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Tuesday, February 18, 2025

Car­ni­val 2014

Skiffle Bunch enters Panorama finals without sponsorship

by

20140223

For the first time in 38 years, the Skif­fle Bunch steel­band will be en­ter­ing the Panora­ma fi­nals with­out a spon­sor.

Skif­fle, one of two San Fer­nan­do bands in the large band cat­e­go­ry, placed eighth in last Sun­day's se­mi-fi­nals, with a Ray Hol­man arrange­ment of Chucky's The Wed­ding.

The oth­er, NCLB Fon­claire, which is hop­ing to bring home the Panora­ma ti­tle to the south with its Ken "Pro­fes­sor" Philmore arrange­ment of Anslem Dou­glas's Big in D Dance, placed ninth.

Skif­fle's CEO Ju­nia Re­grel­lo said there is a re­luc­tance on the part of cor­po­rate T&T to spon­sor steel­bands, es­pe­cial­ly those from the south. He said com­pa­nies are opt­ing to part­ner with so­ca artistes and high-pro­file ac­tiv­i­ties and events from which they can get max­i­mum pub­lic­i­ty.

Con­trac­tor Ju­nior Sam­my Ltd came on board with Skif­fle in 2012 af­ter fi­nan­cial woes crip­pled the band's long­stand­ing part­ner Trinidad Ce­ment Ltd (TCL) just be­fore Panora­ma that year. Ju­nior Sam­my part­ed ways with the Cof­fee Street en­sem­ble af­ter the 2013 Panora­ma fi­nals, where the band placed fifth.

How­ev­er, Re­grel­lo said the band was go­ing full speed ahead with a very pos­i­tive out­look.

"I want to take the op­por­tu­ni­ty to thank Ju­nior Sam­my, who came on board to res­cue us for Car­ni­val 2012 and stayed on for a year. It was not a full spon­sor, it was a con­trac­tor help­ing us to get back on our feet, and be­cause of their con­tri­bu­tion we were able to make it to the fi­nals," Re­grel­lo said,

Re­grel­lo said since Sam­my left they have been try­ing to woo oth­er in­ter­est­ed in­vestors, with­out suc­cess.

"It is the first time in 38 years Skif­fle is go­ing in­to the Panora­ma with­out a spon­sor. Peo­ple have made small but tan­gi­ble con­tri­bu­tions, but to get to Queen's Park, we need 14 trucks to take up our equip­ment, PTSC bus­es to trans­port our 120 play­ers. You are look­ing at any­thing near $100,000," Re­grel­lo said.

Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Min­is­ter Dr Lin­coln Dou­glas has said $2.7 mil­lion will be made avail­able to as­sist some 170 steel­bands with­out spon­sors.

Re­grel­lo point­ed out that the scarci­ty of funds from the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty is hurt­ing the art­form. He said with the ex­cep­tion of a num­ber of com­pa­nies, what the steel­bands get from the cor­po­rate world is ba­si­cal­ly good will.

"There is a lack of spon­sor­ship and com­mit­ment from cor­po­rate bod­ies to San Fer­nan­do and south bands in gen­er­al," Re­grel­lo said.

Be­cause of fi­nan­cial chal­lenges, sev­er­al bands have re­duced their size from large to medi­um and from medi­um to small.

He re­ferred to Petrotrin and its spon­sor­ship of sev­er­al bands, in­clud­ing Del­tones and Hat­ters and Phase II. Petrotrin pres­i­dent Khalid Has­sanali said his com­pa­ny is pro­vid­ing full and par­tial spon­sor­ship to about 20 dif­fer­ent steel­bands. He said they al­so pro­vide sup­port for the com­mu­ni­ties in which they op­er­ate.

"Hat­ters has gone down to medi­um, Del­tones gone down to small. But on the oth­er hand, one might ask why is Petrotrin still with Phase II and the an­swer is that Len Boogsie Sharpe is a kind of ge­nius who guar­an­tees suc­cess."

Not­ing the num­ber of young play­ers now oc­cu­py­ing pride of place in the pa­n­yards, Re­grel­lo said com­pa­nies have to weigh their in­put in­to youth and com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment as op­posed to mar­ket­ing prospects.

Pan Trin­ba­go: More spon­sors, please

Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Kei­th Di­az agreed, point­ing out, how­ev­er, that steel­bands get great sup­port from a great num­ber of busi­ness­es. At the mo­ment, he said, the pan body is ne­go­ti­at­ing with sev­er­al busi­ness­es for part­ner­ship.

"We are tar­get­ing those who have not yet come on board to part­ner with us. Spon­sor­ship is a thing of the past. We want part­ner­ship with the steel­bands, part­ner­ship with Pan Trin­ba­go and part­ner­ship for youth de­vel­op­ment."

Di­az called for at least ten per cent of the rev­enue Car­ni­val brings in­to the coun­try an­nu­al­ly to be rein­vest­ed in pan. He said with an ever-in­creas­ing crime rate there was ad­vo­ca­cy for youths to get in­volved in the pan as an al­ter­na­tive to crime. Yet he said there was a dis­con­nect as this could not be achieved with­out mon­ey.

"I saw a band from Morne Di­a­blo, where the old­est youth in the band was 15 and the youngest five or six, play­ing in Panora­ma. I want to thank par­ents who al­low their chil­dren to go out to the pa­n­yard. Long time, I used to get licks to go in­to the pa­n­yard. To­day I am see­ing so many of our young peo­ple grav­i­tat­ing to our pa­n­yard and I say it is a bless­ing for the pan move­ment."

He al­so com­mend­ed the T&T Guardian for fea­tur­ing the pho­tographs of a num­ber of the young play­ers in the news­pa­per.

"I thank you for show­cas­ing the young peo­ple play­ing the pan. They are buy­ing out the Guardian. I heard one play­er whose pic­ture was on the pa­per tell his moth­er, 'Mum­my, you have to buy six Guardian.'"


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