Another meeting is scheduled for tomorrow and one can only hope that at the end of it the St. Lucia Calypsonians Association (2009) will produce a more convincing press release about progress made in trying to get the new body “up and running” by the end of jazz.

That’s when the first calypso tent show for 2010 is “expected”, says the new Association’s last press release, perhaps the most vague of the three so far received by this newspaper since December 15, last year.
Meetings of the new association are closed to the members of the press, who have to rely on press releases distributed by Ezi Hall, the calypso show emcee. The new body had promised that “all founding members” – total 21 -- would have met on Saturday January 9 at the National Cultural Centre “to discuss and hopefully ratify the constitution which shall serve as the operational guide for the organization.”

However, the press release on that meeting said that “after five hours of discussion, argument and occasional humour, some key elements of the document were fine tuned and it was generally agreed that much was accomplished.” But there is no mention of even one of those key elements that were fine tuned.

In the end a committee was appointed to further peruse the draft document and present a report to the next general meeting scheduled for tomorrow, January 23. The release says the committee comprises five founding members, but does not name them, nor does it identify who is heading that committee. That committee also has responsibility to “recruit the services of legal counsel”, as well as “a known expert in the development of policy documents, to assist with the analysis.”

In the upbeat press release announcing its formation on December 12, the new association proclaimed that “anyone can become a member of the Association and persons who are desirous of becoming members can collect registration forms from the tent leaders or members of the Association.” It also recognized “the importance of providing accurate and timely information” and pledged that the interim revival committee would embark on major public relations and media campaigns to ensure that everyone is well informed and has access to all the significant documents. It made a “special appeal” to all former members to join the revival process by getting registered at the earliest convenience.

But the press release that followed the January 9 meeting raises more questions than it provides answers. There is no update on the membership drive. To begin with, the document does not say how many people attended the meeting -- founding and other members, or how many new applications for membership had been received, or what was the most discussed provision of the draft constitution.

According to the release, the members are eager to get the association “up and running but have given the assurance that the process will unfold with frequent dialogue and the involvement of all members.” But no approximate date is given by which the association would be "up and running.”

Persons to head the association will be elected when the membership drive has “achieved reasonable results”, the release says, leaving readers to guess what level of registration would the association consider a reasonable achievement.

Then there was the apparent contradiction between parts of a previous press release and the one issued after the meeting of January 9. The earlier document said: "The St. Lucia Calypsonians Association 2009 is expected to oversee the business of calypso in 2010 and work with the CDF (Cultural Development Foundation), which had to adopt numerous responsibilities due to the collapse of the former Calypso Association." The one following the January 9 meeting said: "Despite the emergence of a new association, the Cultural Development Foundation and the St. Lucia Tourist Board are expected to once again play a significant role in the staging of the 2010 calypso events, an arrangement which will remain until the Association gains strength and can take over some of the key responsibilities."

The CDF and Tourist Board disburse the government’s financial contribution to carnival, on which the calypsonians and their tents are now heavily dependent, since their old association was overwhelmed by internal distrust and debts about five years ago. The vagueness of the last press release raises this crucial question: what level of membership and constitutional structure would the CDF, in particular, accept as constituting a strong association worthy of its recognition?

Emails asking this and other questions of the new association and of the CDF were not answered at the time of writing.

David Vitalis is the Assistant Editor with the Mirror Newspaper - This article originally appeared in the 22January 2010 Edition