Makhanda festival city
The city is renowned for its educational institutions, for being the national seat of the judiciary and for its cultural events
NO END TO WATER WOES?
With the levels of the Botha’s Hill reservoir and other reservoirs to the east of Makhanda (Grahamstown) looking quite healthy last Friday, Makana Municipality resolved to open the water supply “for all consumers” on that day.
This came as a great relief for residents in many parts of Makhanda who had been without water for days on end during the previous fortnight. Residents who had water tanks on their properties were beginning to feel the pinch as these started to run low in many cases.
But the water supply was interrupted again last Saturday when the municipality refilled the reservoirs in the vicinity of James Kleynhans water treatment works. In a statement released at the weekend, the municipality’s communications division warned that this exercise would continue on alternate days “until the situation normalises”.
Meanwhile, dam levels on the western side of Makhanda remain a major concern, as all dams are below 10%. “We are now relying on the effectiveness of James Kleynhans to supply the entire Makhanda area,” said the municipality.
Consumers have, for the umpteenth time, been urged by the municipality to “conserve the little water that is available by using it sparingly and responsibly, whilst reporting any leaks”.
The problem is, there are numerous leaks across Makhanda (I personally have come across many) - these are reported but continue to leak day in and day out.
NOT THE SAME WITHOUT THEM
It was rather strange, indeed it was, covering a Kingswood College/St Andrew’s College First XV derby rugby match on the City Lords ground in front of just a handful of people last Saturday. Well, a little more than a handful. Actually, one is not supposed to be using the word ‘spectators’ as they’re strictly not permitted to watch live sport at this stage..
At the ground on the sprawling Kingswood campus, with entry controlled by security, were players, substitutes (quite a few of them, it seemed), coaches, staff members, match officials, ball boys, first-aiders and a couple of media types.
The usually full grandstand for a derby game was virtually empty, there was no boisterous cheering and no appreciative applause – all so strange, so unlike a typical derby encounter. And the same applied when the girls’ 1st hockey and netball teams of Kingswood and the Diocesan School for Girls (DSG) met.
Hopefully it will all have changed by the time the proper K-Day derby encounters are contested in June, and the crowds will be permitted to turn out in force.
All the rugby, netball, girls’ hockey and boys’ hockey matches played at the weekend were friendlies and essentially practice games, it has been stressed.
However, for the record, the result of the First XV rugby match was a 35-19 win for St Andrew’s, while DSG won the 1st team netball match 29-20, DSG won the 1st team girls’ hockey match 4-0, and St Andrew’s narrowly beat Kingswood in the boys’ 1st team hockey encounter 2-1.
LEADING CITIZENS
It was reported in the Grahamstown column of Talk of the Town of 17 July 2009 that the Rotary Club of Grahamstown Sunset was in the process of encouraging residents to nominate people for its annual Citizen of the Year project.
Leading up to the 2009 Citizen of the Year award, the nine past Citizens of the Year were: 2000 – Denim Kroqwana; 2001 – Dr Mary Knowling; 2002 – Mark Shelton; 2003 – Rev Glen Craig; 2004 – Gwen van Heerden; 2005 – Advocate Nicky Turner; 2006 – Ntsiki Mphalwa-Mene; 2007 – Grace Ngcete; and 2008 – Janet Buckland.
The Citizen of the Year project of the Rotary Club of Grahamstown Sunset is, sadly, no more.
STOCKS ARE LOW
The SA National Blood Service (SANBS) has issued a warning that its blood stocks are “critically low” and has called upon donors who are able to do so to donate a unit each of the life-saving fluid during the month of May.
To this end, the next visit of its mobile unit to the Dutch Reformed Church hall in Hill Street will be from 12 noon to 6pm on Tuesday, May 11.
ST ANDREW’S WINS AT HUMEWOOD
The St Andrew’s College 1st team beat Grey High School by three shots to win the Eastern Province regional golf final in medal format at Humewood Golf Club in Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth) on Sunday.
The St Andrew’s team comprised Ethan Breetzke, Cameron Holmes, Andrew Mackenzie and Matthew Pope.
The win qualifies St Andrew’s for the national finals to be contested later this year.
THEY’RE ALL BACK
Having been on their respective holidays and vacations of varying lengths of time, Makhanda’s private school pupils returned to their classrooms last week, while Rhodes University students were back on their campus on Monday this week, the day that also saw public school pupils back in their classrooms.
As far as public schools are concerned, the second term runs until Friday, July 9 – quite a long stretch!
RUGBY WIN FOR WALTER SISULU
In a sort of a ‘ derby encounter’ at the FNB Varsity Shield rugby competition in Pretoria on Sunday evening, Rhodes University went down rather heavily by 10 points to 63 to Walter Sisulu University, with the victors scoring all of nine tries.
MUSIC IN THE DARK
Covid protocols will be in place when Kingswood College stages its “Concert in the Dark” in the chapel on Friday, May 14 (6.30pm). There is no entry fee, but donations will be accepted with proceeds going to St John Eye Clinic. The concert is being presented by the Kingswood
music school. PRIVATE NO MORE
The opening paragraph of a story in the Grahamstown column of Talk of the Town of 7 August 2009 read as follows: “The private wing of Settlers Hospital opened this week with the first patient admitted on Monday. The two-storey Netcare facility is part of a R600million public-private partnership which has also seen Grahamstown’s historic hospital revamped. The entire project was given the construction goahead just two years ago.”
A few years later, Netcare withdrew from the partnership, and Settlers Hospital is once again a public medical facility.
RECOGNISED FOR LEADERSHIP
St Andrew’s College Leadership Honours have been awarded to Jacob Erasmus and Ayomide Israel-Akinbo, and Leadership Colours to Daniel Bradfield, Jack Brown, Stuart Christie, David Redfern and John Torcida.
IT HAS WITNESSED MANY A MATCH
Up there at Kingswood College’s City Lords sports field last Saturday, I noticed that the old municipal electricity substation is still there on the corner of Carnarvon and Ayliff Streets, just inside the KC grounds.
It ’ s been standing there a really long time, it has. I remember many years ago when attending Albany Rugby Football Club matches, the City Lords sub-station was just inside the then entrance gate.
Now I’m beginning to wonder if the sub-station was there in the days that Danie Craven turned out for Albany.
YOUNG WHISTLER
A sports report in the Grahamstown column in Talk of the Town of 7 August 2009 stated that Schalk Rossouw, a 17-year-old matric pupil of Daniel Pienaar Technical High School in Uitenhage, refereed the First XV derby rugby clash or call (046) 624-4356 between hosts Kingswood College and Graeme College on City Lords the previous weekend.
The teams played to an 8-8 draw after being level at 3-3 at the break. Rossouw sent a player from each team to the ‘cooler’ during the match.
I wonder if Rossouw continues to referee rugby matches to this day.
LOOKED LIKE IT!
The drivers were on their warmup lap prior to the start of the Portuguese F1 Grand Prix at the Algarve circuit on Sunday afternoon, a couple of them weaving sharply to the left and then sharply to the right as they brought some heat into their race tyres. This prompted someone in the room to say, almost with a hint of seriousness: “Looks like they’re South African drivers avoiding potholes!”