Pe­ter Christo­pher

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

pe­ter.christo­pher@guardian.co.tt

Since re­turn­ing to the Car­ni­val cal­en­dar eleven years ago, Fete Roy­al has con­sis­tent­ly grown in stature as one of the pre­mi­um all-in­clu­sive events of the sea­son.

How­ev­er, as Fete Roy­al: Ra­ma­jay seeks to build on that lega­cy, the Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege Old Boys’ As­so­ci­a­tion is aim­ing to use re­turns from the event for much-need­ed ren­o­va­tions at the school.

Fete Roy­al has served as the school’s main fundrais­er since the event emerged as a re­brand of the Out­ta De Blue fete in 2014.

Last year, the event saw So­ca star Machel Mon­tano make a sig­nif­i­cant do­na­tion of $250,000 to Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege (QRC) to help re­build the school’s sci­ence lab.

This year, Mon­tano is once again on the play­bill, and the sci­ence block is in fo­cus again as the OBA is seek­ing to raise funds for much-need­ed re­pairs to the lec­ture room and bi­ol­o­gy lab, both of which are lo­cat­ed on the up­per floor of the sci­ence build­ing.

The main­te­nance and up­grade of the sci­ence block labs and lec­ture room is es­ti­mat­ed to cost mil­lions of dol­lars to ful­ly bring the build­ing up to prop­er mod­ern stan­dards. The OBA said they are in the fi­nal stages of se­lect­ing an ap­pro­pri­ate con­trac­tor for these projects.

QRC is one of Trinidad’s old­est sec­ondary schools, hav­ing been es­tab­lished in 1859. While the 165-year-old school is one of Port-of-Spain’s sto­ried in­sti­tu­tions, it large­ly re­lies on gov­ern­ment fund­ing, which has been lim­it­ed over the years.

The OBA is hop­ing this year’s event can raise enough funds to get work start­ed on those pri­or­i­ty ar­eas, but al­so get some fund­ing for the re­pair of the school hall, which had been closed in the ear­ly 2000s af­ter pieces of the roof be­gan to col­lapse.

The hall was re­opened in 2010 af­ter a restora­tion project that cost over $40 mil­lion. But 16 years af­ter that restora­tion took place, signs of wear and tear are once again re-emerg­ing.

The Old Boys’ As­so­ci­a­tion said that over the years, pro­ceeds from pre­vi­ous events have been in­vest­ed in a wide range of up­grades and ini­tia­tives, in­clud­ing:

• Grass pavers on the north lawn in 2020;

• Perime­ter and class­room LED light­ing in 2023/2024;

• Sci­ence labs up­grade/mod­erni­sa­tion, with funds al­lo­cat­ed for up­grad­ing the sci­ence block lec­ture room and;

• Fence re­pairs in 2024.

Apart from Mon­tano, Fete Roy­al: Ra­ma­jay, which takes place on Jan­u­ary 31, will fea­ture per­for­mances from Kes the Band, Yung Bred­da, Full Blown, Free­town Col­lec­tive, A-Team with Patrice Robert, Mi­cal Te­ja, and Dil-E-Nadan.

A few sur­prise artistes are al­so in the line­up.