By Raisedon Baya
Now that the RoilBAAs are done it’s time to look forward to the next project. However, a little bit of reflection and thanks giving is necessary. The RoilBAAs proved once again that faith can move mountains. The journey to this year’s awards was a charmed one. It was more of a miracle than anything. Everyday felt like walking on water.
First,
we started on zero and had a crazy budget of over $50 000. When we
announced the budget some “social media experts” laughed and
called us crazy. We were told we were being overly ambitious. The
good part is the awards has a team of believers and hustlers – the
six of us ran in our different directions, pitching, hunting,
begging, negotiating all in an effort make the awards happen the way
we wanted.
Our
idea from the beginning was that we should try as much as possible to
let Bulawayo support the awards from all directions and across the
board. We believe that the wider the base of support the more
sustainable the awards will be. So there we were, in people’s
faces, in their emails, inboxes, DMs, all trying to raise the $50 000
needed to make the awards bigger and better than the inaugural
edition.
In
our current economy fundraising is one of the most difficult things
to do. But someone has to do it. Knock on people’s doors, email,
DMs, inbox, meetings. Anything and everything. Three months to the
awards and we had raised less than a tenth of the budget. We were
looking failure in the eyes and very scared. You can imagine the
nights and even the mornings – they were unbearably uncomfortable.
I know as individuals there were moments we all considered the
prospect of calling off the awards.
But
we believed. We believed and continued to push until Busisa Moyo and
his United Refineries Limited jumped on board and announced they were
taking the title sponsorship under their Roil brand. With United
Refineries’ announcement we all breathed easily, slept peacefully
as we were now certain the 2018 awards would take place. The beauty
of the United Refineries deal was that it was genuine and had no
unreasonable strings attached. From the onset United Refineries
understood it was an arts event meant to celebrate local talent and
arts achievers. All they said was we hope to push our products too
while celebrating Bulawayo arts. And that arrangement worked well for
both parties.
The coming in of United Refineries gave the awards committee a serious boost. It put hairs on our chest, and our walk changed. Other corporates heard what we were about and expressed interest. They jumped on board. The likes of Netone, Fortwell, ZOL, PROTON BREAD,CITE, Sunday News, BoomCity, ZITF, Longrich, ZBCtv and many others. Never in the history of arts in Bulawayo have so many corporates been interested in an arts event. So we take this time to thank all the corporates that jumped on board and made the awards a success. Thank you for the belief, for the trust and for supporting Bulawayo. Thank you to individuals like Nodumo Nyathi, Vusa Mkaya, and others that supported in cash and kind.
On behalf of the committee thank you to artists. All artists with a connection to Bulawayo. Thank you to all who believed from the beginning, and even those who didn’t. Thank you to all artists who submitted works for nomination. Thank you to all nominees. Thank you for your patience and for dressing up for the event. Your hard work made the running all over the city worth it. Thank you to the winners too. Keep Bulawayo’s flag high.
Thank you to Bulawayo residents. You heard the call and responded. You came, paid and dressed up. You made the event what it was. A resounding success. There is always talk that Bulawayo rarely supports her own but you proved otherwise. You came in full force. Thank you to the media, to all social media activists who screamed RoilBAA everyday. 2018 is done. Let’s do it again, on a bigger scale, in 2019.
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