To Professor Babatunde Babawale this is an era of new culture. It is an era when workers of the Centre for Black and African Arts and Civilization, CBAAC) have to sit up, develop a positive attitude to then official responsibilities so as to help the centre achieve its numerous aims and objections.

And it was for this purpose and some other underlying facts that last week the management of the centre organised a training and retreat session for its senior and management staff.

Held at Peninsula Resort, Ajah, Lagos, the three day training/ retreat offered the senior staff of CBAAC the opportunity to assess then performances so far and also looked inward to see where they have done well and where new steps and ideas have to be adopted to improve the lot of tile centre.

Perhaps this idea of constant staff training and assessment was the major reason Professor Babatunde Babawale created a new department for staff training soon after he assumed office last year.

So far, the department headed by Anjolaoluwa Lawal has been making efforts to fit into the system and see how she can adequately discharge her duties to the total satisfaction of the staff. This was why the idea of the retreat came up in the first place. Besides that, there have been two other previous staff-training programmes, where Lawal tried to prove her mettle in her new assignment.

Even then some close watchers of events at CBAAC, feel that this new trend may not augur well for the centre as the new department may make nonsense of the corporate affairs section of CBAAC which had until now overseen programmes of this nature. Perhaps, to Babawale, this duplication may usher in a new era of new culture, new habit and attitude to official consciousness in which the centre may be the better for it.

That notwithstanding, Lawal stressed that the in-house staff training was to renew workers interest in their works and to call for more positive attitude to official responsibilities. "This is why we have had two of such sessions so far", she stressed.

In his own address, Babawale pointed the way forward: "in order to fulfill the mandate of making CBAAC the foremost agency for the revival and restoration of cultural heritage of Black and African peoples and projecting such, we intend to change the existing methodology of conveying our message. This implies the adoption of new strategies and a preparedness to refocus while retaining the ultimate goal and vision of CBAAC.

The new direction we intend to focus on includes the following ­exploring alternative sources of funding our activities through linkages with funding agencies such as Mac Carther Foundation, Guggenhein Foundation, OSIWA, as well as seeking the support and assistance of a new group of sponsors from the private sectors. The centre shall benefit extensively from their network of relationships and contacts... These also include aggressive capacity development drive through training and re­training of staff in order for them to fit into this new culture of seriousness," he posited.

This was the primary reason the retreat highlighted a lot of issues to help CBAAC achieve a lot under the leadership of Babawale. These included the fact that henceforth CBAAC's recruitment policy and procedures have to be reviewed' so as to engage the' best hands, and lots more.

As an overview, the retreat recommended that top management staff should have a flannel graph board in their offices for information dissemination and effective communication. And this should be made conspicuous enough in order to facilitate team work and positive attitude towards each other. Essentially therefore, there is the urgent need to make CBAAC appear a new creation in the eyes of the public, for it is for the good of all that it was established in 1979 to keep the spirit of F ESTAC alive.