Sean Nero

Ma­jor Lawrence Wil­son, the new­ly-elect­ed pres­i­dent of the Ro­tary Club of Port-of-Spain, wants to change the face of the lo­cal chap­ter of the world rec­og­nized out­fit. He wants mem­bers of the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to erase their per­cep­tion of the Ro­tary as be­ing a rest­ing place for those in so­ci­ety of a high­er vin­tage, who were just look­ing for a place to oc­cu­py their twi­light years. In­stead, Wil­son want­ed the or­ga­ni­za­tion to be more up­beat in its on­go­ing and roll-out of news projects with ex­ist­ing mem­bers, while be­ing quite at­trac­tive to emerg­ing and young pro­fes­sion­als, too. From all in­di­ca­tions, he's off to a fresh start.

At a board fel­low­ship func­tion held on Ju­ly 11 at the Mar­aval home of the club's vice-pres­i­dent, Trevor Chan Pak, to wel­come Ma­jor Wil­son and his new ex­ec­u­tive, Ro­tar­i­ans were seen groov­ing to the lat­est so­ca, pop, R&B, and dance-hall se­lec­tions, as sup­plied by the DJ. Mean­while, a group go­ing by the name G Sharp and Friends had the vin­tage kaiso seg­ment cov­ered. The com­plex­ion of the pro­ceed­ings was trans­formed when young busi­ness­man and fel­low Ro­tar­i­an An­tho­ny An­drews took the mi­cro­phone and ren­dered a cov­er of Mava­do's Pep­per to the vis­i­bly-de­light­ed guests. They were danc­ing and cheer­ing.

An­drews re­ceived an en­core and went on to freestyle on the same rid­dim about the Ro­tary's work and its pos­i­tive so­ci­etal im­pact for this coun­try. The gath­er­ing was thrilled. Wil­son said the func­tion was used to "gel and har­monise" the new ex­ec­u­tive, while draw­ing new lines of com­mu­ni­ca­tion among oth­er clubs, as well as mem­bers of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty.