Girls’ High School receives steel pans from PAC

With the addition of brand new pans to their steel orchestra, the pan players of the Girls’ High School may just claim the first place at the Junior Pan Fest in 2014.{{more}}

The all girls institution benefitted from a donation of pans last Friday, through the Pan Against Crime (PAC) organization, five days after earning second place in the 2013 Junior Pan Fest.

Representative for PAC, Assistant Superintendent of Police Jonathan Nichols congratulated the institution on their exceptional performance in the competition.

He also highlighted the many benefits of playing music and noted that since its inception in 2008, the PAC programme has been successful in producing outstanding citizens.

“Our records show that over the past five years…a number of our players involved in the Pan Against Crime programme have either come out on top in the Common Entrance or have done quite well,” Nichols said.

“We have had reports, from managers of these bands, that the students, some of them that started the programme, were ill-disciplined, they had problems in the academic school work, and with time and training in the pan, the discipline was instilled and you saw much improvement”.

During his address, Nichols also expressed thanks to PetroCaribe, who earlier this year funded the organization, allowing PAC to create community steel band sides in Sandy Bay, South Rivers and Mesopotamia.

They were also able to donate a full steel band to the Bethel High School and assist St Joseph’s Convent Kingstown in acquiring a set of new pans.

“What that tells you Girls’ High School, next year…you have to look out for more competition,” Nichols said.

Nichols further encouraged the girls to take their pan playing to the next level.

“Don’t think it’s just about playing…don’t be satisfied with just playing the pan,” he said.

“With these numbers of bands in St Vincent and the Grenadines, we have to look at ways for people to benefit from this product. We import a lot of persons from Trinidad… we bring them in to do arranging and certain things. I think we have the talent here and the ability.”

After the official handing over, the Girls’ High School steel pan players serenaded the audience with the piece that earned them second place in the schools’ division of the Junior Pan Fest.

The arrangement of their piece was done by Johnny Pompey, while tuning of the pans was done by Francis Llewellyn.

Through PAC, eight community bands were established in a geographical area spanning from the Southern Grenadines to far north on the mainland. (BK)