Report on National Cultural Conclave
Nico on Feb 26 2006 at 8:31 am | Filed under: General Theatre, Miscellany
The conclave took place over three days, from Thursday to Saturday, as announced here on this site. From my point of view as Director of Culture, it was a successful three days. Our greatest challenge was getting the word out to the cultural community at large, which is sprawling, disjointed, and made up of independent individuals who are difficult to communicate with at short notice. That will continue to be a challenge in the future, until the cultural directories at the Ministry are brought up to date and kept that way. Still, it was a start.
Our greatest success was getting the representation that we did from the Family Islands. We covered most of the archipelago. The delegates from Bimini, Cat Island, Exuma and Inagua were unable to come in for the conclave, but representatives were there from Grand Bahama, Eleuthera, Andros, Abaco, San Salvador, Crooked Island, Acklins, and Long Island. We didn’t have cultural contacts for the Berry Island and Ragged Island, unfortunately, but we need to build on making them.
Our greatest excitement came from two things: the restructuring of the ministries responsible for culture — the movement of the Cultural Affairs Division into the Office of the Prime Minister — and the Prime Minister’s announcement that we will soon see a Ministry of Culture. Exciting indeed, and hard, hard work.
Theatre was spottily represented at the conclave. Philip and Winston were there on the first day, but had conflicting engagements on Friday and Saturday. In a way that may have been a good thing. The people who were there were not only from New Providence, but from throughout the archipelago, and that reminds us that we need to think of theatre in a far broader way than we sometimes do.
The most important thing, though, is that the Prime Minister has charged his new Culture Department with holding another in six months’ time to report on progress with cultural development. Hard work ahead!
I’m beginning to hear from people who didn’t know about the Conclave. I’m going to ask this here and now, and beg your indulgence and help. If you didn’t know, chances are (a) your name was on the list of cultural practitioners that for whatever reason didn’t have invitations sent to them; (b) you aren’t on the Ringplay mailing list, and need to be; (c) your Ringplay mailouts get sorted to Junk or Trash when they do come in. Help us by sending your name and email address to Bahamas-Culture-subscribe@googlegroups.com, or by going to this site and joining.
