Local News

The Ebenezer Methodist Church Hall was filled to capacity as people from across the island journeyed there on December 20 to witness a re-enactment of an “An Ole Tyme Wedding.”

Many years ago, in the schools and communities in Anguilla, and across the rest of the Christian world, the Christmas carol There’s A Song In the Air was one of the popular tunes heralding in the joyous season. Today, despite the variations in music and tunes, that beautiful song still has its popular place in the Yuletide. In fact, it is the central theme of all other carols, songs, messages and symbols of Christmas, speaking about the birth of the Christ Child and Redeemer of Mankind, in a manager in ancient Bethlehem. (See text of song elsewhere in The Anguillian).

The third annual Festival D’ Noel activities culminated on Thursday December 18 with a well attended Gospel Concert. The Festival which comprised of a varied program of cultural activities has been described as a success by the large number of people who were in attendance. Some of the activities included the second annual Digicel Ms. Mature Pageant, Kids in Talent and the highly anticipated Calypso Competition in which Springer was crowned king yet again.

Adult and youth groups from the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Anguilla were the organisers and presenters of one of the religiously-inspiring programmes on the island in run-up to Christmas.

The Christmas Season is depicted at North Side, just outside The Valley, in a most beautiful way that is attracting many people there at night after passing through the lighted and decorated Coronation Avenue.

Several hundred young people converged on Coronation Park in The Valley on Saturday afternoon, December 20, and well into the night, for a car and motor-bike show held there by the Omega Club, a group of well-organised youth in the South Valley area.

For the fourth consecutive year, David Small, a Chicago businessman and a ninth-time repeat visitor to Anguilla, and a guest at the Yacht Club Villas at Callaloo at Cul de Sac, has again made sizeable donations to the island’s children and community.

On Thursday December 18 the nurses and residents of the Miriam Gumbs Home were visited by the Association of Ex-Police Officers and were presented with a monetary gift.

There appears to be a flurry of social, cultural and religious initiatives these days springing from the imaginative ability of groups and individuals to preserve and revive various traditions, practices and beliefs that have helped to shape the lives of the people of Anguilla in the past and even at present.

Members of the Anguilla House of Assembly have been advised that while they are in a privileged position to say what they wish in parliament, they have to be careful not to repeat certain statements outside the House in public to avoid the possibility of being sued in court for libel or defamation.

Police in Anguilla reported at their weekly press-briefing on Wednesday this week that there were no serious criminal cases on the island to mar the various pre-Christmas events so far and that, despite the occurrence of the regular incidents it was a relatively quiet week from December 10-17.

Residents at the Miriam Gumbs Senior Citizens Home were hosted at a Christmas lunch on Monday this week, by LIME, the new company which has recently taken over telecommunications services in Anguilla and many other islands in the Caribbean from Cable & Wireless.

Windward Point, at the eastern tip of Anguilla, which opens up the island not only to the great expanse of the ocean, but to heavy seas as well, is currently denuded of its sand resources, sandy beachfront and the protective dunes which have long characterised the remote area.

The Ministry of Finance of the Government of Anguilla has crafted a budget of 339 million Eastern Caribbean dollars to meet the growing cost of the island’s public services and capital programme for 2009. It is the largest estimated expenditure so far from the island’s Treasury and a far cry from the days of a grossly under-developed public sector when the budget was “a mere drop in the bucket.”

The time is here again when The Valley town centre in Anguilla has brilliantly come alive by what is being called A Christmas Festival of Lights. Not only has he even heralded the season of peace, goodwill and merriment, but has provided a place to go at night from now until the end of the year to enjoy a varied programme of cultural events featuring, in the words of the brochure, An Ole Tyme Christmas. It has come just one week earlier than Festival D’ Noel, another cultural series of events at East End, commencing this Saturday, December 12.

Five nationals from the Dominican Republic residing in Anguilla are in custody following an early morning raid on Wednesday by police who arrested them (four males and one female), seized a large amount of US and EC cash and a loaded .38 revolver.

It is understood that the two United States citizens who died in Puerto Rico last week in the crash of an aircraft owned and piloted by Anguillian Ken Webster, were booked to come to Anguilla in January.

The facilities at the Executive Council Chambers, at Old Ta, have been vastly improved following the dedication of its new table.

In his weekly press conference on Tuesday this week, Chief Minister, Osbourne Fleming, commended Minister of Finance, Victor Banks, for the detailed Budget Address he delivered in the House of Assembly on Monday. “I believe that in Anguilla budget speeches have to be looked at a little differently especially by those persons in business who need to come out and listen to what the country is expecting so that they could prepare themselves for what will happen from a development standpoint,” he said.

Anguilla’s Chief Minister, and Minister of Home Affairs, the Honourable Osbourne Fleming, is distinguishing himself from his regional counterparts by being a political leader and a devout Christian leader at the same time and he is calling on nationals from the pulpit to pursue right living, honesty, love for God and their fellowmen.