“I HAVE DONE my best.”
Following these words, immediate past president of the Barbados National Trust, Dr Karl Watson, handed over the reins of the non-governmental organisation to a new president at the trust’s recently held annual general meeting.
Delivering his last president’s address Watson, who has spent 25 years in the trust, admitted it was with the greatest reluctance that he took up the post of president seven years ago.
In fact, he readily admitted he did not want the post, saying it was a time consuming and “sometimes difficult” job.
“I can only say I have done my best in sometimes very difficult circumstances,” he noted.
Change image
Watson told his audience, at the National Trust’s Wildey House headquarters, that one of his self-imposed mandates was to change the organisation’s image.
“Sadly and unreservedly, we have the unenviable reputation of being a country club, a closed club and elitist club, a club restricted and largely dominated by ideals of race and class. But the Barbados National Trust is an institution that speaks to all of Barbados.
“It is our heritage, both our natural heritage and our built heritage. It is not the heritage of a sub-section of a population. It is our heritage, the entire population’s heritage, and a heritage to share with visitors to the island.”
The historian added he thought he had been successful in carrying out that mandate largely thanks to help from the media.
“Largely through the help of the media, I have made a reasonably successful outreach to the mass of the Barbadian people and I would hope and pray this continues under my successor.”
He later presented John Cole, the man behind the annual general meeting’s booklet; Sherwood McCaskie from the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation, and Realtors Ltd, led by chairman Nick Parravicino, who has assisted the Trust in finding properties for its Open House Programme. (HLE)