River Rescue will tackle Evans Street this Saturday, 12 February – and the whole town is invited to pitch in. Co-ordinator Helen Holleman said December’s torrents of rain, while welcome, also flooded houses along the watercourses, washed down concrete poles, and “deposited lots and lots of rubbish where we can pick it up easily”. “The little spring was affected by the flood and comes and goes – I think it would be helpful to clean it up once more and see whether we can get it flowing the way it used to,” she said. “Wear your oldest clothes; you’ll probably…
Author: Rod Amner
The National Arts Festival will take place between 23 June-3 July. It is hoped it will be live, but that will depend on South Africa’s status concerning COVID-19 regulations. A call has gone out to artists to register their works on the Fringe. The Festival is also hosting an online programme, inviting applications to present works made for the online environment. The NAF’s approach to receiving proposals to present work on the Fringe has changed. Artists are requested to fill out an Expression of Interest form online. Meanwhile, the Festival team is also still establishing what venues may be available…
A Bathurst factory produces reusable nappies, sanitary pads and incontinence pads using locally-sourced pineapples. The inners of Leafline Washable Sanitary Wear products are made from natural pineapple leaf fibres. Entrepreneur Candy Androliakos said she was inspired by working as a beauty therapist in a retirement home. “While I was there, one of the old ladies was telling me how much money she spends on throw-away nappies,” Androliakos said. She began making some for the woman and searched for something absorbant for the inner lining of the nappy. “Because I live in Bathurst, I was doing a tour of the Big…
Awarenet learners recently celebrated the opening of its video installation, connecting the Joza Youth Hub to the Institute of Technology at Syracuse Central (ITC) high school in Syracuse, USA, more than 13 000 km away. According to Awarenet volunteer Martin Zabel, “The excitement and joy to connect to another continent via the portal gave a great kickoff for the global learning project.” Zabel said the technical transmission is based on Zoom, but instead of the tiny face boxes on the screen, which have characterized pandemic times for so many, the Syracuse-Makhanda portal offers a sizeable mirror-like format, enabling an experience…
Thousands of Eastern Cape schools – including most schools in Makhanda and surrounding areas – are still without stationery and textbooks going into their fourth week of the school year. Mary Waters High School and Carlisle Bridge Primary received some stationary on Tuesday, 8 February. But, principals from 22 schools in the district have confirmed that they have received no stationery so far. According to an Eastern Cape Department of Education (ECDOE) memorandum dated 6 February 2022, the DOE will begin delivering some “top-up” textbooks from 10 February. However, in a 4 February letter of demand to the ECDOE, the…
By ROGER ROWSWELL The rainfall was good for the first 10 days of January with one deluge of 30mm. Thereafter, dribs and drabs brought the total to 54.2mm over 10 rain days. This is short of both the LTA (65.6mm) and the LT Med (66.2mm). This tallies with Jim Cambray’s recorded 54.4mm of rain for January 2022 in Park Road. January rainfall has ranged from 30mm (2014) to 129.3mm (2020). January is the only month that the total has not exceeded 150mm in a year. Last year, 2021, we looked at comparing the monthly rainfalls against the Old Gaol 1922…
By STAFF REPORTER Police confiscated and destroyed 666 litres of illicit brew (mtshovalale) during a compliance and liquor trade enforcement operation in Joza on Thursday, 3 February. Twenty outlets were targeted, including five mtshovalale illicit brewing outlets at Extention 9, Nkanini and Joza. Licenced liquor outlets were not exempted as ten out of 40 taverns were also visited. Joza’s newly-promoted Visible Policing Commander, Lieutenant Colonel Boyce Mbeleni, who assumed his duties on 1 February, hit the ground running when he took charge of his first operation in his new policing precinct. During the operation, the Eastern Cape Liquor Board was…
By STAFF REPORTER The closing date for #CENSUS2022 Household Registration has been extended to 5 February 2022 to allow more respondents to select their preferred mode to be counted during Census 2022. StatsSA is conducting its 10-year population census. You can register online and fill out the forms yourself. They will then not come to your home. This is a safer option because criminals can now come knocking and say they are from StatsSA. You can choose whether to provide your data online, by telephone, or by home visit. But you must register on the website before 5 February. They…
By HI-TEC SECURITY It’s month-end, and the local remote jammers, who have been more and more active lately, are out in full force! We’ve been receiving many reports recently of remote jammers being very active around Church Square – along both sides of High Street – and are urging everyone to be vigilant. A new tactic is to remote jam from the upstairs flats facing both sides of High Street. This allows them to hide from being seen easily and thus avoid getting caught. On Thursday, we have confiscated two remotes from suspected car jammers. They are just regular gate…
By CHESLEY DANIELS Chesley Daniels Kowie United 1st XV convincingly defeated their arch-rivals in their Port Alfred Derby encounter by 32-7 at the Station Hill Sports Ground on Saturday. As expected, the game was very physical and intense, with both sides out to prove a point to claim the bragging rights. The game was good from the outset, but discipline was lacking from both teams with a few off-the-ball incidents. Kowie completely dominated the first half and played more with their speedy backs, who crossed the scoring line on a few occasions. The scrums were even up front, and the…