The recently public launch of the book Preserving Paradise, edited by Professor Sean Carrington and contributed to by some of the great experts of environmental knowledge of this country provided the opportunity for a copy to be received for the FCT’s library from the Barbados Museum and Historical Society.

At a presentation chaired by Director of the Museum, Ms Alissandra Cummins, (who kindly invited the FCT to be present at the book which is dedicated to the life of the late Dr Colin Hudson, founder of the FCT) the Honourable Prime Minister, Freundel Stuart, remarked that today, even moreso, the environment and its care is critical to our survival.

We are pleased and very grateful for the invitation to the event and even moreso to be fortunate to have such a great resource now available for borrowing from our library. We wish the museum the very best of luck in the sales of this wonderful contribution to the environmental education of Barbados.

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With thanks to the direction of Mrs Vicky Merrick, and the assistance provided by our volunteer Volunteer Coordinator, Mrs Cecilia Stallard, the FCT was able to include wares for sale at the St Winifred’s Grand Flea Market on Saturday March 10, 2012.

Volunteer assistance and donations to the sales tables were appreciated!

Thanks to the following for coming out to help out for some time on the day:

• Anna Buhr
• Andrew Simpson
• Cherice Gibson
• Kathy-Ann Fletcher
• Deborah Trotman
• Lalu Hanuman
• Stephanie Van Den Bosch
• Emily Merrick
• Vicky and Cecilia.

Sales achieved some $1050 or so towards the Future Centre Trust’s Resource Centre! Thank you again to all who contributed and to all who purchased!

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On Wednesday February 29, Principal of The Combermere School, Mr Vere Parris, proudly announced the school’s latest infrastructure addition open for business! With the help of the Project Coordinator for the CoRe NETWORK Project, Mrs Vicky Merrick, and the FCT’s trusty carpenter Victor, the school was able to launch their own centre for use by current and past students, teachers and the parents of the school community.

CoRe NETWORK is a project focused on the drawing together of a common interest within an existing community to reduce their impact on the country’s only Municipal Solid Waste landfill at Mangrove Pond. Co is Community and Re is Recycling – Community Recycling NETWORK – a network of communities across Barbados who have recognised they can make a difference!

Combermere is in fact the last school to receive a CoRe NETWORK centre under this phase of the project which has been funded by The Coca-Cola Foundation. Project Coordinator, Vicky Merrick spoke of the addition of Combermere to the programme:- “Combermere is a great community oriented school with very active Old Scholars who have also been invited to contribute to the CoRe NETWORK Centre. It is a great opportunity for one of the leading Secondary Schools in this country to educate a generation of young people, their parents and family members, teachers and related community members of the benefits of recycling and how recycling can indeed contribute to a better environment.”

The CoRe NETWORK Project is one that has made visual impacts to the amount of waste that has been diverted from the landfill. Thanks to the driving enthusiasm of Vicky Merrick, this project has found sound partners in the communities who want to make this project a success in their own right which adds to the collective power of such a movement.

We look forward to more interest from local and international partners to expand this project to greater numbers and a greater geographical spread.

Thanks to Barbados Today for their coverage as seen in this pdf – Barbados Today March 1 2012

Thanks to The Coca Cola Foundation for their support of this valuable initiative!

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The Future Centre Trust received an invitation to attend and contribute to the Sustainability group of the discussions contributing to the Tourism Master Plan for Barbados 2012-2021.

Mr Geoff Ramsay of the Environmental Planning Group – one of two organisations who have been charged with the responsibility for the development of the Tourism Master Plan – presented an overview of the process that has been undertaken in the past few years as it relates to the Green Paper on Tourism of 2001, the White Paper on Tourism of 2011 and now the Tourism Master Plan commencing in January of this year.

The focus group included a range of state and non state actors who have interest in the environment and planning of tourism infrastructure. The afternoon session was productive and provided some good insights into recognised existing tourism product and suggested plans for improvements and new tourism products to entice the visiting public.

Thank you to the Ministry of Tourism for their invitation to contribute to this event. We wish you and the team the very best of luck for the programme.

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Retired Catholic Bishop, Bishop Anthony Dickson, celebrated 50 years in the priesthood on February 10, 2012 at the St Patrick’s Roman Catholic Cathedral before specially invited guests and friends.

Bishop Dickson has been a long time supporter of the work at the FCT in his recognition of the links to the environment in the bible and his push over the years to include such relevance in his sermons.

Bishop Dickson also initiated the ‘Inter-Faith Earth Charter Group’ in Barbados and for a period of four years invited members of varying religious faith to come together and discuss the Earth Charter Document (see link here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Charter) which focuses on a number of human related impacts to our holistic environment. Bishop Dickson in his charge included a project focus on the use and distribution of the Compact Fluorescent Bulbs and posed questions to the Ministry of Energy as to their plans for dealing with these bulbs once they finish their life cycle. This enquiry provided the opportunity for further discussion on the topic by Senator Darcy Boyce and other ministerial representatives.

It was indeed an honour for Nicole Garofano to be in the second row representing the interests of the FCT at this auspicious event for such a humble, well rounded priest who appreciates so many aspects of society in his beliefs.

Thank you for the invitation, Bishop Dickson, and thank you for your continued support of all things environmental in Barbados and the region!

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After a year of working through our objectives with The Coca-Cola Foundation funded CoRe NETWORK Project, we found ourselves in the situation of not having as many groups in the programme as we would like (we originally wanted 12, but only had 9 by the end of the year.) We then contacted our funders and asked if they would permit a change of budget lines to include the opportunity to host two 1-day workshops to share all of what we had learned with the wider community.

Upon their approval, we set about organising these workshops which we thought would be a day of sharing and talking, and watching some films and generally getting up to speed on the recycling and environmental options in Barbados. After much discussion, Project Coordinator, Mrs Vicky Merrick, suggested a Handbook to be given out with registration for the course.

A couple of weeks later we had put down the basis of the workshop deliverables; advertised the opportunity in local press, via email marketing, an appearance on Morning Barbados and direct email; mapped out what was to be an 80 page handbook of Community Recycling in Barbados; and had some 60 people registered to attend over the two days!

The events were held at the Girl Guides Association of Barbados on Friday January 27 and at the St Ursula’s School on Saturday January 28. These two sites were chosen as they both have operating CoRe NETWORK centres which were used in the presentation of content during the course of the day. Thank you again to the Girl Guides Association and to St Ursula’s for sharing your space with us for these worthwhile events!

We deemed the events extremely successful with everyone who attended feeling like they had walked away with what was now the full picture of recycling and how they could implement it in their community.

Once again, it was thanks to the Coca-Cola Foundation that we were able to offer these great resources! We welcome the interest from any new partners as there was much call for subsequent workshops in the wider community and of course to assist in funding the continued availability of the handbook.

Here are some snapshots:

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