Bo­bie-Lee Dixon

Hap­py New Year! And as we all bask in the first day of the 2014, hav­ing prob­a­bly spent all of yes­ter­day re­flect­ing on 2013, we now look ahead to the days and months ahead.The T&T Guardian usu­al­ly high­lights the hopes of oth­ers for the new year, but this year we de­cid­ed to stay at home. From with­in the GML group, em­ploy­ees shared with us some of their most mem­o­rable mo­ments of 2013 and re­vealed some of their hopes for 2014.Busi­ness Ed­i­tor Suzanne Shep­pard said her most mem­o­rable ex­pe­ri­ence of 2013 was vis­it­ing Grena­da, the birth­place of her moth­er, over the Car­ni­val week­end. "The high­light was go­ing to Grenville where my fam­i­ly is from and see­ing the place where my moth­er grew up, con­nect­ing with mem­bers of my fam­i­ly who still live there. Grena­da is a green, beau­ti­ful is­land and I am very proud of my roots there."

She said look­ing for­ward to 2014, she will do every­thing bet­ter."I want to do every­thing bet­ter. I be­lieve there is al­ways room for im­prove­ment, so my per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al goals are to be bet­ter in every way–a bet­ter wife, a bet­ter moth­er, a bet­ter jour­nal­ist and a bet­ter per­son."As a re­turn­ing na­tion­al, Fea­tures Ed­i­tor Fran­ka Philip, hav­ing lived in the UK for 13 years, found there was a lot that T&T should be proud of even in the midst of the many so­cial ills."2013 was my first full year back in T&T. I had the chance to ap­pre­ci­ate some things in this coun­try that I had pre­vi­ous­ly tak­en for grant­ed," she said."But af­ter a year of hear­ing about shock­ing crimes, cor­rup­tion, disin­gen­u­ous politi­cians and all that neg­a­tiv­i­ty, I still be­lieve this coun­try still has a lot of hu­man­i­ty. "In our pages, we've had the plea­sure of fea­tur­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions like Feel, Cou­va Chil­dren's Home and Cri­sis Nurs­ery, Star­lite for Hu­man­i­ty and cre­ate.fu­ture.good. These are all NGOs that are mak­ing a dif­fer­ence for those who have the least pow­er in the so­ci­ety."Look at the work that the T&T Film Com­pa­ny, the T&T Film Fes­ti­val, An­i­mae Caribe and Green Screen are do­ing to pro­mote lo­cal film and film mak­ing. This year, we can be heart­ened by the suc­cess of films like Home Again, God Loves The Fight­er and Some­thing About Wendy."But as Film Com­pa­ny CEO Car­la Foder­ing­ham is con­stant­ly say­ing, we need to show the work on more out­lets. Show more lo­cal films on the fer­ry to To­ba­go, in pub­lic spaces and on our own lo­cal tele­vi­sion chan­nels dur­ing prime time."

She al­so high­light­ed the ef­forts the youth of T&T had made to af­fect pos­i­tive change in 2013."I was par­tic­u­lar­ly im­pressed with the Spo­ken Word Col­lec­tive–2Cents Move­ment. Their videos rep­re­sent so much of what our younger gen­er­a­tion has to say."Al­so, the young de­sign­er Seon Thomp­son, who brought us his range of icons T-shirts. Mu­sic pro­duc­er Ke­shav Singh, who as part of the British-based pro­duc­tion team Jus Now, has been blend­ing so­ca and rap­so with oth­er gen­res to pro­duce a fan­tas­tic fu­sion that's been well re­ceived in Eu­rope. Jus Now is be­hind the pro­duced so­ca/house/drum and bass vibe of Bun­ji Gar­lin's 2014 hit Truck on D Road, that's been a favourite on ra­dio and in par­ties."Her com­mit­ment to her de­part­ment for 2014, is to show­case more of what T&T has to of­fer in the fea­ture pages.Metro Mag­a­zine Ed­i­tor Lau­ra Dowrich is what you would de­scribe as a 'larg­er than life' type of per­son. She knows when to put in work, but she al­so knows how to in­cor­po­rate fun on the job with­out los­ing fo­cus. For her 2013 most mem­o­rable ex­pe­ri­ence, she re­calls the week spent in the Mediter­ranean cov­er­ing the Di­a­geo Re­serve Glob­al Bar­tend­ing fi­nals, es­pe­cial­ly be­cause it ful­filled her life­long wish to par­ty in Ibiza.

For the new year, she says: "My mot­to is to be FEAR­LESS, and I look for­ward to wel­com­ing my third child."Chris Boynes, for­mer pro­gramme ad­min­is­tra­tor/an­nounc­er at Vibe City 105.1FM, said he has no re­grets about the past year and wel­comes 2014 with an open mind and heart. "Each year brings new pos­si­bil­i­ties. I in­deed want to take my ca­reer to a dif­fer­ent lev­el, based on my ma­tu­ri­ty in the busi­ness so I am work­ing on that," Boynes said.He said the most mem­o­rable mo­ment of 2013 was cel­e­brat­ing his moth­er's 90th birth­day."It was a fan­tas­tic ex­pe­ri­ence, cost­ly but fan­tas­tic," Boynes joked."My fam­i­ly and I threw her the biggest birth­day event you can think about. We re­al­ly made her the star of the show. She was treat­ed like a queen, we even had a tiara to crown her with."My col­leagues George Gon­za­les and Er­rol Fa­bi­en came through and they sang the Vibe City 105 of­fi­cial birth­day song for her, which she en­joyed thor­ough­ly. Vic­ar Gen­er­al Mon­sign­or Chris­t­ian Pereira, of the arch­dio­cese, al­so joined the cel­e­bra­tions in de­liv­er­ing a spe­cial prayer for her."

Sharon Rekha is one of the smooth voic­es heard dai­ly on Sangeet Ra­dio 106.1FM. Keep­ing it short and sweet, she said 2013 was a good year for her and in 2014 she ex­pects to have an equal­ly good year. And she shared this se­cret: "In 2014 I would prob­a­bly start to wash my car for my­self, and more of­ten too."Slam 100.5FM, ra­dio dee­jay/so­ca artiste Ak­il "5Star" Bor­neo said as the year closed yes­ter­day, he thanked God for life, good health and strength."2013 was a good year, it could have been bet­ter but I have this year to make up for that," he said.Stat­ing that there was no par­tic­u­lar mem­o­rable mo­ment for him in 2013, Bor­neo said every op­por­tu­ni­ty he got to do what he loves, which is per­form­ing and work­ing on air, was a bless­ing.For 2014, he says: "I want to spend more time with my fam­i­ly and take my ca­reer to a high­er lev­el."

News an­chor and jour­nal­ist Khamal Georges of CNC3 is thank­ing God for a blessed year in 2013. He said his great­est and most mem­o­rable mo­ment was the op­por­tu­ni­ty to trav­el to South Africa to cov­er the death of for­mer South-African Pres­i­dent Nel­son Man­dela."That was very mov­ing for me to be part of such an his­toric event," said Georges.Be­ing pro­mot­ed to the po­si­tion of an­chor man was al­so a huge step. "I ap­pre­ci­ate the com­pa­ny for recog­nis­ing my abil­i­ties and trust­ing me with such a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty," he said.He hopes to be­come more in­volved in char­i­ta­ble work. "I feel I have been blessed so much that I am at the point in my life where giv­ing back is im­por­tant to me."