Introducing “The Festival Events Bureau” Crop Over 2010
Guess who is running Crop Over 2010? if you said NCF you would be dead wrong. If you had said “Festival Events Bureau” you would have been dead right. At the NCF Crop Over Launching the “team” that was constantly touted as the new “unit” which would be running this year’s Festival would be this new Bureau.
While it seems they were not introduced at the launching under this FEB name that is what they referred to themselves as in meetings with cultural stakeholders.
So when something goes wrong at Crop Over now, you don’t curse the NCF you now curse the FEB.
This formation of Festival Events Bureau was never something I was in favour of, it was an idea that was the brainchild of the previous administration and that’s not a political statement that is the truth.
I remember going to meetings with the previous government and myself and other cultural entities speaking up against the formation of this “Bureau” whose principle objective was to operate commercially and generate a profit and put cultural development objectives on the back burner.
If you were to put “Festival Events” in the Boyce Voice search engine You would see the numerous times I spoke on this entity so therefore it would be hypocritical not to speak on it now it has been formed under this new admin.
To Quote myself if I may be so bold, on September 26 2007 I wrote on Boyce Voice.
“on Tuesday 21st August 2007 to be exact Government hosted a cultural industries consultation at the Barbados Hilton. You remember, the one where I puked. Prime Minister and Minister of Culture Owen Arthur, proudly announced the forming of the Festival Events Bureau which was to “save” Crop Over from the “inept bungling of the imbecile NCF”.
That’s what I said back then, I somehow assumed and maybe that’s because I heard people standing on platforms making the statements, that there would have been an effort by this new administration to “free up” Crop Over and encourage more private enterprise and entrepreneurial participation.
Have all those good intentions now gone out of the window?
We are now left to see how this “Festival Events Bureau” operates, will it run Crop Over or ruin it. If I were to go from FEB’s stated objectives which I saw before which was to “milk cultural industries dry” we should be in for an interesting Crop Over 2010.
If during the reading of this blog there is any thing I might have written which might have incensed or offended you, GET OVER IT! There are many things I read and hear in the media on a daily basis that I don't like either. SO DEAL WITH IT! You are welcome to leave your comments though. Make sure and come back yuh hear !!!...
April 5th, 2010 at 1:04 pm
I’m sure I heard them being introduced as the Festival and Events arm of the NCF. I may be wrong, but those words stood out in the introduction of approximately 15 persons headed by a new consultant David Jordan, along with Ashanti Trotman, who had to be wrestled from the South African Government as well as Aja, a young lady who came from the Accounts Section, Doriel, who will call you (you’ll hear from on the phone), Lorna, Katrina, The gentleman who is in charge of Literary arts, Wayne Simmons, and some others as well as Andy who is responsible for providing breath fresheners at every meeting.
April 5th, 2010 at 1:22 pm
Here’s a Facebook Comment from Lynette Eastmond:
There is so much choice on where to comment PBoyce! I hope here is OK. I have always felt that we do not see clearly that every activity has a developmental side and a commercial side eg. education, health etc.. In order to pursue development you need money. I know the present administration is always yammering on about building a society and not … See Morean economy but I don’t know that you can build polyclinics without hard, cold, dirty cash – unless we want to go back to the category of a lesser developed country. Anyway I digress …. … There is room for commercialising aspects of Crop Over. I would happily pass those over to the private sector but I would not subsidise them and the private sector would have to give me my pound of flesh in terms of taxes and market rates for venues (don’t come crying to me about getting government venues for free and saying this is we culture.) If you are a business man well let’s talk business! Money generated in this way could be used for putting back into the areas that are less lucrative such as theatre, dance etc. I would not be held to that either because in my view health and education are still the two areas – our health care and ediucation is still only basic – on which we must focus in Barbados so if there is a health imperative I would have no difficulty with diverting the funds to that area.