{"id":527,"date":"2012-06-05T14:13:13","date_gmt":"2012-06-05T14:13:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/?p=527"},"modified":"2015-04-27T14:17:05","modified_gmt":"2015-04-27T14:17:05","slug":"st-martin-book-fair-2012-highest-turnout-to-workshops-in-10-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/2012\/06\/05\/st-martin-book-fair-2012-highest-turnout-to-workshops-in-10-years\/","title":{"rendered":"St. Martin Book Fair 2012, highest turnout to workshops in 10 years."},"content":{"rendered":"

GREAT BAY\/MARIGOT<\/span><\/strong>, St. Martin (June 5, 2012)<\/strong>\u2014<\/span>The \u201cChildren\u2019s Room\u201d at the St. Martin Book Fair last Saturday, reflected the attendance in most of the workshops on the festival\u2019s main book fair day at the University of St. Martin (USM).<\/p>\n

The 43 boys and girls, from age 2 to 12, amounted to the largest number of participants in the Children\u2019s Room since the book fair started in 2003. It was also the first time that the overwhelming majority of the workshops had a high number of attendance across the board, said Jacqueline Sample, president of HNP, a book fair organizer along with Conscious Lyrics Foundation (CLF).<\/p>\n

In the Children\u2019s Room, \u201cthe kids responded very well, paid keen attention to the storyteller and gave good answers to questions that Papa Umpho asked. They had fun and want to do it again. They actually wanted it to be longer,\u201d said Nzinga Lake, coordinator of the children\u2019s activities.<\/p>\n

Special guest \u201cPapa Umpho\u201d told Kompa Nanzi or Anansi stories \u201cand actually got a brave boy to impersonate the legendary mischievous spider,\u201d said Lake.\u00a0Kiara Meyers, Little Miss St. Martin 2011, made a guest appearance and read a folktale to her peers.<\/p>\n

Children from throughout the island and various schools, including the MAC and the I-Can Foundation kept the room abuzz. At least two grandmothers stayed with their grandchildren for the length of the activities, from 9 am to 1 pm.<\/p>\n

\u201cA two-year-old boy got his granny to stay with him because he didn\u2019t want to leave after his parents dropped off his bigger brother,\u201d said Lake. Both fathers and mothers brought their children to the university campus.<\/p>\n

The coordinator had the youngsters participate in activities for boys and girls separately, and activities in which all of the children joined in, including self-esteem motivation and anti-bullying exercises, said Lake.<\/p>\n

After 11 am, the girls made an impromptu trip upstairs to Room 202, the massively-attended \u201cDance Workshop,\u201d coordinated by Broadway star Nicole de Weever, while the boys worked on communication skills with Papa Umpho in Room 108, said Lake.<\/p>\n

Other activities that had a full-to-capacity or tremendous amount of people compared to previous years were the following workshops \u2013 How to make Guavaberry (Colombier Cultural Association), \u201cWriting Your Life\u2019s Story\u201d (Jacqueline Bishop from NYU), and \u201cCaribbean Vegan & Vegetarian Cooking\u201d (Taymer Mason), said Sample.<\/p>\n

The \u201cBooks Are Boring!\u201d and \u201cliterature + technology = future\u201d workshops by novelist Wena Poon and Italian scholar Dr. Sara Florian respectively, \u201chad a fairly good turnout of very appreciative audiences, compared to other years. One mother told Wena that she had been using comics books to get her son interested in reading fir his exams. Both Wena and Sara were pleased,\u201d said Sample.<\/p>\n

The \u201cFAQs About St. Maarten\u201d presentation\u00a0\u00a0(on Friday) and \u201cThe Copyright Workshop\u201d on Saturday were cancelled due to scheduling challenges by the coordinators. The Saturday morning literary talk at the Public Library in Marigot was cancelled because of non-attendance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis 10th<\/span> anniversary edition of the book fair had over 20 activities, between six to ten more workshops and other activities than in other years,\u201d said book fair coordinator Shujah Reiph of CLF.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think this is the best book fair that we\u2019ve ever had, and that\u2019s with all the glitches aside that we have to work on internally,\u201d said Reiph.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a good message to send to our partners, potential sponsors, and the general public about this wonderful \u2018book fair for the entire family\u2019: the St. Martin Book Fair is growing. It is answering a positive need for our island\u2019s people and for the visitors\u2019 experience,\u201d said Reiph.<\/p>\n

Some of the 10th<\/span> anniversary book fair activities will continue. \u201cThe 10th<\/span> anniversary activities started very late because of the timing with regard to funding release but these activities still have to be carried out,\u201d said Sample.<\/p>\n

\u201cThanks to Dr. Rhoda Arrindell, when she was minister, for jumpstarting the book fair activities. The Ministry of Education and Culture provided a small sponsorship toward a book of new St. Martin writings that HNP will invite the general public to submit poems for shortly. That anthology will be launched at the book fair in 2013,\u201d said Sample.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe \u2018Cuisine as culture\u2019 poster presentation to the schools is continuing along with the presentation of a selected book to the libraries, the prison, and the government archives in Philipsburg and Marigot,\u201d said Sample.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, \u201cThe Book Fair Committee is part of the anti-bullying campaign for the rest of the year with the Peace Is Foundation,\u201d said BFC member Ari Sutton. The campaign was launched at the book fair on Saturday with the workshop, \u201cHow to Stopping Bullying,\u201d coordinated by Eric Fenwick.<\/p>\n

The usually three-day St. Martin Book Fair takes place annually during the first weekend of June.<\/p>\n

CLF and HNP organized the literary\/book festival on May 31-June 2, 2012, in collaboration with the University of St. Martin, the Ministry of Education & Culture (MECSY), the Collectivit\u00e9 de St. Martin, and the strategic partner St. Maarten Tourist Bureau.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Papa Umpho (2nd<\/span> L), a brave Anansi the spider (L), and\u00a0Little Miss St. Martin 2011 Kiara Meyers (5th<\/span> L),\u00a0pose with a few of the youngsters in the \u201cChildren\u2019s Room\u201d at the 10th<\/span> anniversary edition of the St. Martin Book Fair, USM,\u00a0June 2, 2011. (NL photo)<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

An elated group of girls from the \u201cChildren\u2019s Room\u201d pose with Broadway star dancer Nicole de Weever following \u201cThe Dance Workshop\u201d at the St. Martin Book Fair, USM, June 2, 2011.\u00a0(NL photo)<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Hillside school students with Eric Fenwick,\u00a0coordinator of the\u00a0anti-bullying workshop for the St. Martin Book Fair 2012.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GREAT BAY\/MARIGOT, St. Martin (June 5, 2012)\u2014The \u201cChildren\u2019s Room\u201d at the St. Martin Book Fair last Saturday, reflected the attendance in most of the workshops on the festival\u2019s main book fair day at the University of St. Martin (USM). The 43 boys and girls, from age 2 to 12, amounted to the largest number of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-fair-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=527"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":528,"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527\/revisions\/528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}