St Sampson’s refuses to join the Liberation party
St Sampson's parish has accused Education, Sport & Culture of failing to organise Liberation Day celebrations adequately and has said it will boycott the parish-wide celebrations.
The parish said it would not fall into line with ESC’s plans to repeat 2021’s de-centralised celebrations, citing concerns about lack of time to organise and lack of financial support from the States.
St Sampson’s is also reluctant to go along with parish celebrations on an annual basis, and a big island-wide event only every five years.
‘St Sampson’s douzaine has fully discussed the matter of Liberation Day celebrations for 2022 and has reached the conclusion that the douzaine will be unable, due to the very short notice provided by Education, Sport & Culture, to assist the committee with any parish-based arrangements this year, particularly as the douzaine is already actively working on plans for celebrating the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee in June,’ it said in a statement.
It accused ESC of abrogating its responsibilities to put on Liberation Day celebrations.
‘It seems ... that the ESC cannot reasonably be considered to be adequately discharging its mandate with regard to Liberation Day celebrations this year by unilaterally deciding, without full consultation and agreement with either the States or the douzaines, to devolve responsibility for planning and implementing celebrations to the parishes.’
St Sampson’s senior constable Paul Le Pelley, a former Education minister, said all the island’s senior constables were summoned to a meeting at Beau Sejour last October and sworn to secrecy before being told by ESC that it had decided to encourage the parishes to organise events.
Mr Le Pelley said there was no discussion or consultation.
‘We were being told this is what had been decided,’ he said.
‘But they have a mandate from the States to be responsible for Liberation Day. They should be doing this.’
He said that in the long term, parishes could not be expected organise event for eight out of every 10 years.
The parish flagged up its concerns to ESC in January.
‘We were hoping they would rethink it, but they just said the decision was made. We want a rethink,’ Mr Le Pelley said.
‘It’s the most important day in the Channel Island calendar. It should not be left to parishes, which have limited resources and manpower.'
ESC has allocated £25,000 for parish events, divided equally between the 10 parishes. Mr Le Pelley said that this equated to about 25p per person in St Sampson’s, which would not go far.
‘It’s not an equitable way to do it,’ he said.
The parish was focusing on joint Jubilee celebrations with the Vale.
‘So we have no money in the pot,’ he said.
Eight other parishes told the Guernsey Press yesterday that they were planning to stage events.
ESC member Sue Aldwell is leading Liberation Day planning and said the committee was disappointed by St Sampson’s decision.
‘We are most disappointed for their parishioners and we will now take some time to consider how we can best ensure they have access to localised celebrations in line with the community-focused direction for Liberation Day,’ she said.
‘There will certainly be lots of exciting events taking place throughout the island.
‘While we wish we had the support of the St Sampson’s Douzaine, it is always difficult to gain universal approval for change and we continue to be grateful for the support received from the vast majority of douzaines since we first briefed them of the planned changes in October 2021.
‘It is also important to re-emphasise that these changes were developed in response to the hugely positive reaction from the community to the island-wide Liberation Day celebrations last year.’
