We should consider moving Vincy Mas to a less inhospitable time of the year

EDITOR: It’s time for St Vincent and the Grenadines to give serious consideration to moving Vincy Mas to a less inhospitable time of the year.

Currently the staging of our #1 cultural event with major socioeconomic importance in July subjects it, its sponsors, its participants, and everyone who is dependent on it for an income, including the government, to the caprices of an increasingly active hurricane seasons. Additionally, July’s heat seems to be more and more off the charts.

We should move it to a date between the end of the tourist season, April 15, and the official start of the hurricane season, June 1.

Unlike Barbados whose Crop Over is tethered to when their last canes are harvested and delivered, here in Vincy we have no such encumbrance.

The suggested time frame allows for needed stimulation of economic activity outside of the traditional tourist season and it considerably reduces the chances of Vincy Mas being impacted by a hurricane or extreme heat.

While change is not readily embraced by most of us, however, when such change can proactively save us a ton load of pain and socioeconomic displacement it needs to be seriously taken into consideration.

Coraline Frank