by Melanie Baumeister
Many who witnessed our more-than-impressive troop of Scouts parading through the village on Saturday, 26 February, will have no doubt that Sedgefield is fast shaking off the last remnants of its ‘retirement village’ status.
The Scouts marched through town with the fire engine heralding them, from the Village Green up around the Main Road to the CBD and then back along Kingfisher Drive. A growing group of community service-orientated youngsters proudly showing off their uniforms.
Since the beginning of February, Sedgefield First Scouts have been at it without stopping. Every weekend they are doing and gaining and growing in leaps and bounds.
The weekend of Friday, 4 to Sunday, 6 February, the Scouts attended their first official camp of the year, held on a farm just outside George. Whilst the Scouts were out testing their survival skills, the Cubs did their Swimming Badges at Turtle Aquatics, right here in Sedgefield. The attainment of this proficiency and water-wise badge ensures the safety of the Cubs and, in turn, others around them.
The Scouts, Cubs and Meerkats meet every Friday night at the Lions Clubhouse, where amongst other things, they have Pow Wows and plan how to achieve their next badges. February was a big month for them as it is also ‘Founders Month’. Lord Baden Powell’s birthday is on 22 February and is celebrated every year by the Scout movement all over the world. Our Sedgefield Scouts are no different, and each one of them wore their khaki uniforms, and yellow and green bandanas, to school to represent our local troupe.
Finally, on Saturday, 5 March, the Scouts tried for their swimming badges at Pine Lake Marina. Ten Scouts completed the Swimming Scoutcraft badge, which included 300m of swimming, basic rescuing and staying afloat using an item of clothing.
One of the senior Scouts completed the Swimmer Scout Interest badge, which included 1.45km of swimming. Incredibly, Deena Colloty was seen walking and interacting normally after this feat, and we look forward to seeing more of her badges as she accrues them on her Scouting journey.
Watch this space for more of the doings and servings of this group of community-orientated individuals and their young charges as things gently change back to life before the global pandemic. If they manage to establish this much under the levels of restrictions imposed by pandemic life, imagine what they can do with free reign. Hang on to your bandanas!
A very special thank you is in order; to our local fire station for being a great leader in community events and always willing to help.
For more information about joining Scouts, Cubs or Meerkats, please contact Kevin ‘Griffin’ Scanes on 079 498 8581

Knysna Municipality is preparing to act against debtors who are in arrears on their municipal accounts. “These will include residential customers, businesses and government departments,” said Councillor Sharon Sabbagh, member of the town’s Mayoral Committee for Finance and Economy.

The Municipality’s current debtors book reflects outstanding debt (90 days or more) of just shy of R276 million. These include organs of the state (R3.322m), businesses (R80.77m) and domestic ratepayers (R191.883m).

“The Municipality has been far too lenient in the past regarding unpaid accounts, but this is about to change,” she said. “We will initially focus on accounts that are R5 000 or more in arrears. These account holders can expect to be contacted to arrange payment. But be warned: should their accounts not be settled, they will face the consequences as per the Municipality’s approved credit control policy. We also urge those who are in arrears for lesser amounts to please settle their accounts and implore all customers to start paying their municipal accounts on a monthly basis. We acknowledge that billing errors may occur and ask that customers who dispute their accounts lodge their concerns so that their accounts can be corrected and updated.

“Municipal rates, tariffs and taxes exist to enable municipalities to deliver basic services to their residents, services that are directly compromised due to unpaid accounts. It’s easy to blame an institution for the seemingly poor delivery of services, but, in most cases, this is not due to incompetence, but to the lack of funds,” Sabbagh explained. “This is often directly related to our customers not paying us.

“Keep in mind that we are essentially running a business. We must pay staff and service providers and purchase and maintain equipment that allows us to deliver basic services. No private business will allow its customers to accrue millions of rands worth of debt, and neither will we.

“I take the liberty of thanking those residents who settle their accounts on time and in full. We appreciate your diligence and efforts in working with us to create and maintain an inclusive, innovative and inspired Knysna,” she concluded.

For more information or queries, please contact Gloria Jantjies on 044 302 6542, Calvin McCarthy on 044 302 6470 or Gail Windvogel on 044 302 6581.

Picture: The Songlines Adventure Racing Team – Matt Trautman, John Collins, KelvinTrautman and Tracey Campbell – celebrating their victory. Credit Expedition Africa

Well-known local John Collins looks set to shoot back into the international World Adventure Racing scene – this time with ‘Songlines’ teammates Tracey Campbell and brothers Kelvin and Matt Trautman. This weekend they were the No.1 finishers in the first race of the 2022 African Adventure Racing Championship series, which took place in Swellendam. This with an impressive lead of three hours over second-placed‘Varicose’ – the Stellenbosch University team.

The race, hosted by Kinetic Events, started at the Kam’bati River Resort, with six consecutive legs comprising an 18km paddle, 20km mountain bike, 7km trek, 38km mountain bike, 16km trek and finally a 27km Mountain Bike. ‘Songlines’ took the lead from the word go, and their strong paddling background enabled them to start the second leg, an hour ahead of the next team. The route was both beautiful and gruelling, the queen stage being the 16km trek with 900m of elevation.

Following gravel roads, jeep tracks, cattle paths and bushwhacking up and down mountains, the team completed the course in 12.5 hours, just before sunset, and three hours ahead of their nearest rivals.

“After finishing in first place, we aim to keep the lead for the rest of the series in hopes of winning an entry into the 2023 World Champs.,” says John, who raced with cracked ribs after a kite-surfing accident the week before.

The ‘Songlines’ four have been racing together for a year now, with the ultimate goal of climbing to the top step of the World Adventure Racing Championships podium in 2023. They won the African Adventure Racing World Series last year, earning themselves entry into the 2022 AR World Champs in Paraguay starting 15 September. The plan is to use this event as a learning curve to ‘sus out’ the international competition and plan for next year’s World Champs, where they are determined to take the win.

“The road to Paraguay will consist of a lot of preparation,” says Tracey, “We’ll be dipping our toes into the international arena for the first time as a team and seeing how we race against the world’s best in adventure racing.”

Fortunately, although the ‘Songlines’ team itself is relatively new, it boasts a true Adventure Racing pedigree with top results at World Championship level. Many will remember John’s accomplishments with the Sanlam Painted Wolf team when they finished 4th in the 2016 AR World Championships, held in Australia, not to mention when his Mazda Team came 4th in Eco-Challenge Fiji in 2002 – both events involving the world’s top AR teams.

Tracey says, “John has been mentoring the team, and he’s still in top form and very excited to compete!”

Rumour has it that the 2023 AR World Champs will be held in South Africa next year, and the ‘Songliners’ cannot think of anything better than winning in their own country.

Adventure Racing is often referred to as the hardest sporting discipline out there. It is a combination of multiple disciplines in one event. These formats involve trekking, mountain biking, paddling, mountaineering and navigation. Teams collect checkpoints in sequence whilst navigating with only a map and compass – that’s right, no GPS watches are allowed!

It seems that the new system in Greater Knysna, which has the beach lifeguarding service as a division of the NSRI, is working well, with no major incidents or drownings reported this holiday season.
This is not to say that the watchdogs of our waterways have not been busy. Indeed, nothing could be further from the truth. But their presence and indeed proactive behaviour has surely been a testament to the old adage that ‘prevention is better than cure’.

With approximately 110 000 people visiting the beaches of Greater Knysna over the busy season, at the time of going to press, the lifeguards had attended to 113 incidents, including 38 first aid emergencies, two missing persons, and 73 rescues/help outs.
They have also had to close Swartvlei, Buffalo Bay or Myoli beach 12 times due to shark sightings. All this was handled by 30 lifeguards working from 9.30 am to 6 pm seven days a week, under the leadership of the Knysna Life Guard Operations Manager Mike Wood, a man who has more years of lifesaving experience than he’s prepared to admit.

We caught up with Mike at the Swartvlei Rivermouth Beach, where he was checking up on three lifeguards who were on duty there. He was particularly proud to point out that one of them was his granddaughter Jaylene Engelbrecht, who is usually part of the Durban Life Saving team but had come down to work alongside ‘grandad’ over the holiday season. She has thoroughly enjoyed the hands-on experience of working the Sedgefield beach with Xolani Qakatayo and Leith Wardlaw.
“It’s been very, very busy,” she said, “But very rewarding too. The beachgoers are mostly very appreciative of what we do, especially those who have children with them.”
Their busiest days by far were 31 December and 1 January, not only because the beaches were packed with New Year revellers as is tradition, but the Spring Tide brought extremely high waters and very strong and fast-moving currents.
“We did 25 Rescues over a two-hour period on Saturday,” Leith told us.
Mike said that at one stage, the water was rushing out at about 25km/h, which meant that very tight control had to be kept on swimmers to ensure that nobody got washed away.
“And we also had blue bottles to contend with,” added Leith.
Sadly, their biggest problem was bottles of another sort. Mike says that during the holiday season, there were far too many people drinking alcohol on the beach, and the presence of Law Enforcement was down to a minimum.
“This is something we are not mandated or even able to control,” says Mike, pointing out that there are good reasons that drinking on the beach is illegal. Drunk people near the water are not only a danger to themselves but also others, especially when they attempt to swim.
“And added to this, at times it got quite unpleasant for families on the beach,” he told us, “At one stage, I had to pull two of my female lifeguards off the beach as intoxicated men had started harassing them.”
With understandable concern for his team members, Mike told us that he believes that Law Enforcement should look into employing seasonal, visible beach monitors in order to keep this problem to a minimum.
“But all in all, it’s been a good season – so far, at least,” he said, “ And there’s no reason that trend shouldn’t continue. If lifeguards can keep people swimming in the designated areas (between the flags), they are better able to watch over them and react swiftly to prevent an ‘incident’ from becoming a tragedy.”

We’re dreaming of a local Holiday Season, how about you?
We have just had our local elections, and a new Council is finding its feet, but what if we extend our “voting period” and vote for our local economy this holiday period?
Voting with your money
Voting can be instrumental in different ways – bestselling author and respected advocate for food justice and sustainability Anne Lappe said that “every time you spend your money, you cast a vote for the kind of world you want.”
Small communities across the globe have seen a decline in locally owned businesses and the subsequent outflux of those that cannot make a living where they used to live. As people left, small towns became ghost towns with a significant loss of services, schools, health care, etc. Is that the “world” we want for Knysna and Sedgefield?
Greater Knysna’s economy has been hit hard by the COVD-19 pandemic. Local support is a key factor if we want to keep our local independently owned industries in business. There are many advantages, but the most obvious is that when you spend money at a local business, your money is likely to get reinvested back into the towns where we live. If you spend it at big online shopping platforms, your money is definitely not being reinvested locally, maybe not even in South Africa.
Why would one buy products made in overseas factories when similar items are produced locally, at competitive prices, and with more heart for people and the planet? The “world” that we vote for should foster a sustainable, resilient local economy that creates jobs and opportunities in Greater Knysna. A world that cares about communities.
A 2019 Business Report estimated that South Africans spent about R260 Billion over the traditional Christmas holiday period. Even if only a fraction of this money is spent in our towns, it will make a significant contribution to our local economy.
If you are doing gifts this year, why not ask your family for vouchers or gifts from your favourite local businesses? Think local crafters & manufacturers, gift shops, clothing stores, florists, restaurants & coffee shops, hair & beauty salons, art venues, handmade and homemade goods and local service providers. Experiences are great gifts too!
Support local businesses without spending any money.
There are non-monetary ways that you can support local businesses too. Recommend them to visitors and other residents, especially online. Like and share their social media posts, tag a friend, write a nice comment with an emoji, post a photograph (preferably of your purchase), and leave an online review. This will “give their posts legs” and boost their online exposure.
Vote with your heart
Greater Knysna is fortunate to have numerous organisations doing fantastic work in the community, whether creating food gardens, beautifying public areas or running soup kitchens. Get involved – donate local and volunteer local! There is an African saying that it takes a village to raise a child, but it takes a community to build a village. So, join us this year to make our Holidays dream come true – let’s have a local Holiday season!