The Festival Management Committee (FMC) which has been running the Toronto Caribbean Carnival for the last ten years, has announced the names of its new nine-member Board of (Directors.
But no information about the FMC’s plans for the 2017 carnival was disclosed in a brief media
release which was sent to the Caribbean Camera yesterday.
According to the release, Denise Herrera Jackson remains chairman of the Board. She has been a member of the Board for several years.
Also re-appointed to the Board is Rita Cox, retired librarian and story teller.
However, there are several new faces on the now expanded Board.
These are Rodney Davis, Kal Juman, Michael Lashley, Roger Gibbs, Keith Forde, Peter Clyne and Angela Pierre (Board Secretary).
No longer on the Board is Chris Alexander who continues to serve as the FMC’s Chief Operating Officer.
The appointments of the members of the new Board took effect on December 1 last.
The release said that further information about the Board’s plans for the operations and activities of the FMC in 2017 will be presented “early in the New Year.”
A FMC official told the Caribbean Camera that the expanded Board of Directors is part of a general restructuring of the organization which is still negotiating with the Caribana Arts Group (CAG) over the running of the 2017 carnival.
Several months ago, the FMC had made a proposal to the CAG for both organizations to get together to run next year’s festival.
But there is still no agreement as to which organization will play the leading role.
The FMC had proposed that it would be the only entity that would seek funding and apply for grants on behalf of the festival.
But a CAG official says this proposal was unacceptable.
An emergency meeting of the CAG Board was held last week to discuss the role which the CAG will play next year in the 50th anniversary of the festival and legal issues relating to the rental of the ” Caribana” name to a local organization.
One CAG Board official said that several matters raised at the meeting still remain unresolved.
Another emergency meeting of the CAG Board was scheduled to be held last night.
” One of the matters which was to be discussed was community support for the CAG,” the Board official noted.
“However, there was concern about where the support was supposed to be coming from, especially since the CAG keeps conducting its business like a secret society and is not informing the community about its plans for the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the festival, ” the official added.