"I must ad­mit that Har­vard taught me a great deal. It's a great Club for men­tor­ing. It was there I got my so­cial ground­ing as a boy. And I would for­ev­er be grate­ful for the Club for the role it played in my life." - Neil Sha­ka His­lop.

An in­ter­na­tion­al col­league shared a quote with me: "Af­ter all has been said and done, more has been said than done."

We were hav­ing a con­ver­sa­tion about is­sues of in­equal­i­ty and so­cial in­jus­tices and our shared pas­sion for find­ing so­lu­tions. It was an ear­ly Mon­day morn­ing con­ver­sa­tion, giv­en the time dif­fer­ence be­tween UK and T&T.

That con­ver­sa­tion was the im­pe­tus for de­cid­ing to ref­er­ence and use ex­cerpts from my ad­dress at the Har­vard Club 80th An­niver­sary Din­ner held on Sat­ur­day at the Har­vard Club. I had opened my ad­dress with the Sha­ka His­lop quote.

The Har­vard Club is a Trinidad and To­ba­go cul­tur­al, sports and so­cial in­sti­tu­tion with re­al his­to­ry built, main­tained and sus­tained by the pride and pas­sion of its mem­bers over the past 80 years - that's 29,200 days; 700,800 hours; 42.48 mil­lion min­utes; 2.52 bil­lion sec­onds of per­sis­tence, per­se­ver­ance, re­silience, com­mit­ment, ded­i­cat­ed vol­un­teerism - day in, day out.

In 1943, the club, was es­tab­lished at an im­por­tant junc­ture in the his­to­ry of T&T. The found­ing mem­bers had a ground-break­ing vi­sion and mis­sion for the so­cial and cul­tur­al im­pact of the Har­vard Club at a time when the elite and ex­clu­sive sym­bols of the so­cial or­der of T&T's so­ci­ety was shaped by the po­lit­i­cal, eco­nom­ic and so­cial or­der of colo­nial­ism, World War 2 and the Amer­i­can Base.

For 80 years - Three score years and 20 - Har­vard has been A HOME AWAY FROM HOME. A trust­ed sec­ond home for ap­prox­i­mate­ly 16,000 chil­dren and youth, who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Har­vard Club clin­ics over the years.

Bun­ty Lara, the fa­ther of a then 13-year-old Bri­an Lara once told In­dar Ram­loogam: "In­dy take care of my son. I am leav­ing him in your hands." An ex­pres­sion of TRUST sim­i­lar­ly ex­pressed by thou­sands of par­ents and grand­par­ents over the years.

"Har­vard take care of my child. I am leav­ing them in your hands."

As Har­vard heads in­to the dawn of a new age and era the club must con­tin­ue to be a pi­o­neer­ing and sig­nif­i­cant con­trib­u­tor to na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment. Trust must re­main a pil­lar val­ue for the club.

In 20 years, Har­vard will cel­e­brate 100 years. Over the next 20 years to 2043, the cur­rent cus­to­di­ans and stew­ards, must with courage, pur­sue strate­gic pri­or­i­ties and un­der­take im­por­tant ini­tia­tives while ac­cept­ing the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for build­ing on the club's found­ing phi­los­o­phy and ide­ol­o­gy. The club has al­ways been a bea­con of hope, in­clu­siv­i­ty and op­por­tu­ni­ty.

Cre­at­ing more than just ex­cel­lence in sports, Har­vard was in­tend­ed to be more than just a sports club. The club takes as much pride in its Har­vard Harps steel­band, ca­lyp­so shows and culi­nary fund rais­ers as it does its suc­cess on the field of play.

For 80 years, the Har­vard Club way is - when all is said and done, more is done than said.

Mak­ing a pos­i­tive dif­fer­ence in the lives of chil­dren and youth with sports and cul­ture is what Har­vard is about. That both Sha­ka His­lop and Bri­an Lara are hon­orary mem­bers of the Har­vard Club is a tes­ta­ment to the role, Har­vard played in their for­ma­tive years.