The National Cultural Foundation (NCF) made yet another call yesterday for more support from corporate Barbados for the Crop-Over festival. The call came from chief executive officer Dr Donna Hunte-Cox at the unveiling of the prize for the winner of the Pic-O-De-Crop competition – a fully-loaded, accessorised, 2010 Ford Focus, donated by McEnearney Quality Inc (MQI).McEnearney’s representative Rodney Morris said it was the first time the company was sponsoring a prize in the festival. He said the company was pleased with the level of branding and promotion received so far and hoped to develop a long-standing relationship with the festival in the future.Hunte-Cox thanked MQI and the companies that had given support.“I extend an invitation to the wider corporate community to embrace the opportunities to advance programmes which employ the time and energies of all Barbadians especially the youth, so that they can make meaningful contributions to the goal of establishing Barbados as a model,” she added. “The relationship that we [NCF], Banks and LIME have cemented, should be an example to corporate Barbados,” Hunte-Cox said with reference to the title sponsors of the Banks/LIME Pic-o-De-Crop competition.Banks group marketing manager Bernard Frost said that the company had to cut back on sponsorships for a number of events, but was still on board as title sponsor.He said the Pic-O-De-Crop competition was certainly one of the “most important” in the festival.“Many of the young calypsonians have done quite well this year. They have made it to the semi-final stage and hopefully to the finals. The Pic-O-De-Crop final is just one vehicle where we allow for those artistes to develop their skills and provide entertainment for Barbadians,” the marketing manager said.LIME’s corporate communications officer Sonji Phillips said the competiton was an essential aspect of the festival and regardless of controversies which arise each year people looked forward to see who would be the next monarch.“The other associations during Crop-Over are important to us but we are particularly pleased with Pic-O-De Crop because of our consistent sponsorship of the event. I want to give you all the assurance that LIME will be a part of this festival for a very long time,” Phillips said.
