NLCB pulls Downtown Carnival funding

Alderman Wendell Stephen.
Alderman Wendell Stephen.

The National Lotteries Control Board (NLCB) has pulled its sponsorship from Downtown Carnival celebrations.

Alderman Wendell Stephen, chairman of the Downtown Carnival committee, confirmed the board’s lack of sponsorship after news website, ENT shared the letter on Facebook. NLCB sent the letter to the council on November 16 last year.

The letter reads, “We have received your correspondence dated October 27, 2017 requesting sponsorship for your Downtown Carnival Celebrations 2018. Please be informed that regrettably, the National Lotteries Control Board was unable to grant this request.”

Stephen confirmed the letter’s authenticity and said, “No we don’t have a sponsorship from NLCB but we raise our own funds and get help from other corporate sponsors.”

He said the committee reached out to the NLCB board, as it did in the past, and the board declined saying it was unable to help this year.

The committee has been unable to fill the void left by NLCB. Stephen said this was stated at the council’s statutory meetings but was not carried by the media. “I have been making public appeals for corporate sponsorship to come on board and help out the city corporation because a lot of people during the economic downturn would not be able to. I have been making that appeal for the last three months.”

He said if it does not get the help it is asking for, the committee would have to find other ways or cut certain expenses which it does not want to do. “We have been getting less and less money in terms of state subventions over the years. It has not diminished the quality of the mas or the quality of our prize giving.” Stephen could not give exact figures at the time.

Stephen, when asked if organisations and committees such as these had to revisit its business model, he said, in his fifth year as the committee’s chairman, that it has been doing so. “It has been changing in terms of the level of funding that we get and how we cut and contrive to make things work, which is why for Downtown Carnival it is important we look for different ways to raise money.”

He said the committee had already come up with different revenue earners such as having a stand at South Quay and sell vending spots for people looking to make money.

Stephen says the committee hopes the last thing it has to cut is prize money. While, he said, they have had to cut prizes in small ways over the years, they might have to cut employment but hopes not to cut prizes. Downtown Carnival will be launched on January 19 at Woodford Square.

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