Let me get right in­to our dis­cus­sion. What are some of the plans for Fete Roy­al 2016, sched­uled for Sat­ur­day evening at the col­lege?

This is the third year since we took over the reins of the fete and I can as­sure you that this year is go­ing to be an un­for­get­table year for our pa­trons. Our theme is Wel­come to Roy­al­ty and we in­tend to treat our pa­trons as such; from the time they ar­rive to the time the event is over. We have added to our food menu, which our pa­trons raved about in the last two years, and have in­creased the size of our food court mak­ing it even more ac­ces­si­ble. And to top it off we are hav­ing a Queens and Kings Cham­bers where women and men will be treat­ed like roy­al­ty in these two roy­al pavil­ions.

So what has caused you to make these changes?

We have to keep tweak­ing the prod­uct, we want our pa­trons to have a new ex­pe­ri­ence every year. We are still in our re­brand­ing phase and as such, the 2016 event is the first of our five-year sto­ry. Our pa­trons must leave the Col­lege feel­ing 'wow what an ex­pe­ri­ence'. This will en­sure the event is a suc­cess fi­nan­cial­ly and once that is achieved, we can con­tin­ue to meets the Col­lege's de­mands for as­sis­tance to im­prove the over­all ex­pe­ri­ence at the Col­lege for the stu­dents.

What are these needs?

Queen's Roy­al Col­lege re­quires our as­sis­tance if it is to con­tin­ue pro­duc­ing well-round­ed stu­dents and schol­ar­ship win­ners. For Fete Roy­al 2014, the QRC OBA along with the prin­ci­pal, Mr Si­mon, were in­stru­men­tal in get­ting the com­put­er lab to­tal­ly up­grad­ed. We could not cov­er this ex­pense alone, so through the kind as­sis­tance of Re­pub­lic Bank the Lab was com­plet­ed. The OBA works silent­ly all year round as­sist­ing the Col­lege in many ways through fi­nan­cial sup­port for on­go­ing co-cur­ric­u­lar ac­tiv­i­ties and re­quest for as­sis­tance for the Col­lege. Our next ma­jor in­vest­ment in the col­lege is help­ing to gen­er­ate the funds need­ed for the ren­o­va­tion of the Sci­ence Block. This we are work­ing on with oth­er stake­hold­ers such as the Lo­cal School Board and the PTA. The sci­ence block is now 76 years old, yes 76 years old, and in dire need of re­pairs. So funds de­rived from the prof­its of Fete Roy­al 2016 Wel­come to Roy­al­ty will go to­wards this project.

What is the re­la­tion­ship be­tween the Old Boys' As­so­ci­a­tion and the PTA?

The QRC OBA is in its 82nd year, which means we are the longest serv­ing stake­hold­er to the Col­lege. The PTA is the oth­er ma­jor stake­hold­er of the Col­lege so we work to­geth­er for the com­mon good of the Col­lege and its stu­dents' pop­u­la­tion.

We are con­stant­ly in con­tact and we share in­for­ma­tion. We com­mu­ni­cate with all par­ents and from the re­sponse this year to Wel­come to Roy­al­ty, its looks as if we will be a sold out event. I urge pa­trons, es­pe­cial­ly those who were at the last two years' events, to get tick­ets now be­fore it's too late.

Let's talk fete now; what about the en­ter­tain­ment?

The bands are Kes the Band fea­tur­ing Kees Di­ef­fen­thaler, Asy­lum Vikings, fea­tur­ing Bun­ji and Fay-Ann, fol­lowed by Roy Cape, fea­tur­ing Blacks and Ri­car­do Dru. Olatun­ji Year­wood adds to our "Roy­al" theme as he's the King of Groovy. We al­so have a spe­cial 'young' man mak­ing an ap­pear­ance to keep the vibes alive. In ad­di­tion, Lyrikal has been added to the cast. Our DJs are two of the best, Ali­cia d Duchess and Nuphor­ic.

It seems that QRC has re­al­ly trans­formed it­self on its re­turn to the Fete scene?

Yes we have and that's why we are ap­peal­ing to our past sup­port­ers and new sup­port­ers to come and have a new and ex­cit­ing ex­pe­ri­ence. We want our pa­trons to have a great time, en­joy their drinks, the great mu­sic and the va­ri­ety of foods and go home feel­ing sat­is­fied. We want to ex­ceed their ex­pec­ta­tions. Roy­al­ty has reigned.

Se­cured park­ing arrange­ments are in place around the venue at Tatil Car Park and we take this op­por­tu­ni­ty to ask pa­trons to park their ve­hi­cles in a re­spon­si­ble man­ner to avoid any un­nec­es­sary wreck­ing.