KRISTY RAM­NAR­INE

kristy.ram­nar­ine@cnc3.co.tt

Pres­tige—The Gold­en Gala.

It’s the theme of this year’s all-in­clu­sive be­ing held by the PRES­tige Past Stu­dents As­so­ci­a­tion at the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my on Feb­ru­ary 9 from 5-11 pm.

For an­oth­er year, the as­so­ci­a­tion, head­ed by Ains­ley Welch, has brought on board one of the coun­try’s top fe­male dec­o­ra­tors—Sa­van­nah Lake of Lake Man­age­ment Con­cepts—to trans­form the space in­to a lux­u­ri­ous ex­pe­ri­ence.

“Our se­lect­ed theme is a nod to time­less el­e­gance and grandeur,” said Welch.

“Sa­van­nah has been work­ing with us for the past three years. Our pa­trons are go­ing to love what she is do­ing for us this year. From the en­trance to the ul­tra-pre­mi­um deck, Sa­van­nah will be mak­ing a state­ment.”

While the theme is black and gold, Welch said there was no pres­sure on pa­trons to dress the part.

“What we re­al­ly want is for our pa­trons to come to the event and re­al­ly have a fan­tas­tic time,” he said.

“We would prob­a­bly see our pa­trons tak­ing the theme lit­er­al­ly, and that’s okay. Those who want to dress up and speak to the theme of the gold­en gala, the black and gold, can do so.”

While the as­so­ci­a­tion’s board con­sists of Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege and San Fer­nan­do alum­ni, sev­er­al women from the sub-com­mit­tees are re­spon­si­ble for the suc­cess of the event.

“Women are heav­i­ly in­volved in the plan­ning and ex­e­cu­tion of our event,” said Welch. “We have a num­ber of dif­fer­ent ven­dors who are al­so fe­male. Gab­by Le Gen­dre han­dles our stage man­age­ment and back­stage. Women are at the fore­front when we con­cep­tu­alise the theme and lay­out of the event. Once the women are hap­py, you tend to find the men fol­low suit and fall in line.”

PRES­tige con­tin­ues to be the ma­jor fundrais­er for Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege.

The foun­da­tion held its first fundrais­er in 2011, and since then, the event has con­sis­tent­ly sup­port­ed im­prove­ments at the in­sti­tu­tion.

“When we make the mon­ey, 85 per cent of it is hand­ed over to the Past Pupils As­so­ci­a­tion, which will then sit with the school’s ad­min­is­tra­tion and ex­e­cute the pro­grammes need­ed,” he said.

“The foun­da­tion’s role is re­al­ly event man­age­ment, and PRES­tige is our sig­nif­i­cant event, which gen­er­ates the most prof­it.”

The 2024 edi­tion as­sist­ed with up­grades to the ten­nis court and lab and al­so mod­ernised a few class­rooms in­to smart ones. For 2025, the com­mit­tee wants to up­grade the bas­ket­ball and squash courts, re­fit the Physics lab, up­grade the au­di­to­ri­um, recom­mis­sion the busi­ness room, and mod­ernise ad­di­tion­al class­rooms.

“Year af­ter year we aim to put on an event that our pa­trons would love that speaks to the qual­i­ty of our brand and re­al­ly en­com­pass­es a fan­tas­tic ex­pe­ri­ence over­all,” said Welch.

“Over the years we have al­ways aimed to im­prove on what we do and to el­e­vate the pa­tron ex­pe­ri­ence.”

In 2024, the event moved from Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege in San Fer­nan­do to the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my in Tarou­ba.

“Based on for­mal feed­back through re­search, there were a num­ber of things we had to ad­dress and im­prove up­on, which our pa­trons de­mand­ed,” added Welch.

“The col­lege con­strained us be­cause of the size of the event. Mov­ing to Bri­an Lara was a suc­cess for us based on feed­back from Lu­cent Re­search. There were some learn­ing curves, and we are mak­ing tweaks to im­prove the ex­pe­ri­ence. Bri­an Lara of­fered us a blank can­vas to be more cre­ative and fa­cil­i­tate things we could not do at the col­lege.”

The PRES­tige com­mit­tee has lis­tened to feed­back from last year’s event and is us­ing it to cu­rate the 2025 edi­tion.

“From the ma­jes­tic dé­cor to a wide ar­ray of pre­mi­um drinks and savoury food, pa­trons can ex­pect a great ex­pe­ri­ence,” said Welch.

“We aim to min­imise long lines or at least have long lines flow­ing quick­ly so that our pa­trons can par­take of the food that will be on of­fer. We have a num­ber of pre­mi­um chefs and note­wor­thy ven­dors in the food zone.”

Safe­ty con­tin­ues to be a pri­or­i­ty. Shut­tle ser­vice will be avail­able for pre­mi­um pa­trons, while on-site park­ing will be pro­vid­ed for ul­tra-pre­mi­um pa­trons.

As for en­ter­tain­ment, the com­mit­tee has brought back Dil E Nadan, which is a crowd favourite at the event. Asy­lum with Bun­ji fea­tur­ing Lyri­cal, Nailah Black­man, and Yung Bred­da will al­so take the stage. The Old Boy him­self, Kes The Band—al­so with oth­er old boys—will per­form. House DJs in­clude Pri­vate Ryan, Travis World, Lord Hype, and past pupil Aaron 868.