St Helena : St Helena EXCO REPORT 59 – 8th February 2011
Submitted by Saint Helena Herald (Public Relations Information Office) 11.02.2011 (Article Archived on 25.02.2011)
We were able to welcome Councillor Brian Isaac as a substitute for Councillor Mervyn Yon, who is leaving on the RMS to represent us at the EU-OCT Forum in New Caledonia.
EXCO REPORT 59 – 8th February 2011
We were able to welcome Councillor Brian Isaac as a substitute for Councillor Mervyn Yon, who is leaving on the RMS to represent us at the EU-OCT Forum in New Caledonia. If you want to know where that is – it is a French colony some 750 miles east of Australia and will involve Mervyn in a great deal of travel over the next few weeks.
I began the meeting by informing Council of some of my conclusions following my recent visit to Tristan da Cunha. Among the aspects that I mentioned were the impressive and indomitable island spirit, the modern nature of the new fish factory, the overwhelming hospitality and the desire for closer links with the other Overseas Territories in the South Atlantic. The Tristanians were delighted to see the RMS once again and my programme was filled with visits to all the relevant government departments and meeting as many people as possible.
The new Administrator Sean Burns has settled in well. He and his wife Marina, have become part of the community in a relatively short space of time. Neither the hospital nor the school are anywhere like as large or impressive as we have here, but then the population is only just over 6% of ours. The lifestyle is in some ways enviable as the pressures of the outside world are far away, but then there are possibly even greater pressures of surviving in such a remote place. If one feels disadvantaged by our remoteness here, then a few years on Tristan might cure one of that problem.
We then went through the minutes of the previous meeting held on 1st February and had a fairly wide-ranging discussion on some of the matters arising.
Under AOB we also covered a range of topics including the changes being made currently within the Overseas Territories Departments both in the FCO and DFID, the gradual recovery of Peter Coll, our Chief of Police, in the UK, and the forthcoming meeting between EXCO and the Solomons’ Board that should take place once a quarter.
Much of our discussion was not substantive and so I have resisted the temptation to go into detail. I was anxious merely to be brought up to date with events and I am grateful to members for assisting in that process.
The meeting closed at 12.40 pm
Andrew Gurr
Governor
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