Flagstone’s PR Consultant Katie Coetzee kindly has offered a branded Flagstone cooler bag with six wines, as an Easter give-away. I am adding a copy of my book ‘SwitchBitch: My journey of transformation from Sour to Sweet!’ to the give-away package. Continue reading →
Tag Archives: transformation
South African focus continues to grow at JAN Restaurant in Nice, soon to be joined by MARIA!
A three-week writing focus at Apricale in Italy saw me complete the writing of a book within the time period I had allocated to this first-ever writing challenge. As the catalyst for The Book was Chef Jan-Hendrik van der Westhuizen, in that I met a special man at his book launch in March last year, and that The Book tells the story of the transformational effect of the meeting, there was no better restaurant to eat at on Saturday, to celebrate the completion of The Book, than at JAN Restaurant in Nice! It felt like Christmas, it being exciting to experience JAN Restaurant again, my third visit in two years! Continue reading →
New Tourism Minister Derek Hanekom ignores Immigration Regulation impact on Tourism!
It is disappointing that new Minister of Tourism Derek Hanekom did not address this country’s most burning tourism issue, namely the changed Immigration Regulations, in his first official communication to the industry in the latest SA Tourism newsletter. Instead he deals with transformation of the industry.
The Minister’s maiden speech shared his goals to ‘grow tourism at local government level, and to identify growth opportunities‘. Transformation will be addressed at grass roots level, and will focus on rural tourist attractions receiving more support, getting local communities more involved in tourism initiatives, and enhancing financial resources of local communities.
The Minister is active on Social Media, which was not visible from his predecessor Marthinus van Schalkwyk. Minister Hanekom Tweeted ‘Must say, this beautiful South Africa of ours is a great product to sell. Let’s do it together!’! Van Schalkwyk promised a smooth transition to the new Minister. The Department of Tourism Director General Ambassador Kingsley Makhubela said ‘We look forward to taking tourism to new levels under Minister Hanekom’s guidance’. Continue reading →
Print versus internet news: what is the future of reporting?
At the Franschhoek Literary Festival I attended a one-hour panel discussion on ‘It’s news to me’, with heavy-weight panelists weighted to print media, a well-attended session. Ironically the complete communication failure in Franschhoek yesterday meant that no one could Tweet or share via any other form of Social Media what the eminent panel had to say about press freedom.
Ray Hartley was the panel chairman, and works in the Times Media Group, having previously been the editor of the Sunday Times. He resigned from the position, took a sabbatical, and now has a senior position in the Group. Much of the panel discussion focused on press freedom, ethics, and the depth of research of journalist’s stories, which were felt to be getting thinner on accuracy and content, much of the material of newspapers coming from Twitter and Reuters feeds. Hartley impressed with his humility and good chairing of the panel. He raised a laugh when he welcomed all the attendees who clearly didn’t get into the sold-out session addressed by Archbishop Tutu. The topic clearly was of interest, with the Franschhoek High School hall being full.
Janet Heard is a journalist wunderkind, her father Tony having been a well-known and highly regarded editor of the Cape Times. In 2010 she went to Harvard on a prestigious Nieman Journalism fellowship, and said she returned from the USA surprised about how much transformation had taken place in the newsroom at Independent Newspapers in the time that she was away. She resigned as deputy editor of the Cape Times earlier this year, and has been appointed as parliamentary editor of all the Media 24 titles. Heard praised South Africa’s media as being robust with good media voices asking Continue reading →