Pe­ter Ray Blood

I couldn't be­lieve my eyes when I opened the en­ve­lope; but on clos­er in­spec­tion it was, in fact, an in­vi­ta­tion to So­ka in Mo­ka 13, the first all-in­clu­sive fete for Car­ni­val 2012. The ma­jor fund-rais­er, held an­nu­al­ly at the Mar­aval school, So­ka in Mo­ka 13 will be held on Sun­day, Jan­u­ary 8, 2012, to the in­fec­tious sounds of Kes the Band, Roy Cape All Stars, Dil-e-Nadan and DJ Hur­ri­cane George, and ad­mis­sion is just US$100.

On the top­ic of all-in­clu­sive par­ties, peo­ple are still talk­ing about Janelle "Pen­ny" Com­mis­siong-Chow and Mink En­ter­tain­ment edi­tion of North Deck Par­ty Time, held on No­vem­ber 27 in Mara­cas. The par­ty fea­tured the mu­sic of Baron, Point Fortin En­gine Room, and DJ Sir Charles.

The fi­nal all-in­clu­sive this year taakes place on De­cem­ber 17, when Yorke Inc and FB Pro­mo­tions host their fifth an­nu­al Parang­so­ca Christ­mas Food Fes­ti­val fund-rais­er, from 4 pm, at 39 Wind­sor Road, Val­sayn North.

En­ter­tain­ment for the event will be pro­vid­ed by Los To­cadores Parang Group, plus front­line acts like Baron, Rik­ki Jai, Mar­i­lyn Williams, Pos­er, Nin­ja, K Rich and more with their many Christ­mas, so­ca and parang so­ca jin­gles. DJs in the house are CG, King Int'l and San­gre Grande's Gilmarand Au­dio Sounds.

Just last month, Yorke Inc and FB Pro­mo­tions suc­cess­ful­ly held Scrunter on the Boule­vard, at Au­ra in Port-of-Spain. The De­cem­ber 17 event pro­vides a wide va­ri­ety of tasty lo­cal cui­sine pre­pared from by a num­ber of cater­ers through­out Trinidad. Pa­trons will be treat­ed to sev­er­al cre­ole, In­di­an and Chi­nese dish­es and snacks, in­clud­ing the tra­di­tion­al bake and shark, dou­bles, gy­ros, roast pork, dou­bles topped off by fab­u­lous desserts in­clud­ing Haag n Daz Ice Cream.

The pro­mot­ers an­nu­al­ly host this event in an ef­fort to raise funds to as­sist var­i­ous char­i­ta­ble caus­es of choice dur­ing the Christ­mas sea­son. Through pro­ceeds ac­crued from Parang­so­ca Christ­mas Food Fes­ti­val to Unit­ed Way, the pro­mot­ers aim to as­sist The School for Blind Chil­dren, Pax­vale, San­ta Cruz, a se­mi-res­i­den­tial school that caters for blind and vi­su­al­ly im­paired chil­dren through­out Tri­ni­dad & To­ba­go from ages five - 19.

In­ter­est­ed pa­trons can con­tact 684-0557 or 684-9147 to book tick­ets for the event.

Schools ben­e­fit the most from all-in­clu­sive par­ties as they or­gan­ise them to raise much need­ed funds for their short­fall in bud­get each year. Al­so ex­pect­ed to host their events next month are Queen's Roy­al Col­lege, St Fran­cois Girls' Col­lege, Bish­op Anstey High School and St Mary's Col­lege.

QRC's Out­ta de Blue XI­II is sched­uled for Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 14, 2012, 5 pm–mid­night, in the QRC Court­yard (paved area on­ly).So far, the play­bill in­cludes Kes the Band, De­stra and Re­pub­lic Bank Ex­o­dus.A retro seg­ment with spe­cial guests is al­so part of the deal, and the price of tick­ets is al­so to be de­cid­ed by or­gan­is­ers.