SAN­DRA L BLOOD

mindup.slblood@gmail.com

Sit­u­at­ed at 138 Char­lotte Street, up­per Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, is one of the world’s most icon­ic steel or­ches­tras, bp Rene­gades, led by sec­ond-term pres­i­dent, Col­in Greaves, his re­cent­ly-in­stalled sev­en-man board and first-ever fe­male cap­tain, Can­dice An­drews-Bru­mant, fixed in 2012.

Along with Greaves, and di­rec­tor An­drews-Bru­mant, the board con­sti­tutes Nico­lette de Souza and Ron­i­ca Gor­don, di­rec­tors, Josanne Ker­rice Fe­lix, sec­re­tary, Dawn de Souza, trea­sur­er, Cleve­land King, al­ter­nate 1 and Ed­mund Willis, al­ter­nate 2, sup­port­ed by the bud­get, ad­min­is­tra­tive and fi­nance, hu­man re­sources, ed­u­ca­tion and mar­ket­ing, con­sti­tu­tion re­form, prop­er­ties man­age­ment, op­er­a­tions, and mu­sic in­sti­tute.

The 74-year-old or­ches­tra at­tained spon­sor­ship on­ly 53 years ago and has main­tained a record of be­ing the sole or­ches­tra world over with the longest un­bro­ken bond with their spon­sor.

Oth­er rich his­to­ry en­tails a sweep­ing tour­ing map; a strap­ping mu­si­cal pro­file that in­cludes their most suc­cess­ful youth steel or­ches­tra (RYSO), world­wide, pos­sess­ing six na­tion­al Panora­ma hat tricks and two beaver tricks, and meet­ing the monarch of Nor­way, King Har­ald V dur­ing their very first world tour; an un­beat­en se­nior band na­tion­al Panora­ma hat-trick, 11 Na­tion­al Panora­ma wins, and col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly un­der one steel­band ban­ner, 22 Na­tion­al Panora­ma cham­pi­on ti­tles.

Oth­er no­table his­to­ry in­clude en­ter­tain­ing the cur­rent King Charles III, then-Prince Charles, at their Char­lotte Street com­pound; the bp’s Dr Jit Sama­roo’s Bur­sary; high-end hu­man re­sources and in­sti­tu­tion strength­en­ing ex­er­cis­es; aes­thet­i­cal­ly-ap­peal­ing prop­er­ty up­grades, hav­ing pro­vid­ed mem­bers and fam­i­lies with ham­pers and food vouch­ers dur­ing the heavy pan­dem­ic pe­ri­od and there­after; led the so­cial me­dia plat­form with their Beat the PAN­dem­ic vir­tu­al con­certs; suc­cess­ful small busi­ness­es, a healthy se­niors arm; a best-sell­er Rene­gades book; a grow­ing so­cial me­dia pres­ence; a spank­ing en­ter­tain­ment pro­gramme; a mi­ni-movie; reg­is­tered their first fe­male Panora­ma tenor sec­tion leader in 2020, Jos­sane Ker­rice Fe­lix; and en­gaged bpTT’s first fe­male pres­i­dent, Claire Fitz­patrick, who demit­ted of­fice on Sep­tem­ber 30 of this year, , and oth­er ex­ec­u­tives to as­sist with the paint­ing of pan racks.

Greaves said he re­mains fo­cused on glob­al recog­ni­tion and pres­ence, ex­pan­sion, mod­erni­sa­tion, en­vi­ron­men­tal health, com­mu­ni­ty, hu­man and artis­tic de­vel­op­ment, and re­spect­ing women’s rights and equal­i­ty.

Greaves said not on­ly is the or­ches­tra proud of hav­ing cel­e­brat­ed its plat­inum birth­day in No­vem­ber 2018 and gold­en un­break­able part­ner­ship with bp in 2019 con­sid­ered great his­tor­i­cal mo­ments, but an­oth­er il­lus­tri­ous his­tor­i­cal event sur­faced on the day of Queen Eliz­a­beth II’s pass­ing on Sep­tem­ber 8.

In 2000, un­der the cap­tain­cy of Harold Moses, Rene­gades en­ter­tained then Prince Charles, now as­cend­ed Monarch to the Roy­al Throne up­on the Queen’s pass­ing--His Majesty King Charles III, King of the Unit­ed King­dom of Great Britain--where he so­cialised, learned a few notes on the tenor pan, and en­gaged the or­ches­tra’s then-youngest Panora­ma-side pan­nist, Nicholas Thomas-Moore, then 11, but who be­gan prac­tis­ing at age 6.

Greaves said that’s an ex­tra­or­di­nary bit of cap­tioned his­to­ry lodged with­in the or­ches­tra’s archives that demon­strate the cal­i­bre of the or­ches­tra.

He said to­day, they are feel­ing even more proud. They ex­tend­ed con­grat­u­la­tions. Build­ing up­on those rich his­tor­i­cal ex­pe­ri­ences, strength­en­ing the present for an even-grander fu­ture, on Au­gust 26, bp Rene­gades launched a new era. A new lo­go–in­ter­lock­ing rings--was un­veiled at their Char­lotte Street com­pound dur­ing an event that in­clud­ed the Prime Min­is­ter, oth­er gov­ern­ment Min­is­ters, and oth­er dis­tin­guished guests such as Fitz­patrick and her suc­ces­sor David Camp­bell.

On bpTT’s per­spec­tive, Fitz­patrick said: “The or­ches­tra is spe­cial. We are ho­n­oured to have part­nered (since back then) with Rene­gades, walk­ing side by side with them on their jour­ney to to­day. It’s not a spon­sor­ship arrange­ment, but rather, a re­la­tion­ship based on mu­tu­al re­spect. We seek to un­der­stand each oth­er and have a gen­uine de­sire to suc­ceed to­geth­er. I re­alise I came in­to a spe­cial part­ner­ship be­tween the band and the com­pa­ny.”

De­spite the T&T pres­i­dents hav­ing the ac­count­abil­i­ty of the or­ches­tra, di­rect day-to-day con­tact with the or­ches­tra from the in­cep­tion of the part­ner­ship were Ber­nice Obasi, Ger­ard Jack­son and cur­rent­ly, hav­ing suc­ceed­ed Jack­son up­on re­tire­ment, Ryan Chaitram, man­ag­er, com­mu­ni­ca­tions and ex­ter­nal af­fairs.