BO­BIE-LEE DIXON

bo­bie-lee.dixon@guardian.co.tt

Wouldn’t it be just swell to see some­one from your com­mu­ni­ty, school, church or even your home re­ceive a pres­ti­gious na­tion­al award for their con­tri­bu­tion to a cause? Well, you will have to wait un­til Mon­day when Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic Paula-Mae Weekes hosts T&T 49th’s Na­tion­al Awards Cer­e­mo­ny at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (Na­pa) in Port-of-Spain.

The oc­ca­sion is one to trea­sure each year as it en­sures the good works of men do not go un­recog­nised or un­re­ward­ed.

In a re­lease from the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent, re­minders to at­tend­ing guests have been is­sued. They are re­mind­ed of the prompt start time, which is 6 pm, how­ev­er, guests are to be seat­ed no lat­er than 5.30 pm and they may en­ter the venue as ear­ly as 4.45 pm.

While get­ting “dolled” up, en­sure in­vites and pic­ture IDs where nec­es­sary are the most im­por­tant part of your evening’s ac­ces­sories, as this can re­sult in de­lay and even dis­ap­point­ment ac­cord­ing to the re­lease.

At­ten­dees must al­so ob­serve the var­i­ous park­ing zones out­lined. Awardees in to­mor­row’s cer­e­mo­ny, as ho­n­oured guests, will park on Keate Street, be­tween Char­lotte Street and Chancery Lane, as this has been spe­cial­ly des­ig­nat­ed. Any­one park­ing at the sa­van­nah will be trans­port­ed to Na­pa af­ter they check in.

Up­on ar­rival, guests are ad­vised to en­sure dis­play of park­ing pass­es en­shroud with their in­vi­ta­tions vis­i­ble on ve­hi­cle wind­shields. This is to ac­cess park­ing at ei­ther Na­pa (red) or the Pad­dock, Queen's Park Sa­van­nah (green), the re­lease said.

All, whether ar­riv­ing via a ve­hi­cle or by foot, are to en­ter Na­pa from the Fred­er­ick Street en­trance.

The re­lease said there would be some traf­fic re­stric­tions tak­ing ef­fect from 3 pm to 9 pm. As such, mo­torists are ad­vised to pre­cise­ly ob­serve these re­stric­tions, which would be no­tice­able at the south-east­ern end of the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah en­cir­cling Memo­r­i­al Park, Keate Street, and Na­pa.

The re­lease al­so stat­ed there was a par­tic­u­lar in­ter­est shown by the gen­er­al pub­lic in this year’s Na­tion­al Award, with that in mind, con­sid­er­a­tion would be giv­en to ex­tend­ing a num­ber of in­vi­ta­tions to the pub­lic for next year’s cer­e­mo­ny.

Fact File:

Na­tion­al Awards were in­tro­duced in T&T in 1969 fol­low­ing In­de­pen­dence in 1962 to re­place the ho­n­ours giv­en to cit­i­zens of the British Em­pire. From 1969 to 2006 the high­est award was the Trin­i­ty Cross. In def­er­ence to the mul­ti­eth­nic, mul­ti-re­li­gious com­po­si­tion of our twin is­lands, the Trin­i­ty Cross was re­placed by the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go in 2008.

There are five cat­e­gories of Na­tion­al Awards:

• The Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go

•The Cha­co­nia Medal

• The Hum­ming­bird Medal

•The Pub­lic Ser­vice Medal of Mer­it

•The Medal for the De­vel­op­ment of Women