Attracting Best Cricket Talent and Worldwide Audience

By William Doyle-Marshall

    Until July 26 a series of Caribbean Premier League (CPL) cricket games is being played in Warner Park: St. Kitts; Kensington Oval, Barbados; Beausejour, St. Lucia; Providence: Guyana; Sabina Park: Jamaica, Guyana and Queen’s Park Oval: Trinidad and Tobago. These events are showcasing cricketing talent from the Caribbean region within the T20 League.

   Involved in the tournament are Barbados Trident; Jamaica Tallawahs; St. Lucia Zouks; St. Kitts and Nevis Patriots; Trinidad and Tobago Red Steel and Guyana Amazon Warriors

    The Caribbean Premier League was formed because organizers saw a need for a T20 Cricket Tournament in the region, says James Wynne, Head of Marketing for CPL. Some of the successful players in the Indian Premier League are players from the West Indies. “We saw the need that we could create this league here,” Wynne said. As a result CPL officials formed six franchise teams representing the six countries that host the games and on those teams are some of the best, not just from the West Indies but international T 20 players as well as well as the top local talent, Wynne confessed. The Caribbean Premier League started in 2013 and its first event was a huge success. “We started filling stadiums all over the region. Some of those stadiums hadn’t been full in like 20 years and it had been seen like a revitalization of cricket in the Caribbean because we all know it has such a rich heritage in this region. People are so passionate,” Wynne continued.

CPL Executives in St. Kitts James Wynne and David Brookes, director

  One of the very special thing about CPL, Wynne said is the fans. “The atmosphere of the games is absolutely fantastic and it is a very special carnival atmosphere that you don’t find anywhere else. I think that’s really at the core of our offering as well as the amazing cricket on show. The party in the stands is something else,” he noted

  In terms of CPL long term objective, it has a 50 year agreement with its partner, the West Indies Cricket Board. It is really about attracting the best talent possible and a global audience which is being grown. “Last year we had a reach of 220 million around watching CPL which means we are putting the Caribbean in the shop window. We are showcasing two of the most important things about the Caribbean – the cricket and the carnival.” The Tourist Boards are using that to promote the region so that’s absolutely at the core. A recent team of visiting media practitioners from Canada, the United States of America, Jamaica, Guadeloupe and Jamaica were invited to view the opening match at Warner Park between Jamaica Tallawahs and St. Kitts and Nevis Patriots.  “If people keep turning up and people keep watching it (games) on tv, it’ll grow and grow. We see it as becoming a major sports tourism aspect for the Caribbean,” the Marketing Director emphasized.

   CPL is helping to change attitudes towards cricket and make it more visible among young Caribbeanites, according to Wynne. ”Basically the West Indies guys are able to make a decent living in their backyards  playing CPL and they are becoming local heroes like the ones that went before them like Sir Viv, Desmond Haynes and all those guys. And it’s about for the hearts and minds. There are lots of American sports gaining in popularity in the region but cricket is coming back in a big, big way.

T&T Cricketers at Marriot in St. Kitts

  “One of the big strategic moves we made this year from a marketing perspective was to bring CPL into schools. Our launch was actually in a school hall in Barbados. There were 300 kids going absolutely mental over the players and getting to meet the players, local players like Jayson Holder, still only a young man but at the top of his game. All these kids aspire to be like Jayson one day, that’s got to be good news for cricket in the region.”

   Kerry Packer played a role when he came on the scene and paid cricketers real for their service. Wynn admitted that Packer played a serious role in bringing professional cricket to the next level and CPL has taken that spirit on. “A lot of the West Indies greats who benefitted from that move are still involved with CPL. Sir Vivian Richards, Desmond Haynes, Curtly Ambrose, all those legends are involved either in a mentorship role, management or advisor role on some level. “We are a modern T-20 Tournament but we are very much aware of where we came from, where it all started and having that link is massively important

Victoria's Zu the artist

Trinidad birds inspire Zu the Artist

By William Doyle-Marshall

At age five his parents Yeewing and Jeanette Fortune` took him to Canada from Trinidad. As a result Andrew Fortune` had the luxury of spending his two summer months back in the twin island republic. Many years later, we sit in an office in Victoria, British Columbia, and he smiles about the memory of birds being part of his life. He goes by the name Zu the Artist.

  “In the mornings, different birds would come out and I know what stage I am in waking up because different birds are coming out or in the day if it’s really hot, the birds are quiet or if there is going to be a big storm coming through, the birds are telling you something different so I definitely had a big connection with the birds and I went to a lot of different places because my family is spread out on the island so I got to see a lot of different birds. So there was definitely a big connection for me,” Fortune` reflects.

 It was a Saturday afternoon in January when I met the artist at a downtown office on Fort Street. He had created a profile of Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party of Canada and presented it to her at the opening of the party’s western Canada campaign office. Some of his works were on display as well.

Zu the Artist with his pet

   Earlier this year Fortune` created a series of works titled “Invisible Women of the Civil Rights Movement”. This illustrates his social conscience in operation. The artist unearths information about women we know very little about. Fannie Lou Hamer, an American voting rights activist and civil rights leader is among them. She was an organizer of the Mississippi Freedom Summer. She served as Vice-Chair of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. She also earned an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Humanities and many more awards. “President Lyndon Johnson, fearful of the power of Hamer’s testimony on live television, called an emergency press conference in an effort to divert press coverage.”

   “On June 9, 1963, Hamer was on her way back from Charleston, South Carolina with other activists from a literacy workshop. Stopping in Winona, Mississippi, the group was arrested on a false charge and jailed. Once in jail, Hamer and her colleagues were beaten savagely by the police, almost to the point of death.”

   Reverend Dr. Anna Pauline “Pauli” Murray an American civil and women’s rights activist, lawyer, and author is another of those Fortune` profiled for his online project. She was the First African-American to receive a J.S.D. from Yale. She was the first black woman ordained an Episcopal priest and was denied further work at Harvard University because of her gender. Murray served as vice president of Benedict College. She argued a case in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that women have an equal right to serve on juries. Dr. Murray was co-founder of the National Organization for Women. “In 1940, Murray was arrested with a friend for violating Virginia segregation laws after they sat in the whites-only section of a bus. This incident, and her subsequent involvement with the socialist Workers’ Defense League, inspired her to become a civil rights lawyer”

   Another of Fortune` “Invisible Women” is Clara Luper, was a schoolteacher, organizer in the Civil Rights Movement who took part in the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches where she received a deep cut in her leg on Bloody Sunday when 600 civil rights marchers were attacked by state and local police with tear gas and billy clubs. She, her young son and daughter, and numerous young members of the NAACP Youth Council held sit-in protests of downtown drugstore lunch-counters which overturned their policies of segregation.

Zu speaking at a community function

  Zu seriously started working on his art last fall after visiting New York for vacation. “I ran around looking at the art, trying to see what I can do for myself and what would make me happy. So I started playing around and then I started learning a lot of different ways of how to produce this stuff and then I became really serious about it. I stopped working and start doing this full-time. So the last couple months really is all that I used to get to where I am now.

   The artist’s influences are being drawn from the area in Arima, Trinidad on Aleong Street off Malabar Road, near the Arima Market. Those images and experiences with members of his family are indelible in his mind.

Victoria's roti compared with T&T

Victoria’s taste for Real Trini Roti is Infectious

By William Doyle-Marshall

Dosti roti, naan, chapati, pepper roti are mere names to the average Trinidadian. Jeffrey and Nirmala Singh, the owners of Trini to De Bone Restaurant in Saanich, Victoria in British Columbia are committed to introducing western Canada to the taste of real Trini roti like paratha (buss up shot) and dhalpourie. Saanich, British Columbia is quite a distance from Curepe in Trinidad and Tobago. Should you peruse the web for the city of Victoria there are lots of outlets named with the Caribbean sobriquet but there are only two which stand out in actuality. Why? They are named after two popular Caribbean compositions – Trini to De Bone and Stir It Up.

   Trini to De Bone celebrated its third anniversary in January. Jeffrey announces proudly that he came directly from Curepe to Victoria. But it was not his intention to open a Roti Shop. In retrospect he calls it a ‘funny story’. Eight years ago Jeffrey was sitting in his favourite chair, reading the morning news after enjoying a fresh cup of hot coffee in his living room in Curepe.

Jeffrey & Nirmala provide delightful Roti dishes

“I was going through the Express and as I reached the classified I saw they needed roofers in Canada and I was a retired roofer in Trinidad so I said this could be an opportunity to see the world so I applied for that job and I got the position and the company that I applied to brought me over on two-year work permit,” he reported. During the first month in Victoria, he had the Trini taste still in his mouth and couldn’t get anything to compare it to. “I kept telling my wife they need a Trini restaurant here to show them what the food is about.”

Six years ago recession struck in America and later reached Canada. That affected Jeffrey’s work in the construction industry. Without work the taste for Trini food continued haunting him even more. So he decided it was time to do the thing they thought about two years ago. “That’s when I decided to chat with my wife and said ‘let’s try a ting’.“

   Nirmala  natural knack for entertaining friends was apparent. And the new friends they made since arriving in Canada provided the opportunity for pilot projects in a manner of speaking. So those new friends and people from her husband’s company were treated to her creation of  sweet Trini food.”That’s all I can cook and they would always say ‘you guys should open up a restaurant; you would make lots of money.’” School graduation followed and they met some parents and grand-parents who were Trinis and they were privileged to get a taste of Nirmala’s curried chicken. After that pot luck experience the adults started talking about food. In fact she received her first order for dhalpourie Trini to De Bone style.

   “I started doing that for this person and then we had invited his (Jeffrey’s) boss and his family. His mother in law is Trinidadian and they had our food and they started ordering roti from me and that’s where the idea came from. They basically started me off from home. So when he got laid off then he said ‘well, let’s try the restaurant and see how it would work out.’

 While working for the company they end up sponsoring me so I got my residency and so on and about six years ago there was the recession in America. Soon after the American recession it came over to Canada. So as a construction worker the recession affected me because all construction just went down. Construction workers were not getting any work at all.”

   “During that time I was not getting any work because there was no construction work I thought maybe it is time we go and do the thing we thought about two years ago. That’s when I decided to chat with my wife and said ‘let’s try a ting’. “

“When the restaurant started it was excitement being the first Trinidadian restaurant on the island, everyone was excited. I used to go places and people used to be calling me ‘Trini’ and asking me for a roti. So it was exciting being the first and only Trinidadian restaurant on the island, a lot of people had known me and I could go anywhere. I think in the first six months the Times Colonist did an article so when people saw me they would call me ‘Trini to de bone’, I said okay, that’s a good sign.”

Introducing a new business to an island is tough for the first few years. Indeed Jeffrey adds “tough” to the description. Most people who walked through that door wanted to know ‘what is a Trini roti? So I have to describe to them that it is like a flat bread and we put chick peas and whatever inside. They don’t know what a Trini roti is. So I find myself serving two roles – providing a meal in a restaurant and some education. A lot of people say when they come in here they learn a lot about Trinidad because when I describe it to them then I add a little thing about Trinidad, I might say we have the biggest carnival in the world and we invented limbo and calypso and the steel pan. I point to my display in the shop and tell them the steel pan, limbo, carnival, all were invented in Trinidad. They get their lesson right there.”

As summer approaches Jeffrey and Nirmala are looking forward to operating the first ever Trini food truck around the island. They will continue their commitment to introducing real Trini food to Canadians at the various events being staged around Victoria, British Columbia.

Christophe Harbour where Dreams begin

Christophe Harbour Offers Lifestyle Dreams

By William Doyle-Marshall

How would you know when you find the place you truly want to call home? When you and your wife stop there for a brief visit and she offers you a power of attorney so you can return home and make arrangements to return! And when you find yourself visiting an island which forces you to realize there are possibilities you had never considered before. In addition to being touched by living history and experiencing true, friendly people catering to your needs as though you are a member of their family, the absence of North American concrete jungle influence on your consciousness is hard to ignore. The twin island state of St. Kitts and Nevis is the place of which I speak.

   That’s where you’ll find Christophe Harbour, a 2500 acre property. When in full bloom, it will include a full service marina that would be the hub of the community, where all the activity will happen. It is being designed to incorporate The Pavilion, Beach Bungalows, Outdoor Adventure, Tom Fazio Golf, Salt Plage and Park Hyatt St. Kitts. Developers promise that as a member your family have the remarkable opportunity to make, every day an experience – each completely different, all completely personal. The developers want owners and guest to “engage and energize in the middle of the action or relax and recharge in your private hillside retreat. The Harbour’s collection of amenities enables you to create the lifestyle you’ve always desired in a Caribbean island setting you could only imagine, until now,” Tim Anal, sales representative advised.

Rainforest for the environmentalist in you

Living life in St. Kitts offers this and more

   It is designed to include The Pavilion, Beach Bungalows, Outdoor Adventure, Tom Fazio Golf, Salt Plage and Park Hyatt St. Kitts.  Developers promise that as a member your family have the remarkable opportunity to make, every day an experience – each completely different, all completely personal. “Engage and energize in the middle of the action or relax and recharge in your private hillside retreat. The Harbour’s collection of amenities enables you to create the lifestyle you’ve always desired in a Caribbean island setting you could only imagine, until now,” developers promise.

 Christophe Harbour Development Company is in partnership with Apex Capital Partners Corporation, a Canadian-based international investment group in a joint venture to develop this new residential neighbourhood. The project is set within the existing Sandy Bank Bay community and allows for the development of 50 new, two-bedroom residential villas with an investment value of approximately $50 (US) million at full build out. This agreement adds to the already positive outlook Christophe Harbour had for sales and investment in 2013 with several projects currently underway, including development and planning of the marina and marina village and Park Hyatt St Kitts.

    The family who is developing Christophe Harbour is spending all its time on location dealing with the venture which is scheduled to take 30 years. Under the leadership of Charles P. “Buddy” Darby III, a renowned team of designers, engineers and architects brings this extraordinary venture to life. The attraction to the island for this venture, Tim Anal said are the nature, the natural beauty and the people. Customers who have begun acquiring properties in Christophe Harbour don’t want Las Vegas and they don’t want Walt Disney. They want the natural beauty of this island and its peace and serenity which is untouched. “That’s what they want and that’s the way we want to keep it within Christophe Harbour,” Anal says. There are very strict design and development guidelines. The developers are aware that other islands in the Caribbean have a lot of five star projects to offer but Tim is adamant “what we offer with the marina where you can buy in your own boat slip, we are going to have a golf course here. We will have nine holes ready in 2016 and the following nine in 2017. The Park Hyatt St. Kitts hotel – a five star luxury brand -- will be opening the second quarter of 2016.

  The Hyatt is expected to bring a lot of opportunity to the island as well as Christophe Harbour members and our guests. Being on the property it will give them more options for food because there will be several restaurants in there, Anal said. “There will be luxury spa so with that comes more choices for our guests and for our owners,” he emphasized

  Between 250 and 300 yachts will be the marina when it is completed. They would be between 150 to 300 feet in length. Yachts will pull up. There will be a channel service where yachts can pull in and any kind of service, any kind of groceries, any kind of flowers will be  handled -- everything: from stakes to seafood.  It will be a full service operation. According to the development plans, nothing is going to look like a strip mall. It’s going to have a haphazard appearance like a sort of Medieval Village with its own personality and character.

  “We’ve got services on the island where that is all handled but in here in the marina itself we will have a customs building so that when yachts come into dock, even before they come in, they send their tender in with all of their passports, their citizenship documentation so the yacht owners and their guests can clear customs before the boat even gets to the dock,” said Anal.

Scenes like this serve as enticement to stay

golfers' paradise makes stay complete

    Inside the customs house they’ll have real estate sales office; captain’s quarters, crews’ quarters, where they can get off the boat and have a place to play baseball, ping pong and just maybe relax and do some Internet and some WIFI and maybe have a state of the arts fitness facility in there. Local artists will be on site to sell their wares

     The first phase of the super yacht marina is under construction currently for 24 slips. They go in range from $1.8 million up to about $3.2 million. It opened in February and by late June 12 were sold.  “They’ve been very well received because we are only one of the places in the world or in the Caribbean where you actually purchase a slip and you get free title to it. You actually own it out right. Most other places in the Caribbean have a 99 or a 50 year lease. Here you buy it, you own it. There are fees. If you buy a slip, the fees will be handled in almost the same way that if you purchased a condominium. It would be a condominium association that would handle that so there would be monthly and yearly fees that would be associated with that slip for maintenance, Anal explained”. 

Organic Meals/Breadfruit Chowder in Restaurant Week

By William Doyle-Marshall

“Food is the star of life. It has right food and wrong food here. The wrong food kills you, the right food save you, makes you healthy and strong and good looking too and handsome.” These philosophical comments were made by Carl Hewlett, owner of OSCORA, an organic roadside restaurant in Keys, St. Kitts, a short distance from the Blackrock community.

  Hewlett studied mechanical engineering in Ontario’s Humber College but never liked it because of the need to work in oil. Now that he operates his small ital. business in the Keys neighbourhood of St. Kitts, he concludes that it is important and it involves a special type of engineering so that customers would enjoy the preparation.

Caaarl Hewett truly welcoming at Oscara

   In addition to his neighbourhood operation Pacolet as he is fondly known, has a downtown spot to cater to his city customers. At 4 o’clock every morning Pacolet begins cooking and creating his special blend of juices. Having to get to bed at 10:00pm every night does not bother him. “It aint good to sleep a lot, because you become poor. If you like to sleep too much you would be reduced to poverty”, he theorizes. “If you sleep a lot you miss a lot; you don’t grow. You spend too much time sleeping. You should wake up and get more knowledge and live; you see more things,” Hewlett contends.

Carl Hewlett, designs organic meals

“Your body is what works with these foods so if you want your body to function properly, you’d give it the right food,” says Hewlett during a visit by foreign journalists to his operation. He proudly announced that at the age of sixty years he is not sporting a paunch as is customary of men his age. “You have to watch what you eat every day; take your time and don’t over do it,” Pacolet advises.

 His mix of juices include tamarind, passion fruit, ginger, mango and carrots is highly recommended even as a replacement for solid meals from time to time. Pacolet’s creation will be exhibited during Restaurant Week which begins July 17. The week’s intent is to promote local cuisine, local ingredients, and the local restaurant scene on St. Kitts and Nevis. It is designed to provide residents and visitors opportunities to eat at restaurants they might not ordinarily be inclined or able to afford.       It is a chance for nationals to enjoy their own tourism product. According to the organizers, they are also making special effort to include micro enterprises -- and provide needed market access for local vendors and purveyors who may not be on the international map as an integrated part of St. Kitts-Nevis' restaurant scene, but who provide authentic local food -- and just the type of local eating experience many visitors are looking for these days.

   St. Kitts will heavily feature breadfruit during Restaurant Week, while Nevis -- which is incorporating Restaurant Week into its Mango Festival, which occurs this month as well. There, the focus is on mango as the local ingredient in the spotlight.

    The St. Kitts-Nevis Restaurant Week organizers held a Breadfruit Challenge competition for the best breadfruit dish. Maureen Stapleton of Nevis won with her "Maurals Breadfruit Chowder. Maureen’s dish will be featured on all Restaurant Week dinner menus -- July 16-26..

    In addition to the discounted menus, Restaurant Week organizers have various promotions and giveaways to be available throughout the week.. 

     The July timing is both to boost traffic to restaurants at the low time of season, and also because breadfruit and local produce are abundant during this time.

July 13, 2015

experiencing St. Kitts lifestyle brand destination

COLLABORATION, A GREAT PROMOTIONAL WAY

By William Doyle-Marshall

Raquel Brown. Chief Executive Officer of the St. Kitts Tourism Authority welcomed visiting and local media representatives to the 19^th annual St. Kitts Music Festival which she described as “a fabulous event” for the country. Ms. Browne made it clear that St. Kitts and Nevis is not a sun, sea and sand destination but a “lifestyle” brand. “When I say lifestyle, I speak of where your passion is, your heart.”

   The country’s logo is ‘follow your heart’ and according to the Chief Tourism Spokesperson, it speaks to what you like to do and that’s what St. Kitts has to offer. If you want to come to a festival, you are here because you are here for the St. Kitts Music Festival. If you would like to experience culture, you will come in August to Culturama and participate in Nevis. If you want to experience what the mix of what, as a Kittitian and Nevisian people, we welcome other cultures,” Ms. Browne continued.

                                             CEO Raquel Browne

   Being at the 19^th annual St. Kitts Music Festival was essentially being in the midst of high energy. That did not confine itself only to the performance stage during the three-day extravaganza (June 25-27). At press conferences, touring some of the island’s tourist attractions or merely enjoying a delicious meal – breakfast, lunch or dinner – you got the impression that the people and government of St Kitts and Nevis truly want you in their midst.

    Experienced performers like Kerwin DuBois, Bounty Killer, Infamous, Rachel Price, Benjai, and Ricardo Drew, shared advice generously to young performers who want to explore the overall musical world. DuBois told participants at a press conference, from a visual point of view and a creative point of view as a writer and producer, music has transformed across the board.

   “Hip Hop no longer sounds the same even country music doesn’t sound the same and so on as different elements. Dance Hall and all has different elements to what it was before. We cannot stay in the same root scene of festival music,” the Trinidad and Tobago Soca star advised. He was concerned that everybody thinks that Soca music is a festival and carnival thing. “We are now worldwide, we now have a little genre on I-Tunes. So we are getting there gradually. We have to be able to fit into the changed, diverse sound of music now. We can no longer just think Soca, we have to think music, universal and that is what it is about,” DuBois added.

Infamous, addressing festival press conference

    Infamous, a son of the soil made his second festival appearance and confessed being super excited to be there. Addressing the youths of St. Kitts and Nevis and around the world, if you have to take yourself away from the environment to get where you want to go: because home will always be home and we all know that and home is where the heart is. But if you really want to make a positive impact on home, just do what you have to do, in a positive way.” He grew up in Cayon and he loves Cayon people and of course, he admitted his love for St. Kitts people.

   Music lovers and journalists alike questioned the trend of musical collaboration among Soca artists. Benjai says it is the chemistry between artistes; Ricardo Drue feels collaborations is a way to bridge a gap between two different islands.  EZ from Odyssey had just finished a collaboration for the St. Kitts Nevis Patriots playing in the Caribbean Premier League currently in progress contends collaboration broadens your scope and your audience.

   A whole range of cultural happenings are on the calendar for later this year. St. Kitts will host Latin Fiesta is in October and then Sugar Mas closes down the whole country for a week, from Christmas Eve straight through to the 2^nd of January. “We are people of culture, heritage and fun,” contends the Chief Executive Officer of the St. Kitts Tourism Authority.