The Sweet Service Award goes to the firefighters and community of Hermanus, for its work last weekend in fighting a massive fire in Onrus, which led to the evacuation of residents of retirement villages Kidbrooke and Onrus Manor, as well as residents of Chanteclair and Bergsig. The Windsor Hotel and guest houses also accommodated residents for the night. Social Media played an important role in preventing residents threatened by the fire from panicking, and to call on Hermanus locals to assist with bedding for those that had to sleep in community halls. Ultimately too it was Mother Nature, which brought pouring rain late that night, putting an end to the fires. Continue reading →
Tag Archives: community
Solms-Delta launches Gemeenskap wine club for its gemeenskap!
I have not previously experienced Solms-Delta owner Professor Mark Solms as such a ‘grapjas’ (could this be a new name for a future wine?), bringing the house down with his honesty and ‘loskop professor’ talk about his wines and its Gemeenskap, losing the thread of what he wanted to say on a few occasions.
Mark is a passionate wine estate owner, whose mind races ahead faster than he can say the words, and is internationally renowned as a neuropsychologist, lecturing in London and at the University of Cape Town. His students must have a ball in his lectures. On Sunday he hosted members of the wine estate’s gemeenskap, to introduce to them the latest vintages of his wines, to introduce the new winemaker 
Hagen Viljoen, and to introduce the Gemeenskap community club. He came to the farm in 2001, and explained that the building in which we were tasting the wine was already called Fyndraai, and therefore they kept the name. They now have consolidated three neighbouring farms, ‘because we are so good at what he do’, he said. Music is an important passion on the farm, and Mark said that they ‘farm with music’ as much as they ‘farm with wine’! Next year a Music Centre will be established on the wine estate. Continue reading →