Ramsey-Moore runs for Pan Trinbago president

Beverley Ramsey-Moore, manager of the Black-Rock based Katzenjammers Steel Orchestra, has thrown her hat in the ring for the position of president of Pan Trinbago at its October 28 election.

Ramsey-Moore says her mission is to restore trust and confidence within the pan fraternity in Trinidad and Tobago, and that her team, if successful, would be assigned the challenging responsibility of dealing with mismanagement and corruption in pan’s governing body.

She also plans to ensure that confidence is restored between the pan fraternity, government and private sector.

“We are about presenting strong and honest leadership to Pan Trinbago. We are all about ensuring pan as an industry is developed once and for all in Trinidad and Tobago,” she said. A former assistant secretary of Pan Trinbago, Ramsey would lead her team “Rebuild” into the election, which she said is made up of pan men from several bands such asTrinidad All Stars, St James Tripolians, Up Town Fascinators, City Sun Valley, T&T Prison Service Steel Orchestra, Platinum Steel Orchestra and Potential Symphony and which includes Chairman of the Southern Pan Trinbago Region, Carlon Harewood and Chairman of the Northern Pan Trinbago Region, Gerard Mendez.

“I am no stranger to leadership, I believe based on my experience in governance, as a strong Tobagonian female leader for more than 25 years, I believe I have the capacity and I am capable of moving and shifting the paradigm of pan,” Ramsey-Moore told Newsday Tobago in an interview on Tuesday morning, one day after Rebuild members filed their nominations papers at Pan Trinbago headquarters, Park Street Port-of-Spain.

Ramsey-Moore, if elected as president, will be the first woman to lead the Pan Trinbago executive.

She said the team has entered the elections with a plan to focus on constitutional amendment to treat with internal issues and to empower the pan fraternity as a thriving industry in the creative arts.

“I expect team Rebuild will be successful in the upcoming election. It has been for quite a while since 2012, I have been involved in the struggle to modernise Pan Trinbago as an organisation that fits the interest of the steel band community and not an organisation made up of an executive of self-seekers,” she said.

Ramsey-Moore said she had no intention of contesting the election as president of Pan Trinbago but after she was called upon by a several band members throughout Trinidad and Tobago, who pledged their support, she decided to thrown her hat in the ring.

Ramsey-Moore, who is one of two females vying for the presidency, said she was heartened to see women taking a stand to save and develop pan.

“It is good that women are coming forward to seek to lead an organisation that over the years have been strongly influenced and dominated by males. When you look around Tobago, you see the number of pan women increasing and holding leadership positions in the pan yards and other pan events.”

She said a part of the team Rebuild’s mandate is to focus on pan tourism to create more jobs to reduce crime, establish programmes and assist in poverty reduction.

“Pan Trinbago is the largest cultural organisation in the Caribbean, not only that, we impact tremendously on communities and so we must be able to do more through public and private partnership, for the development of our people to improve their lives.

“We must see ourselves more than just Panorama we must see ourselves at an NGO contributing towards the society,” she said.

“We want to see our pan yards turning into centres of excellence and a sacred space where there can be training and empowerment. We want to see the return of all the festivals, so it must not be only Panorama, it must be Music Festival in pan, Pan in the 21st Century, Pan Down Memory Lane, because what all these festivals do is they help in holding our young people in the pan year,” she said.