OUT & ABOUT – Partying the night away

It was the last lap of Crop-Over 2010.The weekend leading up to Grand Kadooment was chock-full of entertainment, with partygoers having their choice of outings to attend. From night-time parties to daytime fêtes, they all drew crowds who just wanted to soak up the last hours of this year’s Crop-Over Festival.For many the choice on Saturday night was the annual Dis Is Mas’ fête held at Strathclyde, St Michael, under the patronage ofBarbados Labour Party leader Mia Mottley. It was non-stop partying at this fête which went right through until after 4 a.m. with appearances from all of this year’s monarchs – Gabby, Blood, TC and Mr Dale. In addition, there were performances from Soca Queen Alison Hinds, Li’l Rick, Peter Ram, Red Plastic Bag, Serenader and Grynner.Proceeds from this event go to the Lynden Grove Foundation, which is raising money for the construction of a day-care centre for young children and senior citizens. In addition, there is the planned 4 000-square-foot auditorium which the Bush Hall Community Group will be maintaining.Foundation chairman Lucille Moe said the community group has already received the lease from Government. “We have started the building foundation, and we paid for the steel structure for the entire building which is being kept at Williams Industries. We paid for that over a year ago.“Proceeds from this year’s fête will allow us to complete the foundation, and we will have the steel frame brought down and placed on site and hopefully start the block work and conduit work. “We wanted to do this as a community to show what communities can do once they put their minds to things. “This project has largely been contributed to by the work of Barbadians across the board who support the annual event and, in particular, the artistes of Barbados who contribute through their talent and creativity to [our] being able to raise the funds,” she said, while giving an update on the project.Hours after that fête ended, the Barbados Museum was getting ready for the Breakfast Party staged by Island Mas’.Peter Clarke of Island Mas’ said the annual event provides patrons with a TrinBajan experience. Those attending soaked up the sweet soca sounds as they were hosed down at intervals to beat the heat that day.Clarke said they were happy that those attending had fun as they partied until 3 p.m. on Sunday.