Don’t blame Diaz. Drink a beer syndrome determines our president.

By: Andy Edwards

The time for change in Pan Trinbago’s executive is now. However, this change should not go without a change in the thinking of band leaders. .

The blame cannot be placed squarely at the feet of Mr. Diaz [and Mr Forteau].

We band leaders have to take responsibility for some of the blame as well. We were once the organization’s driving force, not only in our bands but also in our communities. In the last two decades, things have changed. We have become lazy. This could be because of the lack of gratitude and support from our communities; the corporate sector; members within our group; the government and our parent body, Pan Trinbago.

As a consequence of this, our laziness is costing us big time.

However, due to the stigma and the “villain” culture carved through to the roots of our organization, men and women within our movement with credibility want to have nothing to do with the running of Pan Trinbago. This leaves us with a very small pool of people to choose from and even then, we tend to choose the worst of the lot. Putting our X’s to the smooth talkers, “insurance salesmen”, “Wall Street” personalities and pan politicians who ‘seem’ to be bright and whose only degrees are Masters in “how to full the pockets” of their friends, families and themselves. Well, let this be the last magic show where tricksters appear and pan man money disappears.

There are those band leaders who are informed and make intelligent decisions on who should run our organization but unfortunately, they are few.    

According to one of our comrades, band leaders, because of their laziness, like a lot of hand-outs and favours. These leaders are those who the organization have diagnosed as suffering from the Drink-a-Beer Syndrome. These are the bandleaders who would vote solely on the fact that the president would buy a beer for them in a lime and could get some type of favour from the president. The sad fact is, leaders like this has been affecting the outcome of our elections.

Two solutions to this would be 1) Carib would stop making beer or 2) band leaders would educate themselves about the candidates.

Then there are the ignorant leaders. The ones who don’t attend any meetings; don’t have any interest in any progressive movement of the organization and basically look forward for Panorama so that at the end of the season, they might cut up enough pan players to leave some money in their pockets. After three years of no information, they find themselves in the permanent secretary’s offices, asking him who to vote for.

Our organization is close to insolvency. This means that the organization cannot pay what they owe and in most cases organizations like this have to shut down and sell off their assets to pay their creditors. Band leaders must by now have realized, based on political history, that there are more people, in the steelpan movement, who are motivated by self-interests and not the best interest of the organization.

 

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  • nice one Mr. Claude. it was a big article then, and it still is.

  • "Band leaders must by now have realized, based on political history, that there are more people, in the steelpan movement, who are motivated by self-interests and not the best interest of the organization."

    And yesterday's meeting proved that we are STILL IN THE SAME BOAT!!!

  • Thank you for posting this , Claude , something thoughtful for a change :)
    The author makes a lot of sense.
    We can continue to cuss Diaz, Forteau ,et. al. as we wish , and we know they have their faults , but there is enough blame to go around , and many of us should also look in the mirror.
    \
    And yes , the word is LAZY.

    Long gone are the days when we knew how to hustle ,  we've become mentally and physically lazy and dependent , and nothing changes while we complain and wait for someone else (like the government) to solve our problems..

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