Spicemas 2014 to launch in May

Parliamentary Secretary for Culture,
Senator Brenda Hood.

By Linda Straker

Parliamentary Secretary for Culture, Senator Brenda Hood, has reconfirmed that activities for Spicemas 2014 will be launched in May instead of the first week in June as was done for the past four years.

The early launch is part of a strategy to increase the number of activities, which can be labelled as Spicemas events as the island prepares to host the 2014 Carnival celebrations.

Hood said 2014 is of significance to Grenada as it is the 40th anniversary of Independence and all national festivals will be reflective of the 40th independence celebrations.

“Following Spicemas 2013, the Board of the Corporation held discussions with various stakeholders and recommendations were provided for improvement. The plan is now for us to implement some of those decisions as we want to ensure that Carnival celebrations becomes a better and improved product,” she said.

A new chairman was also appointed to the Board of the Spicemas Corporation following the resignation of Arthur Hosten, who no longer resides in Grenada. The person replacing Hosten is Alister Bain, who was the Deputy Chairman.

Hood said that as a result of Bain’s upward movement on the Board, there were some changes to the members of the Board.

“Mr. Thomas Matthew, who represented Cultural Foundation, is now representing the Ministry of Culture; and Shirma Wells is now the representative from the Cultural Foundation,” she said.

The Spicemas Corporation is governed by an act of Parliament, which provides for the Corporation to be a statutory body under the supervision of the Ministry of Culture. Its main function is to organise, promote, conduct and control the management of carnival in conjunction with any other company or
corporation.