Sark Shipping the bread winners

COMPARISON with other islands in the Bailiwick, until Wednesday Sark appeared to have escaped the worst of the snow.

As I write, I have just returned from the shops and even after that relatively short journey I took a while to get reasonably warm again. I mention that only to illustrate the debt of gratitude all Sark residents owe to those who ensure that what we need to buy - on a daily or weekly basis - actually gets to the shops.

It can't be a barrel of laughs unloading cargo in near-freezing temperatures any more than it can't be a great deal of fun transporting it with tractors that in many cases don't have a heated cab or even any shelter at all.

The crew of the Sark Shipping vessels, along with the carters and others involved in ensuring that more often than not we actually get our daily bread - and a good deal more besides - deserve a collective pat on the back and I'm more than happy to oblige.

Sark's general election is now only a few days away (it's on Wednesday of next week) and there will be a hustings meeting - well, a sort of hustings meeting - at the Island Hall on Monday. I say 'sort of' because all it will be is the 21 candidates sitting on chairs around the hall's perimeter hoping (or perhaps not) that potential voters will come and talk to them.

It has been billed as 'hustings - Sark style' with no speeches, no chairman and no stage. I can well understand why this somewhat novel format was considered necessary two years ago, when no fewer than 57 candidates were nominated for the 28 conseillers' seats. However, this time there is only half the number of seats and well under half the number of candidates.

It seems to me - and others have expressed similar views to me - that with a half-way decent chairman, which the island manages to find for public meetings, a traditional hustings meeting could have been held.

I acknowledge that there may well be some voters who prefer to speak to candidates on a one-to-one basis, but if the attendance at two recent public meetings - on land reform and possible changes to the housing occupancy law - is anything to go by, Sark residents are not averse to turning out in numbers to make points and ask questions in a public forum.

Many of those to whom I speak strongly suspect that the one-to-one format suits some of the candidates, as distinct from the voters. If this is the case, then it is a shame and while I acknowledge the debt any community owes to those who offer themselves for public office, it is the public's election.

For my own part, I would have liked to hear all the candidates speak, if only to determine how they perform in public.

Heaven knows, the almost total absence of speeches in the first two years of the directly elected legislature - other than from committee chairmen formally proposing matters - means that even those who attend Chief Pleas regularly have little idea of whether some conseillers can make a speech of any substance.

But such is the way we elect our government.

A word before I close about yet another quite extraordinary fund-raising effort. Customers at Kristina Southern's Petite Poule Bistro in The Avenue donned - or grew - moustaches for last Friday in aid of Movember, which raises money for the Prostate Cancer Charity.

Organised by Sheila and Graham Harker and Alex White, this latest bit of fun at Petite Poule raised £880 with an auction, raffle and the food and drink sold to the punters - and that was almost doubled by donations raised by the organisers. A quite extraordinary sum of money for another worthwhile cause.

* The email address for comment is fallesark@sark.net.