Author: Grocott's Mail Contributors

The National Government has declared April to be Freedom month. To this end, National and Provincial Government have lined up a series of events that will culminate in the national Freedom Day celebrations on 27 April 2019. This event will mark 25 years of constitutional democracy in South Africa. Makana Municipality will be playing host to all these national events. From 20 to 22 April, Lily Whites Rugby Football Club will celebrate its 125th anniversary by hosting a tournament. Clubs from various towns will participate in this rugby extravaganza. These matches will take place at the Oval rugby field. The…

The Battle of Graham’s Town 22nd April 1819 – List of references for parts 1-3 REFERENCES Barrow John   1806   Travels into the interior of southern Africa Vol 1   London   Cadell & Davies Cory GE   1910   The Rise of South Africa: A history of the origin of South African colonisation and of its development towards the East from the earliest times to 1857    London    Longmans, Green & Co  pp369-403 De Villiers J   1989   Die Cape Regiment 1806 – 1817, ’n koloniale regiment in Britse diens   Pretoria Archives Year Book 1989/I   pp1-227 Fortescue John W (Sir)   1923   History of the British Army   Vol…

The Rhodes University Archery Club hosted the Eastern Cape Provincial Championships on the 16 and 17 March. This was an important tournament ahead of the SA National Championships that will be held at Marks Park in Johannesburg at the end of April. Rhodes University Club archers Lance Ho, Yashin Naidoo and Gareth Ross were awarded their Eastern Cape Outdoor Provincial Colours for WA Archery. Despite the uncertainty around the weather, the Rhodes Archery Team did exceptionally well, with Lance Ho, Derryn Nel, Yashin Naidoo, Gareth Ross and Trevor Rochat all winning gold in their respective divisions, while Matthew Barwick and James McAlpine won…

In a tight and entertaining game on Lower field on Saturday 6 April between the hosts St Andrew’s College and Grey High School, the First Team game ended 17-17, after a try to Grey levelled the scores with not much time left on the clock. It was St Andrew’s College that opened the scoring in the first half with a penalty to Guy Rushmere after a collapsed maul by Grey, after a solid drive by the St Andrew’s forwards. Despite St Andrew’s having the upper hand in the possession and territory stats, they were not able to capitalize and it…

The Diocesan School for Girls (DSG) hosted Collegiate Girls High School for their annual derby day on Saturday morning, 6 April. A chilly start greeted the visitors from Port Elizabeth who made the short trip up the N2 to Makhanda (Grahamstown), for what is always a well contested day across all the hockey and netball fixtures. Even though there were no First team fixtures over the weekend weekend with both Collegiate teams on tour in Johannesburg, there were still an incredible 12 hockey and 11 netball matches played across the Open, U16 and U14 age groups, and the standard of play…

Dear Honourable Mayor It was with a sense of relief (rather than celebration) that I read your recent “Update on Refuse Removal” detailing the end of the municipal strike and the encouragement of community based recycling projects. I do, however, feel that the recycling buck is being passed by you to the community. You are correct in your knowledge that the community has to buy into the recycling programme and we all welcome your plan to encourage community based recycling projects. Unfortunately though, the establishment of some kind of an umbrella programme has to be implemented at a municipal level…

Congratulations to the following winners of our Fundraising Raffle that took place today at Makana Public Libraries: *1st Prize Winner was Ahlume Booi who walked away with a Brand New Puma Bag worth the value of R799 sponsored by Barry September. *2nd Prize was Alton Jegels who received a Steam Iron worth the value of R399 proudly sponsored by BUCO South Africa, 34 Bathurst Street, Grahamstown. *3rd Prize was scooped by Camelia Daniels who was grateful for her Cordless Kettle worth R249 also proudly sponsored by our associate Sponsor Buco. A special thanks to Marius Roberts at Buco for his…

Dear President Ramaphosa I hear you will be visiting us in Makhanda on Freedom Day. I chair the Grahamstown Residents’ Association (name change pending an AGM) and would like to welcome you in advance. In some ways, freedom has been great for our community. We have excellent arts and culture and a few of our schools are doing well. It goes without saying that everyone is better off for not living in a racist police state. From there, it goes downhill. We have a severe water crisis in large part because a R100-million water works upgrade that was meant to…

Dear Residents As we mentioned in a previous statement, the recent rains have not been sufficient to increase our dam levels. The dam levels have now reached critical levels. As of 8/04/2019, Settler’s and Howieson’s Poort dams were sitting at 7.65 and 29.3% respectively. It is anticipated that unless it rains, we will not be able to get any water from these sources by the end of April. When this happens, no water will be produced from the Waainek Water Treatment plant which supplies the western part of our city. The municipality has put in place measures to curb water…

Rhodes University in Makhanda (Grahamstown) was a contributor to paradigm-shifting observations of the gargantuan black hole at the heart of distant galaxy Messier 87. The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) — a planet-scale array of eight ground-based radio telescopes forged through international collaboration — was designed to capture images of a black hole. Today, in coordinated press conferences across the globe, EHT researchers reveal that they have succeeded, unveiling the first direct visual evidence of a supermassive black hole and its shadow. This breakthrough was announced today in a series of six papers published in a special issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters. The…