Veteran teen talent promoter Richard Stoute, whose annual Teen Talent Competition recently got a financial boost from Government, is yet to sit down with a committee to plan a way forward for the show, which starts later in the year.
He is also saying that it would be a case of he and the committee sitting down and “seeing eye to eye about the show, ’cause I have got my own ideas and I don’t think that I want people to change anything I am doing”.
Stoute, cautious about making any definitive statement about plans since the announcement of the $400 000 trust fund injection during Government’s Budgetary Proposals last year, was also quick to point out that no money was given to him. In the Budget, Minister of Finance Chris Sinckler, in speaking about the trust, said that there would be a partnership with the Enterprise Growth Fund Limited, which “will establish a governing board, on which Mr Stoute will sit, along with other technical personnel specially chosen to develop the show into a major instrument of tutelage in the performing arts”.
“It is not my money,” said Stoute during a telephone interview with the NATION yesterday.
“I have not met with the committee yet so I don’t think that I should be making statements unless I meet with [them]”.
Stoute, however, said the Teen Talent now in its 35th year was “my baby and I would like to continue the way that I am doing [things]”.
