White entrepreneurs stood accused of spurning the chance to help blacks boost Bermuda's small businesses.

The Bermuda Business Organisation was hitting back at complaints it catered only to blacks.

Group leader Murray Brown claimed whites failed to attend a Leopards Club meeting to launch the BBO.

And he said they turned their backs on the chance of plugging their firms in the BBO's Bermuda Small Business Directory 1996.

Mr. Brown believed whites were turned off because they considered the Leopard's Club a black organisation.

"There are a lot of historical precedents for this kind of thing,'' he said.

He urged whites to take advantage of future opportunities to join.

Complaints about the BBO were made by a letter-writer to The Royal Gazette .

In it, the writer stated the organisation should be investigated by the "race relations department'' because of its directory.

"The businesses listed are those of one race of people on this Island and therefore, it should not be called what it is, but should be entitled `The Bermuda Small Black Business Directory 1996'.'' The BBO was started in 1995 with the purpose of providing leadership for the business community.

Its aims include acting as a lobby for membership, supporting business development, encouraging entrepreneurship, providing consumer education and publishing a small business directory.

Among those in the BBO's interim executive committee were Mr. Brown, Michelle Khaldun, Sayeed Ramadan, K.P. Swan, Louvain Fuhrtz and Dolores Robinson-Thomas.

BBO members had the chance to get a half-page advertisement for their businesses in the directory -- for a $150 fee. A photograph cost $50.

Yesterday Mr. Brown, described in the directory as the BBO's acting chairman, said: "We got calls from white businesses and we sent them details on how they could sign up in the directory, of which 5,000 copies were distributed.

"We also sent them a list of the aims and objectives of the organisation.'' Mr. Brown said the BBO approached small businessmen, including whites, about joining.

"I think whites were turned off because they had to be a member of the organisation to advertise.

"If we were only appealing to blacks, we would have called it a black business directory, but we didn't. Everybody was invited to join the BBO when it was launched.

"We had advertising in The Royal Gazette and we promoted the organisation on TV, not through advertising but through a news item. It's up to whites to join. We welcome their participation.'' Mr. Brown urged whites to join when the directory was updated.

"We are looking at updating it later this year. We will make an attempt to do that as long as the Island wants it.'' CLUB CLB