The song was arranged by Carlan Harewood and had the support of Superblue waving the flag as the band played its way to victory. Our photographers brought back these highlights from the event.

The fete, known in South Trinidad for its “family vibes”, starts at 2 pm at Twin Walls Compound at South Trunk Road in La Romaine and ends at 10 pm.

The fete’s marketing manager, Flair Rampersad, told Newsday that one of the main focus of the event is to ensure that patrons are comfortable and safe.

“De Mask is an event where parents can feel comfortable to bring their teenaged son or daughter to fete with them because it is safe and comfortable. We place a great deal of emphasis on our patrons’ security ensuring that there is private security throughout the venue as well as in the parking areas,” Rampersad stated.

Rampersad said Karambouly Kreations ensures that food is continuously prepared throughout the event and is available from beginning to end.

There will be a variety of non-alcoholic, premium drinks and carefully selected concoctions as well as a variety of local, international and vegetarian meals, all prepared on the spot.

“For the adventurous patrons, we have created a special ‘Shot Zone’ where you can arouse your palate to awaken your inner senses. They can allow themselves to be pampered by Axe and Tresemme,” Rampersad added. She also urges patrons to “allow the rhythms to pulsate throughout” their bodies with the performances of several popular artistes.

Entertainers include: Roy Cape All Stars with Blaxx, Ricardo Drue and Tanzania “Tizzy” Sebastian; Karma with Ravi B and his sister Nisha B; Linkyfirst; Invazion Orlando Octave as well as DJs Joy Production, Team Joy and Jav.

Death at a Funeral… Trini Style, is one of those comedies besides being hilarious, indulges in pertinent issues such as; substance abuse, parent/child and marital relations, grief, blackmail and manipulation, the treatment of the elderly and sibling rivalry.

Lead by multiple Cacique Award-winning producer, actor, director, Raymond Choo Kong, this cast includes theatre stalwarts such as Conrad Parris, Rachel Walters and Keino Swamber. Young actors such as Renee King, Nicholas Subero, Ronaldo Frederick (Pan: An Odyssey), Chris Smith (Bazodee), Paula Hamilton-Smith, Kevon Brooks (BET original movie, Girlfriends Getaway), Marlon Mottley, Kala Neehall and producer, Trevon C Jugmohan (Play Yuhself, Prime Minister).

Tickets available at the usual outlets.

Judges will visit small, medium and large bands in their respective panyards and communities starting at 6.30 pm, with medium bands in the Eastern region, and at 7 pm, small bands of the South/ Central Region.

Tomorrow, small South/Central bands will face the judges from 4 pm, and on Sunday it is turn of Tobago small bands to face the judges from 6 pm.

On Monday and Tuesday small bands from the Northern Region will play for the judges at 7 pm on both days, bringing an end to all preliminary judging of all category of bands in the National Steelband Panorama 2017 conventional qualifying round of competition.

On Wednesday at 10 am, the semi- finalists will announced.

Thirty Small, 14 Medium and 14 Large Conventional will go forward in order of merit to the Pan Trinbago/NLCB National Semi-Finals on Sunday February 12, from 9 am at the Queen’s Park Savannah, Portof- Spain.

Following is a listing of how bands will play and their particulars.

TODAY:

East – Medium Conventional – 6.30 pm Sangre Grande Cordettes…“ Cheers To Life”…(St Louis/Hart/Hart/Phillips/ Phillips)…Anthony Hailey Melodians…“Um Ba Yo”…(Dennis Franklyn Williams)…Amrit Samaroo Arima Angel Harps…“Far From Finish”…(Aaron St.Louis)…Aviel Scanterbury Parry’s Pan School…“Mash It Up”…(Jason Perez)…
Selywn Parry Paul Sforzata…“Duck- ing”…(J Bishop/N Sealy)…Jeannine Remy Curepe Scherzando…“Stranger”…(Winston Bailey)…Yohan Popwell Pamberi…“Gee Gee Bee”…(George La Barrie)…Brian Villafana

South/Central – Small Conventional 7 pm Tornadoes Steel Orchestra…“Spankin”…(Austin Lyons)…Shervon’Shev’ Edwards Starland Steel Orchestra…“Cheers To Life”…(St Louis/Hart/Hart/Phillips/Phillips)…Kyle Mollino Siparia Deltones…“Burn Dem”…(Dr Leroy Callsite)…Carlon “Zanda” Alexander Philadelphians Funk A Delic…“Bum Bum”…(Adrian Hackshaw) Saturday February 4 South/Central – Small Conventional – 4 pm Todds Road Rhythm Raiders…“Human”…(Rudder/ Ryan/Israel/Montano)…Hudson Henry Longdenville Claytones…“Soca Baptist”…(Austin Lyons)…Steve Salcedo Mt Moriah Pan Movement…“My House”…(Darryl Henry)…Troy Harrison Fusion Steel Ensemble…“Magic Drum”…(Len Sharpe)…Dike Samai

Sunday February 5 Tobago – Small Conventional – 6 pm Steel Sensations…“Vibes”…(Mark Loquan Rawle Titus/Joshua) T&TEC New East Side Dimension…“Wine on Something”…(Austin Lyons)…Ken “Professor” Philmore Our Boys…“Carnival Good Morning”…(Peter Ram)…Anslem Campbell Alpha Pan Pioneers…“Magic Drum”…(Len Sharpe)…Marina Marfan Central Symphony…“Pan On Fire”…(Winston Scarborough)…
Rodney Stowe Uptown Fascinators…“Crop Over Good Morning”…(Peter Ram)…Ojay Richards Dem Boys…“Ben Lion”…(Andre Tanker/3Canal)…Lyndon Robley Tobago Pan-Thers…“Cheers To Life”…(A St Louis)…
Kenneth “PanAm” Clarke C&B Crown Cordaans…“Flag Party”…(Austin Lyons)…Khari Codrington

Monday February 6 North – Small Conventional – 7 pm Morvant Ebonites T&T Music Stars Roadblock Highlanders…“Single”…(Rudder/Ryan/Villafana/ Octave)…Kareem Brown Xpress 21…“Chords”…(Genelle Bharat)…Genelle Bharat Blue Diamonds…“Miss Tourist”…(Aldwyn Roberts)…Steve Jemmot Laventille Serenaders…Arddin Herbert

Tuesday February 7 North – Small Conventional – 7 pm Casablanca Crescendoes…“Musical In Abundance”…(Jason Bishop)…Curtis Edwards Harvard Harps…“Gee Gee Bee”…(George La Barrie)…Douglas Redon Humming Birds Musical Gems Merrytones…“Good Morning”…(Jovan James)…Anthony Eric McAllister Cocorite West Winds…“Unforgettable”(DuBois/Phillips/St Louis/ Hart/Phillips)…Victor Antoine

Prior to 2015 the fete was held at the college’s compound on Frederick Street from its inception during which time it was regarded as one of the best “school” fetes.

“Since 2015, the organising committee for the fete has taken the event to great heights,” said Nestor Lambert of the CICPSU .

Music is being provided by the powerful combination of Machel Montano and Kes The Band. In addition, MX Prime and the Ultimate Rejects, the outfit that is enjoying mega success with their runaway hit, ‘Full Extreme’, is vowing to deliver an unforgettable session for the patrons.

Rounding off the musical line-up are ‘in-demand’ DJs – Nuphoric and Private Ryan.

This year the exquisite meals the event has become famous for will be no different.

There will be a wide range of food available from Chaud Restaurant, Boomerang Caterers, Berment Caterers, JM Grill, More Vino Restaurant and Rassam’s with authentic Indian dishes, Apart from those full meals, there will be mini-rotis from Kanhai’s of St James, special beef, chicken and lamb sliders by Phillip Mendez, corn soup, geera pork, doubles, jerk wings, Melo’s chicken rings, juicy Jamaican patties and fajitas, among other items, most of will be cooked on spot.

For desserts there is Haagen Dazs Rich’s cookies and assorted local sweets.

The collection of bars will again feature premium drinks throughout the night with the main offerings being a champagne and Proseco bar; a Johnny Walker bar (serving gold, green and black); a Yellow Tail Bubbles wine bar; a Belvedere vodka bar; a Stoli vodka cocktail bar; Angostura rum cocktails; Nestle cocktails; and a range of drinks, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic, supplied by Carib and Angostura Special Events teams.

For yet another year Ultimate Events Limited, led by Dean Ackin of Tribe is responsible for the decor and patrons can look forward to an ambience synonymous with a best fete.

A’Sober Zone’ will also be set up at the exit and will be stocked with appropriate drinks and snacks supplied by Beacon Insurance, Blue Waters and Coca Cola plus coffee from Nestle and Juan Valdez.

Parking will be available in the Tatil Building, Maraval Road; Queen’s Park Oval, Havelock Street entrance and the carpark opposite the Elizabeth Street entrance; QRC (on the paved court-yard only) and the Digicel car-park, opposite Trotters on Sweet Briar Road.

A free shuttle service from and to the carparks will be provided.

Last Tuesday was no exception as chutney soca start Ravi B attended, entertained and worked out alongside the growing crowd of keep fitters at the Queen’s Park Savannah.

The excitement began at 5 pm with a zumba fitness warm up followed by an intense burn facilitated by instructors Marielle Dos Santos, Dominic Ettienne, Shanel Duke and Peter Sam.

D’ Beacon Insurance Circuit Zone was once more a hit with “digiburners” as they paired up and competed for a pair of Legacy costumes. Winners were Andre Sterling and Sherlana Joseph.

Participants received hampers provided by d’ Burn partners Nature Valley, Bermudez Wheat Crisps, Pepe’s Marketing and Kotex.

Keep fit enthusiast Lynch Williams, won a Degree hamper for having “d’ most sweat” in the first half of the workout session, 61-year-old Williams, has attended the event for the past six years.

The free burn is held at the Savannah every Monday until February 13 from 5 pm to 6 pm.

For a Government that campaigned the length and breadth of the country against the morass of corruption allegations in the last regime, it should send a clear signal that much more needs to be done and thus far its efforts are much ado about nothing.

It is not just about locking up and prosecution of previous governments, it is now about securing a corruption-free future. To do this we need to be clear about what is needed.

Apart from the obvious procurement legislation, there is the not so obvious party and campaign finance reform agenda and the institutional strengthening necessary for investigation and apprehension. It is also about the fact that our legislation focuses on the narrowest possible definition of public officers to whom it applies and ignores the role of the private sector in aiding and abetting corruption.

And finally, it is about ensuring that there is equality of opportunity for all citizens, opportunity that is based on ethical procedures and practices which ensure equal access to government services, untainted as it were by ethnocentrism, cronism and nepotism.

All governments frequently make the mistake of assuming that five years is a long time.

And if this Government is to escape unscathed it should bring to the table the whole anti-corruption agenda (inclusive of not only the legislation but also its operationalisation) now, so that its own performance may be judged and circumscribed by this legislation.

Four percent will not allow for the luxury of time and the remaining three and half years are simply too long to wait for a country starved of good governance for far too long. All right-minded citizens need to demand this if the county’s standing in the international community is to improve and we are to attract the foreign investment that we are searching for.

Satu-Ann Ramcharan via email

It is error-prone when done by hand but a simple computer programme can fix that.

The merit system takes into consideration the fact that some judges are generous with their scores while others are less so.

However, they tend to be consistent in their generosity or stinginess.

For example, given three contestants A, B and C, judge 1 may award marks of 95, 92 and 88 while judge 2 may award marks of 70, 75 and 68, respectively.

Assuming there are five judges, the other three may award marks somewhere between these two.

In a system where you eliminate high and low scores, you may find that the scores of judge 1 and judge 2 are consistently eliminated. The end result is that they have little or no say in the final determination.

But they may be very good judges and their relative placement of the contestants may be spot on. Yet their input has little or no bearing on the final result.

Surely, this cannot be what we want. This is where the merit system comes in.

The system gives all judges equal say in the final results by nullifying the tendency of one judge to give high scores and another to give low scores.

At the end of the competition, based on the scores awarded, each judge would have placed the contestants in a particular order. Then, all first-placed contestants get the same number of points (50, say). All second- placed contestants get 49 points, all third-placed contestants get 48 points, and so on.

These points are then tallied to determine the winners. In the example above, the contestant (A) who judge 1 placed first with 95 marks will get the same number of points (50) as the contestant (B) who judge 2 placed first with 75 marks.

The system can be tweaked in terms of the number of points to award for first, second, third, and the other places. Should it be 100 for first, 90 for second, 85 for third? This is a minor detail which does not affect the principle of the method.

The merit system is not perfect but I submit that it has many advantages over the current system and should be used for Carnival competitions (including pan), as was done in earlier years.

Noel Kalicharan via email

How long has the minister been living in this country? Does he have a driving licence and done any business at the Licensing Office before? Having witnessed, first hand, the horrors of doing business at the Licensing Office, what was done, on the spot, about it and who will be held accountable? Or are we going to be told that it will be dealt with after Carnival? What the minister saw on his “surprise visit” is what we, members of the public, deal with daily and for years, so his surprise is no surprise to us.

What would be surprising is if something is really done about the situation at all Licensing Offices.

C Peters via email

Members of the Arya Pratinidhi Sabha follow the teachings of the Vedas through our leader Swami Dayanand Saraswati, the founder of the Arya Samaj. The Arya Samaj under his leadership opposed the practice of child marriage.

He quoted this verse from the Rig Veda, Volume III, Verse 55:16, “An unmarried learned daughter should be married to a bridegroom who like her is learned. Never think of giving in marriage a daughter of very young age.” He further advocated that the young woman was to be consulted and her wishes are to be considered when a marriage has been arranged.

In this regard the Arya Pratinidhi Sabha of Trinidad stays steadfast to the teachings of our founder and the teaching of the Vedas on the issue of child marriage. We are currently making the public aware that we as an organisation do not condone or support in any way or form the issue of children under the age of 18 entering any form of marriage.

We again pledge our support in the raising of the marriage age from 14 years to 18 years of age.

Ashvini Aditi Supersad executive member