very loud tin rattling. There were several main chants, some imitating protests of a more serious subject matter. Here are some of them:
The classic: “Give me a P… give me an R…” etc.
I like this one, and it goes without saying that we collectively spelled “PROSH” about 75 times. I give this a 7/10.
“Let’s go Prosh, let’s go!”
This is incredibly nostalgic for anyone who went to a Perth (public) primary school. I loved the blue faction more than the country as a little 8-year-old. 9/10
Image by Holly Carter-Turner
“Prosh! Prosh! Prosh…”
Simple, delightful. Perth loved it so much that they couldn’t help covering their ears to prevent themselves from getting too excited on a Wednesday morning walk to work. 8/10
“What do we want? Prosh! When do we want it? Now!”
Interesting take, I guess. But I suppose the message is clear, however much it resembles significant political protests that demand higher wages, abortion rights or climate action. Poignant, if I may say so. 7/10
“Prosh gets off it. Our charity’s not for profit.”
??? This one baffled me, but it was so ridiculous that I had to laugh. 6.5/10
Well, that’s all I was really able to observe. I caught the CAT bus back because I didn’t want to be overwhelmed by such a huge number of students. Ironically, I was caught with another group- these ones were really protesting. Maybe they will learn from our brilliant chants. Thank you to everyone who was involved in this year’s Prosh. It was quite brilliant.