Mayoress Has A Successful Ball With Harrow Community

9 years ago

Mayoress Has A Successful Ball With Harrow Community

Harrow Mayoress Awula Serwah organised a well-supported Ball last Saturday at Cumberland Hotel in Harrow. The Ball was attended by local dignitaries including the Deputy Lieutenant, Borough Commander, Alderman, Councillors, and former Mayors.

In addition to Mayors from other parts of London, in accordance with the wishes of Harrow Mayor Cllr Nana Asante to open up her Mayoralty to the community, the audience was diverse in ethnicity, faith, and professions, ranging from volunteers to business people.

£1000 pounds was raised through raffle and auction, with prizes offered by Hilton Hotel Wembley, BritishBlackMusic.com/Black Music Congress, and local businesses including Cumberland Hotel, Nando’s restaurant and Marco Aldany salon. Barclays Bank Harrow Team is matching funds raised on the night, to be split among the Mayor’s charities.

“I am grateful to all who attended the Ball, and pleased that they had a lovely time,” enthused the Mayoress, “and we raised over £2,000 for Flash Musicals and Harrow Community Choir.”

In line with the Mayor and Mayoress’ support of African History Season, and the Xtra History sessions which takes place fortnightly in the Mayor’s Parlour, each table was assigned a name and background information of a country in Africa or the African Diaspora. Countries included Haiti, Trinidad & Tobago, Ghana, Senegal, Ethiopia, Congo and South Africa. History consultant Kwaku opened the evening with a quiz based around global African history.

After the meal provided by King Solomon Catering, the Mayoress, who’s a Ghanaian-born barrister, opened the dancefloor with a tune by Ghanaian King of highlife music ET Mensah. DJ Marky J provided a wide range of music, from waltz and foxtrot, to pop and disco. His session ended with Cameo’s line dancing classic ‘Candy Dance’, which had the dancefloor buzzing.

“It was a very successful evening. I enjoyed it very much,” said Zounie Fallil, a member of the Mayoress Committee, who organised last November’s Mayoress Ball.

“We had such a wonderful time at the Mayoress Ball. It was also nice to recognise others from last year,” added charity worker Catherine Miller-Baldwin. “Planning, organisation and atmosphere were second to none. Many thanks for a wonderful evening.”

Due to the good feedback received, a follow up Ball is planned for late August. A video of the 2014 Ball is posted at http://youtu.be/g8Kuj23mwlM.

The Harrow Mayor’s Social/Fundraiser takes place on June 7, 7-10.30pm. The free event at Harrow Civic Centre, which serves as a fundraiser for the Mayor’s charities, will exclusively feature British black music in marking British Black Music Month 2014.

ENDS

Photos by Kwaku. Legends in photo file names. Hi res photos available upon request: Kwaku, editor@BritishBlackMusic.com, 020 8450 5987

British Black Music Month (BBMM) is a BritishBlackMusic.com/Black Music Congress initiative, which started in 2006. It is an opportunity to highlight domestic black music and issues within the black music sector, network, and better engage with the music industry. It does this by working with a range of partners, using various platforms, including seminars, debates, courses, performances, film screenings, quizzes and radio specials.

The BBMM2014 launches May 31, 12noon to 7pm at Harrow Civic Centre, and the sub-themes in highlighting Marcus Garvey/UNIA @ 100 are struggle, empowerment and justice.

About British Black Music

Kwaku is the founder of the BritishBlackmusic.com (BBM) and Black Music Congress (BMC), which is a forum for discussing black music issues, networking, and highlighting and providing pathways to music industry education. He's a music industry journalist, lecturer, and consultant. A former columnist for Billboard and DJ, and worker of the now defunct Black Music Industry Association, he began his career many moons ago running his own indie label and music publishing firm. Having taught on music business courses in formal institutions, including University Of Westminster, City University London, City & Islington College, and Collage Arts, he now runs accessible music industry and event planning courses through BTWSC, a voluntary organisation that develops potential through use of the creative arts. He holds master degrees in Media, Music Business Management, and an LLM in Entertainment Law, plus BIIAB Award for Music Promoters (AMP). He has a keen interest in intellectual property issues - he's organised and chaired a number of music copyright seminars, has an eclectic taste in music, and speaks on black music sector issues on panels and in the media.