My Bloody W’UMOJA Experience

As I type this article, I am sad. Very sad. It’s just gone past midnight and I’m parked at the National Theatre. I have just left another Charterhouse event with mixed emotions. Disappointment. Anger. A hint of Empathy.

Charterhouse have done it again. This time though, things were slightly different. The difference? 50 points for a great show. Minus 50 points for ‘The Charterhouse Experience’. So I guess that brings us back to ground zero then. Not much of a difference.

Did somebody say the ‘Spirit of TOGETHERNESS??!’. Pah! Not when Charterhouse is having a bad day. Bad days are getting more and more synonymous with the name Charterhouse. Event after event.

The blood is still dripping from my painfully broken acrylic nail and staining my otherwise immaculate white keyboard. My face feels pale from all the blood I have just lost from UMOJA...or shall I say w’umoja? My bum still hurts from sitting for hours on the cold hard floor of the merciless stairs on the first floor of the National Theatre.

Charterhouse has certainly done it again. Left me battered and bruised. It beats me. Why invite an Event Review Team only to harass them like this? Seriously. The name UMOJA seems very ironic now. It rhymes with the Akan word w’umoja which translated to English means ‘your blood’. Mr. Nii Ayi Charterhouse had certainly succeeded in drawing ours.

I would have thought that after all that bashing Charterhouse got from the press on that horrible bloody GMAs, guests would be treated a little bit better. Nope. Not with Charterhouse. They seem to think that somebody’s always out to get them. Why’s that?

From experience, I have learnt, that an event is always only as good as your guests. Treat them with a little bit of respect. One might feel that they don’t need the media when they have gotten them to where they want to be. But surely, isn’t that the worst attitude a growing company could adopt?

I look out my window at the dispersing crowd and struggle to bring out good words to describe this otherwise harrowing experience at w’umoja – sorry, I mean UMOJA.

What necessitated a fine young man to raise his voice and literarily swear at an innocent pretty young woman like me? My event photographer had tried to capture the enthralling energy on the stage. The mesmerised crowd. The action-packed flow of events. And maybe a couple of boob-iful pictures for this review. From our little corner on the top floor. Yes. That was our crime.

Mr. Nii Ayi Charterhouse felt the need to wear boxing gloves for those apparently ‘censored’ pictures. Surely, in this industry and many others, there’s something called Terms & Conditions? You know the tiny little words they print on the back of your invitation that allows an event planner to spell out clearly what’s allowed and what’s not? Certainly Charterhouse have heard of these words. Okay, lets say they haven’t. How about a simple poster at the entrance to the event hall that says “No Photography Allowed”? It’s called attention to tiny details. In times like these, I miss my event planning days at the Hilton.

At this fateful moment we felt like a bunch of guys with a bag full of ‘Pona’ at Heathrow Airport. Jeez. What made it really puzzling was the fact that, from a quick glance at the audience, I could count not less than twenty cameras flashing everywhere. Certainly, even if we were barred from capturing these supposedly ‘censored pictures’, surely someone else was bound to. Right? Apparently our camera looked “too professional”. Now that generates an automatic smirk reflex action. This is the 21st century. The best cameras are the smallest ones. View our ‘unprofessional pictures’ here >>

Anyway, aside the otherwise harrowing experience, UMOJA (or the little I saw of it after that unwarranted and highly unnecessary security aided drama) was a fantastically tremendous show.

Luckily, the PlanIt Event Review Team have been invited to SA. I’m sure we’ll do at better job a bringing to you, our loyal readers, a better sense of ‘the spirit of togetherness’ from this game that unites people from all races. Stay tuned.

Ps: Nii Ayite Hammond, the next time we meet, the drinks are on you right? Or as Sarkodie will put it: “3to di3 3y3den a, y3n fan koshe Frankie’s”. Stay blessed.

Credit: G. Buckman – for planitghana.com