President of the Saba Cultural Foundation, organizers of the Saba Carnival and Saba Day events, Mr. Dave Levenstone, announced that the foundation has decided in its general meeting of two weeks ago that carnival 2014 will start on Friday, July 25th and end on Sunday August 3rd 2014.
Seeing the huge success the foundation was able to achieve for carnival 2013 and the participation of the community we felt that it was time to add some new dimensions to the celebrations.
Levenstone said that he is already happy to announce that several promoters have come forward with plans and ideas on what they would like to do for next year and we welcome that type of initiative from within the community. In addition, we are in discussions with one troupe leader that is interested in handling the children’s parade together with a lightening parade. Our goal is to have as many children participate in the children’s parade as we feel that this would be an important aspect in next year’s activities. For years we have been talking about having a children’s parade and we are happy to see that a responsible person has stepped forward to assist.
Another aspect of next year’s carnival will be organizing the Queen Show competition and the Calypso competition. Bearing in mind that both of these events form part of the overall schedule we decided to have them under our own wing and we have appointed our board member Ms. Beatrix Heyliger as coordinator for the queen show. As soon as we complete Saba Day festivities we intend to start a massive campaign to get young girls between the ages of 16 and 25 years old to sign up. We are busy holding talks at this time with sponsors and looking at the prizes that we will be offered for the show. In regard to the calypso competition we will be inviting all calypsonains out for a meeting in which we will be seeking partnership with them and work towards the competition of next year. We strongly feel that a partnership with the calypsonians is the only way forward in making the competition worthwhile. The competition has to be a win-win situation for the foundation, as well as, for the calypsonians.
In the month of December we will open the possibilities for persons to start submitting the slogan and design for 2014.
The foundation is calling on all troupe leaders to start registering their troupes with the foundation and once that is in place we will be meeting with all prospective leaders before the end of the year to set things in motion.
Carnival 2014 will be our 39th anniversary as we plan for the 40th anniversary we look forward in carnival 2014 being the trend setter for 2015. As a foundation we are responsible for coordinating the activities but we look forward to the full cooperation from all parties that will be involved. So far we have two nights open for promoters and it will be based on first come, first served.