World Ship Trust And Mark’s Page
Lynn Mallet, Secretary for the World Ship Trusthas emailed us to send in a few words about the new direction for the Federation, showing that she has been reading our Log. She wishes to post that on the newsletter for this prestigious UK based maritime preservation group.
We also received an email from a US based very active web page preservation group called the Mark Rosenstein’s Sailing Page. This is a series of linkages to almost every maritime organization there is on earth. Mark is informing us that we are on the sailing associations page on his website. Thank you Mark. http://www.apparent-wind.com/sailing-associations.html
Three out of Four Committees Meet
This week has been a hectic one with the Federation attempting to get the committees started before the alternating Christmas rush and blasé takes affect. We attempted to have all four Committees take a different day and hour to meet this last week, which is also my excuse for not getting the Log out sooner- had no time and would have more news to report.
The reasons for the meetings centered on facing each other and defining why the particular committee is important enough to sacrifice time to it. They were also to give a feeling of a whole group working when the particular task might be done by individuals who would then know they have support.
The first meeting was the one I enjoyed forming and those who came were enthusiastic to say the least: the Research and Education Committee met at 12 Noon on Tuesday, 11 December. Because of the enthusiasm we all agreed that we needed to centre some efforts to unite the group. The one that stuck out most was the District Commissioner’s Residence on South Caicos, a preservation effort. All kinds of rumours were focused on that classic colonial Victorian-Bermudian building sitting atop the hill at the waterfront. Being the most prime real estate development site we feared that some form of destruction of the place was underway because of the rapid deterioration. The roof caving in, windows being destroyed, general vandalism with no apparent security in place.
The District Commissioner’s Residence, like a lot of South Caicos structures, should be preserved as a historical site. Unfortunately, TCI National Trust Director Ethlyn Gibbs-Williams apologized for not being able to attend this meeting because of two others.
The South Caicos waterfront holds small taverns, boarding houses, salt storage depots, cobbled streets, homes that were built during the Bermudian era when it was the bustling trade centre for the Turks and Caicos Islands. Now, there are big development plans that are underway. Hopefully, there will be historic respect also.
The next meeting that was called was the Vessel Committee meeting, which was supposed to prioritize responsibilities and assist in starting up sailing racing clubs for a more extensive competition schedule that touched all the Islands. The main point of the meeting was to formally invite specific people to form the Regatta Commission, who will create the processes and rules to regulate water borne competitive events throughout the Islands.
Unfortunately, there were not enough people showing up so the meeting has been postponed. It is a very hard thing, for some reason, to get the guys who do the sailing to meet. It takes a lot of effort usually, and if there is not a cash prize race upcoming, it takes even more effort.
One of the points to be covered in the next meeting is a crew campaign. We have plenty of Caicos Sloops now but do not have adequate crew for half of them. The organization of the crews presents an opportunity for corporate TCI to move in on this very visible asset to cultural Turks and Caicos.
If you are interested in having a corporate crew on a Caicos Sloop call me at 243 2093, Ross.
That same day at 5PM we had a Events Committee meeting that shot up the morale with as much energy as the Research and Education Committee did. Michelle is an organizer for sure. After finding out why we wish to volunteer she wanted priorities to be applied. We are all to submit, from the list provided, specific interests, such as the upcoming Tall Ships tie-in to Mariners’ Week 2008. Retail sales should be a big fund raiser and popularisation strategy for local promotion. The Chalk Sound Sailing Centre has to be the top priority right after the Christmas and New Year celebration.
The need for a charitable status for the Federation was also sought to be a big priority as well as getting all preservation organizations working together on shared interest projects. The most looming project is utilizing the Digicel offering to post a reward of $5000 to raise the Ranger, our veteran sloop that sailed over 500 students on Chalk Sound. She went down a little off South Caicos in the Rock to South Caicos Race, during a storm back in June.
The District Commissioner’s Residence came up again with more inserts of might be going on there… Everybody seems to think that particular building should be preserved.
A regular monthly meeting schedule will bring us back together, aside from internet contact, on 24 January 2008. Another schedule concept is to hold scheduled seminars at least 4 times per year.
The last group to meet were the Ways and Means Committee chaired by Dr. Gilbert Morris, who again, pulled everything into order. The meeting took place at the Cultural and Arts Commission Office at noon on Friday 14 December.
Priorities covered funding for the administration and programmes, creation of a Finance Sub-Committee, an inventory of assets, the need for accounting transparency on a daily basis, land acquisition and US, UK tax exemption status.
This was an interesting meeting that concerned how to not only maintain the Federation’s solvency but connecting it to the daily lives of the community and creating an international awareness of our goals. In the hour and a half of discussion we covered in depth the five areas of fund raising Dr. Morris felt were critical: Individual Donors, Government Grants, Corporate Programming and Public fund raising, international Grants and Donations.
Committee Members:
Events Committee
Michelle Gardiner
David Bowen
Ethlyn Gibbs-Williams
Donna Bartram
E. Jay Saunders
JJ Parker
H.E. Ross
Research and Education Committee
Dr. Carlton Mills
H.E. Ross
Katya Brightwell
Edgar Howell
David Bowen
Ethlyn Gibbs-Williams
E. Jay Saunders
Brian Riggs
JJ Parker
Dr. Ed Williams
Delton Jones 946 2221
Vessel Committee
Lew Handfield
Wesley Clareveaux
JJ Parker
Albert Higgs
Samuel Williams
Goldray Ewing
Jay Stubbs
Richard Tauwhare
Ways and Means Committee
Dr. Gilbert Morris
Delton Jones
Lew Handfield
H. Hinderaker
Becky Carlson
E. Jay Saunders
Reliving the couple- a journalistic direction
I was looking for an apology from the Sun in their last newspaper, dated 14-21 December, today and started reading some of the stories and it suddenly dawned on me why there was no apology for the 11 errors in less than 120 words of a almost completely false story about the Conch Festival sailing event. That was a long sentence. It must be catching. Maybe if I put a couple of semi-colons in it and threw in a few commas indiscriminately it would force you to read only a part of the sentence and guess the rest?
One story caught my eye and really drove the quality of reporting home. It was entitled, Cost Right and visiting couple robbed at gun point.
It was suggested that R.L Trask’s The Penguin Guide to Punctuation be loaned to the staff of the Sun with special attention being paid to the use of the semi-colon but then it was pointed out that the Sun is a satirical newspaper and the writers are merely poking fun at the journalistic profession. Besides they don’t have time to read that stuff and get the paper out too.
I was told that I was taking this whole thing too seriously and that to be mentioned at all by this newspaper and by those writers was a compliment that meant that I was now a part of the unnamed-club. That relived me greatly…
Luckily, we have The Writers’ Group
We featured a Christmas programme on How Culture Works this last Wednesday evening with Sandra Garland, Ed Williams and David Bowen. David started the programme with a hands on heritage lesson on the Mass’n costume and tradition. He actually dressed in front of the camera and explained what he was doing and why. David also invited everybody to Grand Turk Christmas Day for a Mass’n procession around that Island starting at 4AM. Bring a costume was the early morning call.
Sandra followed David with a story about a Salt Cay girl who goes to Grand Turk for the Christmas holidays because of winning an essay contest. This is her first time in Grand Turk and what she sees, well that is for Sandra to tell. David later recorded Sandra’s story for his 9AM Saturday Children’s Programme on RTC. So, if you are interested in what life was like back in the 1960s in the Turks Islands, request a re-play of Sandra’s story. It is good…
Ed Williams finished our hour off with a poem about Christmas on Provo. Ed has a way of just using enough words to pull you into a story, seeing the things you normally would see but recognizing that those things are important.
The Writers’ Group will not be publishing our book, A Walk On Our Beach, until the new year. Luckily, it has writing that can be read and given as gifts at any time of the year. An invitation to those who appreciate writing and those who appreciate having a group who can give you free positive critiques on our writing to join us every Tuesday, except Christmas and New Year’s Days, at 12 noon at the Cultural and Arts Commission (Dept of Culture) Office next to Aqua Restaurant, above the Turtle Cove Inn.
And Speaking of Writing and Publishing…
Lucy Mott-Lee has put out her great cookery book on Cayman cuisine, Sea Food Land Food in a 20-year re-issue. The book is illustrated and full of antecdotal wisdoms from our own barefoot island princess. I hope the book is here at Unicorn but I am sure you can order one through Lucy at Maison Creole in Grace Bay.
I have spent a lot of time in the Cayman Islands and what Lucy has on these pages is real food from real recipes… and Caymanians take cooking and their recipes very seriously.
Honourable Dr. Mills returns to University of Bristol
When I was in Bristol I was dealing with the head of the Maritime Archaeological and History Department, Dr. Mark Horton about the concept of setting up a survey of our Bermuda Sloop wreck. For some reason we started talking about people in the Caribbean who now had degrees from the University of Bristol. Then I remembered that the Honourable Dr. Carlton Mills received his Masters in Education at the University of Bristol.
We are still and were carrying on the conversation about the survey and about to put a proposal together when Mark recommended that I find out if Dr. Mills might want to give a lecture to his old school on Education in the Turks and Caicos Islands. I asked Dr. Mills and he said he would be delighted and would, coincidently, be in the UK in early January 2008.
So now South Caicos Islander, Dr. Carlton Mills, Minister for Education, Youth, Sports and Culture will be giving a lecture on The Challenges of Education in the Turks and Caicos Islands to the Department of Education at one of England’s best, the University of Bristol on 11 January 2008.
Actually, here is the wording for the invitation to alumni and students:
UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL ,GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
CLIO RESEARCH CENTRE FOR INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE STUDIES (ICS)
ICS & EDUCATION IN SMALL STATES RESEARCH GROUP
Educational Challenges in the Turks and Caicos Islands
Friday, 11th January 2008
Room 410, 35 Berkeley Square
3.00 – 3.45 pm
Honourable Dr Carlton Mills
Minister of Education, Youth, Sports & Culture
Turks & Caicos Islands
All welcome! Contact Michael Crossley or Pat O’Brien for further details.
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Dr. Carlton Mills, Minister for Education, Youth, Sports and Culture and Student Art Award
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Schools Rotating Photo Exhibit Delayed
After the Department of Environment and Coastal Resources Director Wesley Clareveaux generously granted the Federation the funding for the Primary Schools Rotating Photo Exhibition we got bogged down in delivering the beautiful range of photographs depicting old photos, sloop construction photos, students sailing photos, racing photos and artistic photos of Sloops and kids. The photographs have been printed; we just have to matt them and hang them now.
I had hoped to get the 100 photographs out by the Christmas vacation so the students could appreciate them before they went off to celebrate Christmas and New Year but complications with the allocation of funding for the printing and matting undid those plans. But, the students of the public primary schools on Providenciales will be seeing the photographs that will circulate all the Islands when they arrive back from vacation time. Maybe it will make the return to school a more happy occasion than the returns I remember as a kid.
We will try to set up the display at the Environmental Centre during the holidays if that is okay with them.
We are not discriminating against the private schools in this and if interest is there we can expand the programme, but we need volunteers but just a little more funding to do that.
If you are interested in having an exhibit of thirty photographs at your school it will cost about $1500 for the printing and mounting and delivery. We already have the enhancements accomplished, which is the time consuming and costly part of the process.
