Archive for March 16th, 2014
Rotary club seeks four potential teen leaders
(CNS): Local teenagers between 15 and 18 years old are being urged to apply for Rotary International's leadership training programme which will be held at Florida State University, Jacksonville in June. The Rotary Club of Grand Cayman Central will be sponsoring up to four high school students with al expenses paid including registration, air fare, accommodation, and meals. Students selected by a school need to be endorsed by the principal or senior guidance counsellors in order to be considered. A rotary spokesperson said that they are seeking students with high grades and leadership qualities.
The Rotary Young Leadership Awards emphasizes leadership, citizenship, and personal growth and it aims to demonstrate Rotary's respect and concern for young people, provide an effective training experience for potential young leaders and publicly recognizes those who are rendering service to their communities.
See the application form below which must be completed by March 21, 2014 and sent to Martin Ruben, Box 1415, Grand Cayman KY1-1110, Cayman Islands or faxed to 945-3338 or emailed to allenfarm17@gmail.com.
For more details see website here http://ryla6970.org/
CI swim team selected for regional junior games
(CIASA): The Cayman Islands Amateur Swimming Association (CIASA) announced today the Junior Swimming Team which will travel to Savaneta, Aruba April 20–27th to compete in the XXIX 2014 CARIFTA 50 Metre Pool and Open Water Swimming Championships. With a potential maximum team size of 32 swimmers the Cayman Islands is sending 28 swimmers this year and with veteran CARIFTA swimmers such as Cole Morgan, Iain McCallum, Eddie Weber and Lauren Hew on the team the first time competitors will have good mentors in their team mates.
In addition to rigorous training and meeting minimum qualification times, to be considered for selection, a swimmer must meet the following eligibility criteria:
A registered member of CIASA in good standing.
Have signed the 2013/2014 CIASA Representative Swim Team Agreement.
Have signed/agreed to Representative Team Protocols
Be between the ages of 11 – 17 as of Dec 31st, 2013.
Swimmers have been training hard and with the final qualifying events behind them the task before CARIFTA Head Coach Bailey Weathers and assistant Coaches Andy Copley and Brad Hutton was not an easy one. Based on a review of qualifying times, their compliance with training and eligibility requirements, the Coaching staff made a recommendation to CIASA. The Team Roster was agreed and ratified at the CIASA Board of Directors meeting on Tuesday 11th March.
Bailey Weathers, CIASA’s Technical Director said: "This has been already been an exciting season for so many Cayman Islands swimmers. We have seen an incredible amount of improvement and success; and we are expecting more great swims as well at CARIFTA.”
Swimmers who will be representing the Cayman Islands at the XXIV 2014 CARIFTA Swimming Championships are:
Girls 11-12: Jade Barnes (CBAC), Alison Jackson (SSC), Miquela Montana (SSC), Zororo Mutomba (CBAC), Ria Plunkett (SSC), Holly Stradling (CBAC) and Monina Thompson (SSC).
Boys 11-12: Jordan Crooks (CBAC), Liam Henry (SSC), Iain MacRae (SSC), Zachary Moore (CBAC) and Matthew Penner (CBAC)
Girls 13-14: Samantha Bailey (SSC), Stefanie Boothe (SSC), Lauren Hew (CBAC), Flynn Hope (CBAC), Sarah Jackson (SSC), Katie Klein (SSC), Kavanagh Lambert (CBAC) and Ella Plunkett (CBAC)
Boys 13-14: Rory Barrett (CBAC), Jonathan Key (SSC), Matthew Somerville (CBAC) and Eddie Weber (CBAC)
Girls 15-17: CatrionaMacRae (SSC)
Boys 15-17: Simon Butler (SSC), Iain McCallum (SSC) and Cole Morgan (SSC)
As was the case last year, the CARIFTA Squad will have a Training Camp in which the athletes will come together as a team for pool training and team building. The Training Camp will be in addition to the swimmers’ regular club training and will focus on common technical aspects of their swims such as starts, turns and relay changes.
Special thanks is extended to the Cayman Islands Government and Maples for their support every year which has helped make the position of Technical Director possible, a position which is largely credited with the recent upsurge in swimming in Cayman, including both learn-to-swim and competitive swimming.
CIASA will provide much of the funding for this trip, funds raised at the recent Dine and Splash with Olympians event.
However, travel to Aruba is quite an expensive proposition and with such a large team travelling, the team and parents will also be pulling together to raise additional funds for the trip. Thanks to our CARIFTA sponsors so far – Cayman Airways has come on board to assist with air travel, and other CARIFTA sponsors include Dart, Global Captive Management Ltd.,
PricewaterhouseCoopers, CUC, KPMG and the Da Vinci Centre. In addition to travel expenses, there will be additional costs for accommodations, meals and gear, so please – when you see a swimmer approaching – be generous.
Michael Lockwood, CIASA Vice President; a competitive swimmer in his youth and now a masters swimmer, was delighted with the news.
“In June 2013, the CIASA Board established the CARIFTA 2014 qualification times and at that time, we anticipated a CARIFTA team of approximately 18 swimmers. Swimmers will recall that qualification times were a little faster than the previous year. Earlier this week, the CIASA Board was delighted to receive the Coaches recommendations this year with an astounding number of 28 qualifying swimmers. These swimmers rose the challenge and exceeded our expectations. They and their coaches should be very proud. This is just one example of the incredible growth and success of Cayman Swimming in the past year.
And, typical of swimming, we expect that this growth trend will continue in the coming years under the leadership of Bailey Weathers, Cayman’s new Technical Director for swimming.”
Minister of Sport, Osbourne Bodden congratulated all of the swimmers. “Swimming requires incredible commitment, discipline and focus … and many early hours at the pool. I also want to thank their parents for the support and often referenced ‘swim taxi service’ which they provide. On behalf of the Ministry of Sports and the Cayman Islands Government we wish you all success in Aruba.”
The CARIFTA Team travelling to Aruba will include Head Coach Bailey Weathers, Assistant Coaches Andy Copley and Brad Hutton; Team Managers Sue Weathers and Jeffrey Wight and Team Physical Therapist Claire Critchley of the Da Vinci Wellness Centre.
Security Centre victim of almost $1M theft
(CNS): A woman who worked for one of Cayman’s largest security firms has been charged with stealing close to $1 million over a three year period. Police confirmed that a 48-year-old woman was recently charged with theft, fraud and money laundering offences from the Security Centre’s office in George Town and had appeared in Summary Court last Tuesday. Patti Jane Ebanks is alleged to have stolen $936,048.90 from the firm between 1 April 2010 and June last year through fraudulent cheques. Ebanks was bailed following a short appearance in the dock to return to court on 8 April.
Infrastructure fund up for discussion at Chamber
(CNS): Local businessman Bo Miller and Andre Wright, a Wall Street investment banking expert, will be discussing the concept of a Cayman Islands Investment and Infrastructure Fund on Monday afternoon at the Chamber of Commerce’s BE INFORMED presentation. These funds are being established in many countries and are commonly referred to as PPPs (public, private partnerships). An infrastructure conference held in Nassau, Bahamas, last year showed that other Caribbean countries are adopting this model for solving their infrastructure needs.
The objectives of a Cayman Fund would be to promote broad-based and grass roots Caymanian ownership of projects by individuals, Cayman companies and pension funds, creating jobs and embracing local private sector expertise in and retain the profits here in Cayman.
Bo Miller, who has been promoting the idea as a way to deal with the George Town cruise berthing facility among other projects, is a well-known proponent of the idea. Active on the political scene for several years, Miller has a background in finance and accounting and operates businesses in financial services, hotel and condo tourism development, international trade, retail and environmental protection.
Andre Wright has 26 years of Wall Street investment banking experience, where he concentrated on providing investment banking services to US state, county and city municipal clients in addressing their housing, economic development, transportation and general infrastructure capital funding needs.
Heco-founded Standard International Group in 1996, which has served as financial advisor to several foreign government and government-controlled companies as well as assisted major international corporations and financial institutions in providing capital, product or service in the Caribbean and West Africa
The discussion takes place today (Monday 17 March) at 3pm in the Chamber conference room, Governors Square.
CARICOM sets out battle plan for slavery reparations
(CNS): The leaders of several Caribbean nations unanimously adopted a broad plan which they will follow in the battle for reparations from European nations to address the continuing impact on regional societies and economies of the horrors of the Atlantic slave trade. A British human rights law firm hired by the Caribbean Community grouping of nations announced that prime ministers had authorized a 10-point plan that would seek a formal apology and debt cancellation from former colonizers, such as Britain, France and the Netherlands. The decision came during a meeting this week in St. Vincent & the Grenadines of CARICOM leaders.
The countries will also seek reparation payments to repair the persisting “psychological trauma” from the days of plantation slavery. The plan calls for assistance to boost the region’s technological know-how since the Caribbean was denied participation in Europe’s industrialization and was confined to producing and exporting raw materials, such as sugar. The plan further demands European aid in strengthening the region’s public health, educational and cultural institutions, such as museums and research centres.
It is even pushing for the creation of a “repatriation program”, including legal and diplomatic assistance from European governments, to potentially resettle members of the Rastafarian spiritual movement in Africa. Repatriation to Africa has long been a central belief of Rastafari, a melding of Old Testament teachings and Pan-Africanism whose followers have long pushed for reparations.
Martyn Day, of the law firm Leigh Day, called the plan a “fair set of demands on the governments whose countries grew rich at the expense of those regions whose human wealth was stolen from them.”
The lawyers engage to take the fight to Europe said an upcoming meeting in London between Caribbean and European officials will help the group gauge whether or not their concerns are being taken seriously.
Although the idea of the countries that benefited from slavery paying some form of reparations has been a decades-long quest, it is only recently that it has gained serious momentum in the Caribbean and begun to get growing support from across the world. The UK’s FCO however has been quick to dismiss the possibility, despite having already lost one battle with Leigh Day, the law firm engaged by CARICOM that won a more than $21 million compensation settlement for the Kenyan victims of the Mau-Mau rebellion, who were tortured by the British colonial government.
The reparations commission chairman, Hilary Beckles, who has written several books on the history of Caribbean slavery, said he was pleased that CARICOM has officially adopted the plan.
UCCI ready to tackle questions of ethics
(CNS): The fourth ethics conference in the UCCI’s biennial series kicks off Wednesday evening, with wide support from both the public and private sectors. The largest and the best supported conference in its short history, the opening reception, when the keynote address will be delivered, is open to the Cayman public. The entire conference is made possible by the support of government and commerce in the Cayman Islands. “We have tackled an important subject for the Cayman Islands and the region,” said the conference chair, Livingston Smith “To ensure a holistic approach, we have assembled the most eminent thinkers – and doers – in this field of knowledge locally and regionally, from many perspectives.”
Supported by many private sector organisations and government, the aim of the conference is to raise awareness of the potential for corruption, the decline in ethical standards across various sectors of society, and the damaging effect of corruption on economies and social harmony. The conference will focus on strategies of various regional governments and organisations, public and private, to raise sensitivity to these threats and how to curb and eliminate them, organisers said.
“Each year since its inception, the UCCI Conference has grown significantly,” said UCCI President Roy Bodden. “This year’s conference sees the University College once more collaborating with external partners to produce a world-class informative event.
“As President of the University College of the Cayman Islands, I am proud to wholeheartedly support these efforts to inform, edify and enlighten the Caymanian and the wider Caribbean community on these challenges. In hosting such events, the University College is fulfilling one of its most important mandates – that of being a leader in facilitating dialogue and discussion of important societal issues.”
This non-profit venture by UCCI was financially challenging in difficult economic times, but Smith stated that it makes an important contribution to Cayman and the region.
“Undoubtedly, this conference is due to the financial support of many people, particularly those who have come aboard at the highest sponsorship levels,” he said. “The Cayman Islands Government has been a stalwart supporter. Moreover, the level at which our financial sector has seen fit to support us is extraordinary.”
Dan Scott, who will speak on the critical role the private sector must play in combating corruption, said his firm, Ernst and Young, was committed to building a better working world.
“This means helping the private sector collaborate with government to increase trust and confidence in business," Scott said. “This is especially important in Cayman, because the world looks to us to continually strengthen our position as a sound, stable and transparent market for financial services and investments,” he added.
For the Cayman Islands government, sponsorship was particularly challenging, given its role in ensuring that the people’s funds are well spent. As part of the sponsorship, the Portfolio of the Civil Service is enabling some civil servants who may not otherwise have had an opportunity to attend the conference to do so.
“Good Governance, indeed the very foundation of democracy, rests on the trust reposed by the people in their government,” said Deputy Governor Franz Manderson. “As servants of the public we must exercise continued vigilance to ensure that their faith and trust is well founded. By raising awareness within our civil service of the various forms of corruption I hope we can strengthen that vigilance which every good democracy requires to maintain its integrity.”
The UCCI conference opens on 19 March with keynote speaker Dr Huguette Labelle, chair of the board of Transparency International, an organisation that rates governments and their business sectors on perceptions of ethics and trust. Dr Labelle will be joined for the three-day conference by regional and local heads of states (prime ministers and premiers), ministers of government, directors of anti-corruption agencies, and academicians and representatives of various organisations seeking to raise awareness about the need for transparency. They will be sharing ideas on how corruption can be reduced and eliminated from all sectors of communities across the region.
Visit www.UCCIconference.ky for further information and see schedule posted below.