Thanks to the efforts of Ollie Perigo, the game of cricket returned to Placencia early  in the month of March.  Since the last cricket match was played just the day before the ill fated day Hurricane Iris struck and severely damaged Placencia (October 8, 2001) a few pondered…. What would this cricket match bring in its wake?  (Beside a few days of aches and pains)
Ollie got in touch with the British High Commission and invited them to come on down for the day for a match.  A Placencia team was to be organized by Lowell “Japs” Godfrey .  The St. John’s Memorial PTA was asked to join in as both Ollie and Japs thought this would be a great school fundraiser - and it sure was!!!!!
With fans and the two teams enjoying the game and the heat there was a constant stream of people enjoying iced cold beverages and finger licking barbecue.  In the end the score was 125 to 96 with the Brits taking the fun filled game.
St. John’s wishes to thank everyone that came out and either watched or played during the game - it was great to see everyone out on the field, the “Brits” that traveled to Placencia to play, DJ Tuca and Sons for providing music throughout the day, everyone that prepared food for the event, our grillers - they are THE BEST, everyone who helped to lug the ice and the drinks back and forth, the Placencia Coop for donating all the ice, and most of all Ollie - who spent weeks making sure everything was just right for the day, he even thoughtfully made a hand out called “Cricket For Dummies” for all of the cricket novices.  
The event made just over $1100.00 which was placed in the St. John’s Memorial School Building Fund.    

Over $14,000 US in mooring buoys, mooring anchors & other installation equipment have been purchased from Environmental Moorings Incorporated (EMI) in Miami, USA. This shipment from Miami finally arrived at the end of February & thanks, to the BTB we received everything duty free. The BTB also covered the brokerage fees & we would like to thank Anthony Mahler for arranging all of this.  Approximately, seventy percent of the $10,000 grant from Coral Reef Alliance went towards the purchase of the equipment. The balance of the equipment came from the donation from TMM Placencia.  March also saw a donation from visitors from Colorado ( please see the article on page 6 for details regarding this great donation to the project). The Belize Charter Association (BCA) also donated $1000 BZ towards this project and has promised assistance in labor when it will be needed most in the near future.
After the mooring equipment cleared customs, we received another great donation of free storage by the owners of Benny’s Hardware in Belize City, Mr. Sean Feinstein & brother Brett Feinstein. From all the volunteers at PMM, we thank you both for your generosity!  TMM has sailed in a large quantity of hardware arriving at their base Saturday , March 24th.  Steve Christensen, of PBS has donated trucking to bring down the balance of the equipment down to Placencia.

As we never anticipated it would take so many months to get the equipment to Belize & then to Placencia, we are now quite a bit behind schedule. So, time is now of the essence to get as many installed as soon as possible.  If anyone is willing to volunteer their time to learn to splice rope, please contact Erwin Westby at 601-6964.
 We have also just secured a grant from WWF.  This grant is specifically to follow on from the installation project with the monitoring & maintenance of the buoys. This grant is being utilized for spares for the mooring buoy installations, printed educational literature on why & how to correctly use a mooring buoy, also to purchase fund raising paraphernalia, as any additional donations made by divers, snorkeler & anyone else wishing to support the project. Due to the nature of this project all additional funds received must be classed as voluntary donations. These additional donations will assist in generating finance to keep the maintenance & monitoring program running for the following year & we hope to be self sufficient in the future, when its handed over to a CBO or NGO. We already had a CBO agree to take on the financial management of the programs following the end of Placencia Tourism Center’s financial management of the projects at the end of this year.
 We would like to publicly thank the following individuals and businesses for their donations of time & services towards the project during January, February & March.
Gilly Garbutt – for taxi services needed to get grant applications to airstrip before deadline. Dave Sturtz, family & friends for their donation of equipment.  The owners of Benny’s Hardware for storage. Anthony Mahler & BTB for arranging duty exemption & covering broker fees on the mooring buoy equipment from USA.  TMM - Paul Steel & his son Erik for bringing the 1st load of the shipment down to Placencia.   PBS for trucking.
In addition PMM wishes to thanks everyone who has had any input to the project so far, including all the dive shops who gave us the coordinates for their most popular sites.      
We hope you will all continue supporting the project as we move into the hardest & certainly highly skilled stage of the installations.

Hopefully this will also be the enjoyable part for all involved as we finally see our dream become reality.