City calls for better management of Minstrels

By Tando Mfengwana
10 may 2007

The City of Cape Town has called upon various minstrels and related choir associations to start working together to ensure that problems encountered in previous minstrel festivals are avoided.

Past minstrel events have been hampered by funding and legal problems, which resulted in key fundraising opportunities, marketing and broader participation by the corporate sponsors being lost.

The City’s executive Director for economic and Social Development, Mansoor Mohamed has asked leaders of various groupings to ensure “better corporate governance, better financial control and financial governance and better organisation and we want to plan well ahead of time, so that there could be broader participation by all stake holders.”

Various minstrels and related groupings agreed to submit their plans for the Festival to the City by the 31st of this month.

Mohamed says “this was done poorly in the interest of the event being a success for the 2007/2008 year.”