Nerissa Golden has assumed the position of acting director of the Montserrat Arts Council.
Montserrat-born entrepreneur, author and business coach Nerissa Golden on Tuesday was appointed acting director of the Montserrat Arts Council, with her immediate goal to bring stability to an organization that has been plagued recently by resignations and defections.
MAC, the vital statutory outfit that organizes and supervises the annual Christmas Festival along with ancillary cultural events, has been searching for a new director following the departure of Chadd Cumberbatch, whose tenure concluded at the end of March. Golden, who was a member of the MAC Board of Directors, resigned that position in order to assume the acting director role.
“My main goal is to reassure the staff, for one, that the board is committed to supporting them to do their jobs,” she said. “We are also looking at the budget and how we manage and support not just festivals but the growth of cultural programming on the island.”
Another immediate objective for Golden is to prepare a delegation for the 14th CARIFESTA (Caribbean Festival of Arts), which is set for August 16-25 in Trinidad & Tobago. Golden, who attended a Regional Cultural Committee meeting last week in Trinidad, explained why this summer’s CARIFESTA will be a crucial barometer for Montserrat’s future cultural plans.
“We want to use it as a practice run for showing up bigger in 2021 when CARIFESTA comes to Antigua,” said Golden, who served as Director of Information & Communications for the Government of Montserrat from 2009 to 2013.
“My main goal is to reassure the staff, for one, that the board is committed to supporting them to do their jobs.”
Golden, author of eight books and purveyor of the Discover Montserrat website, said there is no strict timetable for how long she plans to be in the acting role. “I plan to be here until they select a new director,” she said.
Other than the search for a permanent director, MAC also has an opening for Head of Planning and Production.
