Leacock is festivals director

George Leacock
George Leacock

George Leacock, former executive chairman of the Tobago Festivals Commission, is now its festivals director. The contracted position is for a year.

The commission's new board, headed by Dr Suzanne Burke, received letters of appointment on July 29.

Speaking of his new post and the newly installed board, Leacock said before 2018 there was no board.

In a phone interview with Newsday, Leacock said on January 3 last year a board was put in place and he was its executive chairman. His mandate was twofold: to run the current festivals and to oversee the “full fleshing out of the festivals commission.” This included staffing, accommodation, operating systems and “things of that nature.”

Leacock said it was expected that that would take a certain period of time. He added that this was no fault of anyone, “particularly with the amount of burden that the management support unity of the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) had dealing with a number of other issues.”

This was not completed by January 3 which was when the lifetime of the existing board expired. Leacock was asked to continue until another board was put in place.

Because there is some work to continue, he said yesterday’ he continues in the same executive role, but with a new name.

He added that while the new board has been appointed, he has not met with the board as yet to determine the way forward.

Leacock said in the downtime he is trying to get “the 2500 or so suppliers” for the Tobago Heritage festival paid as well as to continue the work of trying to get the posts for the organisation, organised. He is also dealing “retroactively with some outstanding issues with members of staff and their terms and conditions of employment, with a view to the new entity being set off on a good foot.”

Leacock was not certain when the new entity would meet, as he said this has not been communicated to him as yet.

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