Not bad for a Carib-British Male who "underachieved".

I honestly did not know what to expect. But I certainly didn't anticipate this!

First of all, as always, technical difficulties always seem to emerge when events are taking place, adding to the sense of anxiety that already exists, and Thursday, 13th November 2025, was no exception.

We planned to do the event as a webinar, which has a different setting within Zoom, and this is where the technical issues stemmed from on the night.

Changing the setting from a Zoom meeting to a Webinar brought a host of sound issues that we were unable to resolve, and we were forced to change the event back to a Zoom meeting. However, in so doing, Zoom sent out a cancellation email (giving people the impression that the meeting was no longer taking place).

In the end, it meant that we started later than planned, and some people were unable to access the session. 

If you were one of those, please accept our apologies - it was our expressed intention to deliver excellence in our presentation, so this was both frustrating and disappointing for us.

Despite this, we still had over 50 people, from an initial 90 that signed up through Eventbrite.

And we had an amazing time, as I was joined by Joanne Benjamin-Lewis, an experienced educator, trainer and former school leader, and Brian Channer from the Black Policy Institute, alongside our host Denise Kelly from the Editor's chair.

The event was well-received, with many people requesting (1) the recording from the event, (which we will make available) and (2) a follow-up event, which we plan to schedule for early in the New Year.

For now, I think it is sufficient to say that there is a real enthusiasm for convening conversations about the Caribbean Culture in the UK, what the strengths and deficits are and how all of these converge to form the outcomes, whether positive or negative for Carib-British boys.

The task for us all is to discern what those assets and liabilities are and to be able to maximise the positive outcomes, whilst minimising the negative outcomes as much as we can.

After Thursday night, I felt a renewed sense of enthusiasm that I could be part of this vital mission to the Caribbean community in the UK and perhaps even beyond.