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First Global hosts a night filled with entertainment

Published:Friday | November 25, 2011 | 12:00 AM
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RJR Managing Director Gary Allen (left) raps with Don Wehby, GraceKennedy Group CEO.
Tricia Martin (left), FGB's assistant vice-president for customer experience, has the attention of Courtney Campbell, GraceKennedy Financial Group CEO and Joan-Marie Powell, general manager, GraceKennedy Money Services.
Denise Williams (left), product manager, shares toothy smiles with Suzette Dawkins, branch manager of First Global Bank Liguanea. - Photos by Winston Sill/ Freelance Photographer
Dean McDonald (left), vice-president, portfolio management at FGFS, hobnobs with Janice Robinson-Longmore, vice-president of funds administration at FGFS, and Robert Drummond, president of FGFS.
Peter and Margaret Jarvis are out for a fun evening.
Courtney Campbell (left), GraceKennedy Financial Group CEO, shows off his singing skills as he joins Dimario McDowell in the old-time gospel classic 'It Will Soon Be Done'.
Fay McIntosh (left), chief financial officer for GraceKennedy Group, jokes with Maureen Hayden-Cater, president of FirstGlobal Bank.
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It was a night celebrating all things that would make us proud to be Jamaicans.

First Global Bank (FGB) and First Global Financial Services (FGFS) are two subsidiaries of the totally Jamaican-owned GraceKennedy Group. So what better way to celebrate the two institutions that are also 100 per cent Jamaican, than to showcase 100 per cent Jamaican talent in music, dance and storytelling.

The event entitled Progression - The Past Teaches: The Future Beckons, took guests on a journey of Jamaican culture, from mento to dancehall, Miss Lou to Shaggy. It was also a customer-appreciation event and saw clients mingling with First Global executives. But apart from the bellyful of the reception (which had some 'real' Jamaican food to reiterate the national pride exuded at the occasion), the evening segued into a "a bellyful of entertainment", as MC Amina Blackwood-Meeks called it. What followed was a performance that would make the Grand Gala or Heroes Day celebration a tad jealous.

Pulsating movements

Fab 5, with Dance Xaymaca providing pulsating movements, went through the different musical genres that Jamaica has taken to the world. The band would later provide backup for Dimario McDowell, who started with patriotic pieces before bringing revival time to the gathering with his foot-stomping gospel. Songbird Karen Smith also paid her tribute to the big band era with her sultry tones and Blackwood-Meeks was never mean with the Anancy anecdotes, along with other fine performances.