Protect the Island?s teens

February 15, 2006

Dear Sir,

I am writing in response to the article in today?s paper (concerning the sexual activity of children on the Island. I want to first commend the staff at Teen Services that are tirelessly assisting pregnant teens that come through their doors, some of which are repeat offenders.

I am also pleased that continues to display articles such as these, as a mechanism to alert the public (for those who have no clue) as to what really is going on behind closed doors in Bermuda.

It deeply saddens and enrages me that more is not being done to make adolescent and teen health a priority. As someone who currently works addressing policy issues concerning HIV/AIDS in disproportionately impacted communities, I have seen first hand what HIV/AIDS does to families.

We need to find effective methods to reach out to adolescents and teens in a meaningful way. If they are not being guided in the home, then we as a community need to reach out and guide them. Gone are the days that we can turn our backs and say that this would not happen in my family because it is happening to and in our families.

This is a crucial time. Heed the warnings, now is the time to act!

Tired of dodging golfers

February 4, 2006

Dear Sir,

My regular running route takes me along Paynter?s Road. There are several signs along this road imploring me to proceed with caution as I am in the vicinity of two golf courses. Can you enlighten me as to why 99 percent of us have to stoop and cower while one percent hit high speed projectiles across a public road?

Occasionally I find myself running towards a golf cart (usually of the service variety) trundling up this road. Isn?t that what the cart tracks are for? I assume that these carts are neither licensed nor insured for use on a public road so, if I were to be felled in a low speed hit and run, against whom should I claim?

There are also a number of pedestrian crossings painted on this road, linking one fairway to another. I rather fancy my own private pedestrian crossing outside my house, linking me with the bus stop on the other side of Harrington Sound Road. Who should I contact at Public Works to get this arranged?

So many questions!

Winter activities needed

February 11, 2006

Dear Sir,

I visit your Island in January each year. I just had my 7th visit from January 11, 2006 to January 24, 2006. Two people I encountered on this visit have left a lasting impression with me. The first one was the kind woman in the gift shop at the Zoo.

Her kindness touched my heart and that of my young nephew who has a brain tumour. The second person was the wonderful woman in the gift shop at the BUEI. She was very pleasant, kind and informative and we had a nice visit. I left there with a smile.

Over the years, I have noticed the deterioration of the events for visitors to your Island during the winter. When I first started visiting, there was a lot to do but now events are very limited. Each year I visit, I am more disappointed. Your Island is very beautiful and it is my hope that your tourism department can rally around and offer more events for the tourists in January to keep our interests up.

What are the new bank?s architects thinking?

February 2, 2006

Dear Sir,

The architect?s drawings of the new bank building to be erected on Front Street have now been published in the newspaper.

I believe the CEO of the Bank, Mr. Philip Butterfield, has said: ?I would like Front Street to look like any other big city?!

Here we are all of us trying our very best to make Hamilton and Bermuda look as different as any city can be. We paint our roofs white; we have to stick strictly to building codes with the right windows and everything to look as Bermudian as possible. And rightly so. Our special ?look? is one of the distinct Bermudian characteristics which make us interesting and different from other places and makes people come to our shores.

We do not need a big glass building going up in the middle of Front Street. The first impression the cruise passengers will get when they come to port. The will also have three years of construction on Front Street to deal with, right in front of Number 1 shed.

I believe the architects of this office building are Bermudians. What are they thinking of? If we continue this way we will end up looking like ?any other city? or very much like Hong Kong. If this building has to go up on the site at least make it look Bermudian and what people expect when they come here.

Ships should be allowed to use their own tenders

January 15, 2006

Dear Sir,

With all this talk about the oversized cruise ships that are about to invade our shores, I would like to talk about a possible solution.

First, we are not the only place in the world that has problems with entry into our harbours. Over the past many years I have done an awful lot of cruising, and have found that even with the standard ships now in service, many of them have to lay out at anchor, and tender their passengers ashore.

Now that the bigger ships are going to take over most of the cruising, many more ports will have to do what we should do; in our case, when Dockyard is full, let the mega-ships anchor in Grassy Bay, and use their own tenders for passengers to get ashore. The advantage of this is that the tenders could have several different venues; some could go to Dockyard, some to Hamilton, and the local fast ferry could pick up passengers for St. George?s, giving everyone a choice.

This would look good on the ship?s itinerary, and when ships stay more than a day or two, passengers would have the opportunity to explore the whole Island. In order to make this viable, ships must be allowed to use their own tenders.

I have been on ships that have moored out in Grassy Bay before, the QE2 for example, and it would have been successful but for the fact that Government at the time refused to let the ship use its own tenders.

This left the captain tearing hair out, and bemoaning the fact that he would never get his passengers ashore in reasonable time. And of course, he didn?t.

It is virtually impossible to provide adequate tendering locally, especially when dealing with thousands of tourists at one time. In 1998, the captain on the inaugural cruise of the new Rotterdam, which was moored in Grassy Bay, was so upset at the prospect of being unable to use his own tenders that a fellow Bermudian passenger on board contacted David Dodwell, who was Minister of Tourism at the time, and managed to secure permission for the captain to use the ship?s tenders. What a difference it made to the smooth running of the ship.

We already have the deep-water dock at Dockyard, and it would be folly to fool around with Two Rock Passage and the Town Cut in St. George?s when there is such an obvious solution. Being moored in Grassy Bay would be a pleasure for visitors anyway. If there is a more beautiful harbour anywhere in the world I would like to know where it is, it must be well off the beaten track.

As these ships may be coming here sooner than expected, perhaps we should try this idea, and see if it works.

?Monsters? target seniors

February 10, 2006

Dear Sir,

There is a nice little bus stop in Devonshire near Montpelier built by the Lion?s Club for the seniors in Purvis Park so they could wait for the bus in rain or sun and inside was a small ?concrete? bench for them to sit on.

What happened to that lovely little bench? Last week some monsters decided to chop up the bench and could not do it in one night, but came back, and completely destroyed it the next night.

What sort of people do we have these days, roaming about destroying a bench that the old people sit on as sometimes many cannot stand for long.

Another thing that is happening all over the Island. Walls are destroyed from Somerset to St. George?s only by speeding this is done and I would like to know do these people pay to repair these walls or does the Government use our hard earned money to put them back again?