Ramsey-Moore promises to share pan wealth with regions

NEWLY-elected president of Pan Trinbago Beverly Ramsey-Moore said the panyards are sacred spaces and she wants to transform them all into centres of excellence.

At a cocktail reception for the pan fraternity, hosted by San Fernando Mayor Junia Regrello at the council chamber on December 6, she said pan is a vehicle for social progress and pledged to empower the regions and make them autonomous.

"This president will take a special interest in San Fernando and Tobago,” she said, after Regrello highlighted several challenges southern steelbands faced.

She also promised panmen in the south that their outstanding Panorama prize monies would soon be paid, after newly-elected chairman of the South/Central Region Philip Barker pleaded for a settlement before Christmas. “Because our Carnival starts on Boxing Day.”

Ramsey-Moore assured, “Pan Trinbago has turned the corner. Pan Trinbago has leadership you can trust.”

The manager of Petrotrin Katzenjammers Steel Orchestra, the first female president who succeeded Keith Diaz in the October 31 Pan Trinbago election, vowed, “no more will power reside at the top. No more micro-managing. We must empower, and we must lead from the ground up. We are definitely taking pan to a different level.

“We have to come up with a plan to provide regional support because we want to ensure that our regions are empowered and autonomous. What ever profit we make from pan or festivals, a per cent of that must go to the region so they can carry on their programmes, they can carry on their work and can provide assistance,” she said.

Coming straight from her first meeting with the board of the National Carnival Commission (NCC), to which she was recently appointed, Ramsey-Moore told the audience, which also included a contingent of local government representatives from Jamaica and also Montego Bay Mayor Homer Davis, that she was at the meeting fighting and struggling for the future of the pan.

“But I would not give up because pan is such an important social institution in TT. We will continue to work with the government and their agencies to provide an enabling environment where we can be empowered so we can impact on the lives of citizens, not just for the festivals alone.”

She congratulated Pan Elders and Golden Hands steel orchestras, the 2018 Panorama champions in the medium and small band categories. She also applauded the initiative by Regrello and the council for naming streets in the city after three outstanding panmen – Bobby Mohammed, the late Ken "Professor" Philmore and Steve Achiba.

Regrello hailed Mohammed as a hero for winning the first National Panorama title for the south in 1965 and continuing to contribute to the fraternity to date.

He told Ramsey-Moore southern bands were at a great disadvantage, having to pay exorbitant sums for transportation when the bands from the north, who were dominating the competition, were able to push their pans to the Queen's Park Savannah.

“When we come ninth in the competition and we receive $300,000 from which we have to deduct transportation cost, the remuneration for our players would be less than what the players from the winning north bands receive.

“We know you have challenging times ahead and it will be difficult for you and our team, we are going to support you, but we want you to remember us in your consideration and deliberations,” Regrello said.

Davis who was in TT for the Commonwealth Local Government Forum, said he grew up hearing about and seeing steelbands in Jamaica and described it as, "the closest thing to reggae music. From my country to your country one love.”