The evic­tion of the Bird­song Steel Or­ches­tra from its home of 28 years in Tu­na­puna should nev­er have been. The is­sue is why did those re­spon­si­ble for the or­gan­i­sa­tion and lead­er­ship of the steel­band–which is more than just a steel­band, but in fact a mu­sic acad­e­my and an in­sti­tu­tion of so­cial­i­sa­tion for young peo­ple–al­low it to hap­pen.

The con­tention over the oc­cu­pa­tion of the land goes back to 1997. As re­port­ed, the land­lord in­di­cat­ed his in­ten­tion to re­gain pos­ses­sion of his prop­er­ty and that was made known to the lead­ers of the band.

In the face of ul­ti­mate­ly be­ing dis­placed or pos­si­bly hav­ing to pur­chase the ex­ist­ing pa­n­yard or some oth­er prop­er­ty, the lead­er­ship of the band is said to have raised $120,000.

It must be said that giv­en the re­port­ed 20-year no­tice of the landown­er want­i­ng his prop­er­ty, the sum raised was quite in­signif­i­cant in terms of what was re­quired and the po­ten­tial ca­pac­i­ty of a band do­ing such work with young peo­ple.

Sure­ly the young per­sons who have been part of the band over the pe­ri­od have en­ter­pris­ing minds. Cou­pled with the ex­pe­ri­ence of the present lead­er­ship and the grad­u­ates of the band and the acad­e­my much more could have and should have been raised.

Large num­bers of the Bird­song alum­ni have and con­tin­ue to hold po­si­tions in the so­ci­ety and econ­o­my of im­por­tance and in­flu­ence.

In­cor­po­ra­tion of these sig­nif­i­cant ones in a fund-rais­ing ac­tiv­i­ty could have re­sult­ed in a far bet­ter job than was achieved.

The as­sump­tion here is that those ef­forts should have start­ed 20 years ago when it be­came known that the own­er want­ed his/her prop­er­ty.

Like in so many var­ied in­stances, it seems as if the lead­er­ship and oth­ers were in­tent on wait­ing for some fairy god­fa­ther to come along to wave a wand and presto all prob­lems would have been solved.

And what of Pan Trin­ba­go, the um­brel­la or­gan­i­sa­tion for steel­bands? The as­so­ci­a­tion should out­line what it did to as­sist–that is, be­yond ask­ing for hand­outs.

The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, whose stu­dents were amongst the orig­i­nal founders of Bird­song, is not with­out a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in all of this.

As an in­sti­tu­tion of re­search and a place where young minds are sup­posed to be groomed, sure­ly UWI has ben­e­fit­ted and can ben­e­fit fur­ther from the Bird­song Steel­band and Acad­e­my be­ing an of­fi­cial el­e­ment of its teach­ing and re­search func­tion.

It has been re­port­ed that the present lead­er­ship of the St Au­gus­tine cam­pus is seek­ing to find a place on the fair­ly ex­pan­sive grounds of the uni­ver­si­ty for a home for Bird­song.

If that were to hap­pen, the next step would be for the Bird­song Steel­band and Acad­e­my to be­come a teach­ing, re­search and per­for­mance fac­ul­ty of UWI.

Big news: uni­ver­si­ties in the Unit­ed States and parts of Eu­rope al­ready have steel­pan knit­ted in­to their cam­pus­es.

In­deed, the re­cent­ly ap­point­ed prin­ci­pal of the St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus, Pro­fes­sor Bri­an Copeland, is a dis­tin­guished steel­pan re­searcher. Noth­ing else needs to be said on this point.

But the Gov­ern­ment does not re­main un­scathed. A min­is­ter of cul­ture, past or present, must have been aware of the predica­ment of Bird­song. What did he/she do?

In­ci­den­tal­ly, as the sub­ject of pa­n­yards is in the news, what of the planned con­struc­tion of a head­quar­ters for Pan Trin­ba­go?

Land and funds, re­port­ed­ly $7 mil­lion were al­lo­cat­ed more than a cou­ple decades ago to con­struct such a head­quar­ters, yet up to to­day a rot­ting part of a struc­ture can be seen off the high­way?

Mean­time, Japan, Swe­den and oth­ers are fab­ri­cat­ing the steel­pan and sell­ing it to the world.