If you’re spending time with friends and family during the holidays, why not impress them with some fun, festive facts?

♦ Many people don’t like the word “Christmas” being shortened to “Xmas”. But what they might not realise is that “X” actually represents the Greek letter “Chi”, which is the first letter of the Greek word for Christ, “Χριστός”.

♦ In 1843, a man called Sir Henry Cole was behind the first printed Christmas card, like the ones we buy in shops and send to each other today.

He asked someone called John Callcott Horsley to design it. It had the words A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year To You printed on it. About 1,000 cards were made and it cost a shilling, which was actually a lot of money at the time (about 12p).

♦ The Christmas story about how Jesus was born is actually pieced together from two different versions – one written in the gospel by Matthew and one by Luke. The two stories are slightly different. For example, while Matthew said the angel visited Joseph, Luke says that the angel Gabriel visited Mary to tell her she was pregnant.

♦ Advent – the period leading up to Christmas – starts on the Sunday nearest to November 30. It ends on the Sunday before December 25. The word advent comes from the Latin “adventus” meaning “arrival” or “coming”.

♦ Jingle Bells wasn’t originally written as a Christmas song. It doesn’t even mention Christmas, Advent or Jesus! That’s because it was actually written for Thanksgiving.

♦ During early Victorian times, mince pies used to be made from actual meat! It is thought this dated back to Tudor times. However, throughout the 19th century, the traditional mince pie recipe started to develop to the one we know today, with fruit and spices.

♦ The gospels in the Bible don’t actually mention what date Christmas falls on. It wasn’t until the fourth century that the Roman church decided December 25 was when Christians should celebrate Jesus’s birth. Some historians even think he might have actually been born during the spring.

One of the reasons for this is that the shepherds who visited baby Jesus were said to have been tending to their flock in the fields at the time they heard of his birth, which they would have been doing in the spring when lambs were being born.

♦ In the 1640s,the British parliament banned celebrating Christmas! People called puritans – who believed in a more modest life led by stricter, religious rules – decided there should be no decorations and parties, like there had been.

They thought Christmas had become too indulgent and that people had forgotten the religious significance of it. Many people kept celebrating in secret though until it became allowed again.

♦ Epiphany is the name given to the day 12 days after Christmas on January 6, when the wise men are said to have visited the new baby and Jesus was shown to the world for the first time. The word epiphany comes from the Greek word meaning “show” or “reveal”.

♦ The majority of Orthodox Christians mark Christmas on January 7. This is because they actually use a different calendar, called the Julian Calendar, which is 13 days behind the usual calendar, called the Gregorian calendar.

The excited boys and girls were participants in the 7th annual Atlantic Football Development and Life Skills Camp, a three-day programme held this year at the grounds of Queen Royal College.

The camp is facilitated every year by Manchester United coaches Eamon Mulvey and Kevin Ward.

This year’s 50 young participants had the added bonus of the expertise of former Manchester United striker Brian McClair, a legendary 15-time trophy winner for the world-renowned club.

Representatives of the Trinidad and Tobago Olympic Committee (TTOC) also conducted life skills sessions for the children.

Derek Daniel, Branding and Communications Manager at Atlantic, said the camp was an opportunity for the young players to not only exponentially sharpen their football skills, but also to apply the value of sportsmanship and teamwork to their everyday lives.

“The Atlantic National Primary Schools’ League Competition has become a hub for upcoming footballers with an aptitude for the sport and every year we select the top 50 players to go through this Camp,” Daniel said.

“The Football Development and Life Skills Camp was specifically created to streamline the most promising talent by building the necessary foundation for those who may one day pursue football in a greater capacity.” Former Manchester United striker Brian McClair shared with the young footballers several pointers from his many years of competitive play.

McClair said that the camp took the boys and girls out of their comfort zones – especially for the life skills component, where many of the participants shared some of their experiences related to building discipline, studying for exams and peer pressure.

McClair also participated in a special workshop for coaches being certified under the Atlantic Coaching Excellence (ACE) Programme. He encouraged the coaches to be authentic and embrace their own unique individual communication styles when providing feedback to their players.

“The best advice I can give to the coaches is to listen – take in as much information as you can and coach as yourself. Don’t copy anyone, just be yourself,” McClair said.

Eamon Mulvey, Lead Coach for the Atlantic Football Development and Life Skills Camp also acknowledged the need to make allowance for different coaching styles. He highlighted that players also are to be given leeway to maintain their personal autonomy and playing style.

“Everyone has their own philosophy of coaching, and sometimes we need to give the players the opportunities to make mistakes,” Mulvey said. “It’s not only about winning but also development as a player, because sometimes you may learn more from losing than winning.” Mulvey and his colleague Kevin Ward have steered the Atlantic- sponsored event since 2010, with logistical support from the National Primary Schools Football League. Among the highlights this year were Exhibition Games between the camp participants and the Warwick Coaching School for Girls and the Queen Royal College Under 14 Team.

The camp concluded with a prize giving ceremony at the Digicel IMAX cinema, where all the young footballers received Manchester United tokens, and a select few were awarded Trinidad and Tobago Olympic Committee (TTOC)-branded items for exceptional performance and positive peer interaction.

His assurance came after Newsday reported complaints that the ten hockey coaches in this programme had not been paid their wages since June.

Ramadhin said this will come after a current review of staffing now underway on the orders of Parliament’s Public Accounts and Appropriations Committee (PAAC) which instructed that these coaches must be regularised.

He related that when the Ministry had originally hired these coaches, many possessed university degrees in excess of the two CXC passes stated as pre-requisites.

As a result, the Ministry had created a new, higher category for such persons titled, “specialist coaches”, but because the then Cabinet’s nod had not been sought, these persons had been kept on short-term contracts.

Now the Regularisation Study is underway, which will bring both a more secure tenure plus payment of wages owed, Ramadhin explained.

“It is a sacrifice now, but will bring long-term benefits,” Ramdhin sought to assure the coaches.

“I have no problem backdating (the wages), once we can verify they are doing their roles.” While hoping to pay possibly as early as January, he said some effort must be spent to check on the coaches work for a requisite number of hours.

Every Christmas I wake up before dawn, stuff the turkey with olives, garlic and bread crumbs soaked in chicken sauce, pop it in the oven and head for my 6 am swim. I do this without much of a thought, but this Christmas, I realised an important connection to my past.

About 50 years ago, my father gave me and my brothers ice skates for Christmas. Then he took us deep into the woods to show us some remote ponds we could ice-skate on. After that, ice skating became part of my Christmas tradition.

Early in the morning, I’d trek through the snow with my skates and a broom to brush the snow from the pond, and I’d skate until my cheeks turned numb. Swimming has replaced that tradition, and it reminds me of Christmases when I was a child.

I have passed down some of my Christmas traditions to my children even though they live in a tropical country with traditions very different from my own. In the weeks leading up to Christmas, my mother always baked Christmas cookies.

Her Christmases were defined by sugar cookies. In Trinidad, I baked gingerbread cookies for my children. Ijanaya, my daughter, now bakes sugar cookies and gingerbread cookies in the weeks leading up to Christmas. She proudly says this is part of her Christmas tradition. I gave her my mother’s sugar cookie recipe, and my own gingerbread cookie recipe. She guards them like the Hope Diamond and the secret Coca-Cola formula.

When you think about it, Christmases, past and present, are like those Christmas lights we string around the Christmas tree.

They wind through our lives, lighting up those simple moments that define Christmas and create a sense of family traditions that are so important.

Because of Christmas tradition we have parang, ponche a cr?me and ham; freshly painted homes and Christmas presents. Christmas traditions stretch back in time to our Spanish roots.

Traditions are important because they provide a sense of personal and cultural history. We blend our family traditions with those cultural traditions of the place where we live and together, these traditions give us a sense of self.

We are all products of our culture and we carry that identity to other cultures.

Our children will carry those traditions to the places they will live, and they will blend them some day with the new experiences they discover, and the experiences that they share with their husbands or wives. This is what makes holidays like Christmas so special and so important.

This Christmas, I wish everyone would pause and take a few moments to think about the importance of history and traditions in our lives. I hope that everyone will think back to the best Christmas memories and realise the pleasure those traditions have brought to our lives. I hope they will consider ways to preserve the traditions and history that define us all year round – not just at Christmas or Carnival, which is around the corner.

On Christmas, everything seems to slow down so that we can savour the memory of the best moments of our lives.

We can remember those family members who are no longer with us, and the family members far in the future we will never know, and we will realise that we can touch the lives of those we will never know because they will experience some of the traditions we have passed on.

M e r r y Christmas, dear readers.

Here’s a toast to you.

Commenting on the award, the bank’s Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Ian De Souza said, “You make me proud to be your leader.” De Souza commented on the joy of leading a “driven” team.

“I stand here tonight as one proud CEO. Ev erything I have asked for, you the staff of Republic Bank Barbados have delivered,” he said.

“We remain number one in the delivery of customer service, the industry benchmark for staff engagement is 67 percent and yours is at 66 percent.

In addition to winning the Bank of the Year Barbados 2016 award, Republic Bank’s Wildley branch also won the Branch of the Year in a keen contest among three branches.

It was a very close race, with consistency of performance over the year playing a significant role in the decision, but the Wildey branch recorded the best performance of actual loans to budget, and a loan growth performance at 14 percent above plan representing 55 percent of the total retail growth.

The bank continued its celebration of hard work, dedication and excellence at its annual staff gala and awards event at the Concorde Experience, in Bridgetown, Barbados on December 15.

Seven members of staff were nominated by peers and managers for the Managing Director’s Spirit of Republic Bank Award. De Souza said these employees exemplify the bank’s Core Values and perform all aspects of their jobs at a very high standard. The nominees were all required to have an excellent record of punctuality and attendance, consistently going above and beyond the call of duty and making significant contributions to their branch or department achieving set goals and objectives.

Young made this disclosure at the final post-Cabinet news conference FOR 2016 at the Office of the Prime Minister in St Clair, Port-of-Spain.

“What the FIU has picked up in their STRs (Suspicious Transaction Reports) and SARs (Suspicious Activity Reports) is that approximately 182 TT citizens, we suspect, may be involved in the financing of terrorist activities,” Young said.

He added the total monetary value of the 739 STRs submitted to the FIU for this year was $805.5 million and this represented a 127 percent increase in the STR submissions to the FIU in 2015.

Explaining that the STRs and SARs could involve banks, financial institutions, private members clubs, attorneys and real estate agents, Young said the focus is on, “certain countries in the Middle East and near to the Middle East.” He reminded reporters that his ministry obtained orders under the Anti- Terrorism Act this year, “to have certain persons declared terrorists and freeze their accounts et cetera, including ISIS and all of the bodies that we know of from the United Nations.” Young said local law enforcement agencies have been collaborating with their international partners on countries such as Syria, Turkey and the United Kingdom as some jurisdictions where terrorist financing could be taking place.

Declaring that, “all criminal activity is of concern to us in TT,” Young said in addition to providing local law enforcement with the resources they require, Government continues to improve, “channels of communication with our international partners who have better global monitoring policies, information and intelligence gathering.” Young said critical information is, “filtering back to us in TT.” In addition, Young said the Financial Intelligence Bureau of the Police Service has been, “conducting a number of criminal investigations into some of these transactions….

especially some related to the financing of terrorism and other white collar crimes.” He also disclosed that his ministry and the National Security Ministry have negotiated with the US Department of Justice to train local law enforcement officers to deal with these types of white collar crimes.

Young said the FIU report also highlighted other areas of concern over this year. “We have an emergence of wire transfers to jurisdictions suspected in involvement in human trafficking and the use of fraudulent certificates of insurance and false documentation to support claims arising from motor vehicular accidents,” Young stated.

He was unable to specifically identify the jurisdictions to which money was being wired to in respect of human trafficking but did not deny that some of these places could be in Latin America.

He said the FIU also found, “a continuance of the use of bank accounts for lottery fraud and employment fraud.” He indicated the FIU also saw, “frequent and small intra-island money transfers and advance fee fraud scams using unsolicited emails and posts.” Young lamented, “Unfortunately, we still have citizens who are falling prey to the schemes and the scams.” He cited the continuation of the repatriation of funds via wire transfers and money remittances to foreign jurisdictions by non-nationals and expatriates as another source of concern.

Another concern Young identified was,”the use of forged documents for obtaining loans for multiple financial institutions and co-mingling of accounts between individuals and their private company accounts for the financial tax avoidance purposes.” He said local law enforcement agencies and their international partners have found, “an increasing use of these remittances, some of which are suspected to be financing foreign terrorist fighters abroad” being done through channels such as small kiosks in public places which are used for wire transfers.

Reassurances about Khan’s health were given by Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) Stuart Young at the final post-Cabinet news conference for 2016 at the OPM in St Clair, Port-of-Spain. Declaring that certain media reports which claimed Khan suffered a heart attack were incorrect, Young explained, “It is a complication to do with his heart and brought on by a viral infection. They found fluid in his lungs and they are treating that situation now.” Indicating that it was Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley who advised the Cabinet about Khan’s situation, Young said, “There has been conversation directly with Minister Khan and Mrs Khan.

Right now he is resting comfortably.” Young told reporters that before attending the briefing, he saw a photograph of Khan in his hospital gown with a “Frankie Khan smile on his face.” He said preparations are being made to have Khan return to Trinidad as soon as he was in a proper state to travel.

Indicating that Government is monitoring the medical treatment which Khan is receiving in Thailand, Young said, “Our understanding is that the facilities in Thailand, and especially where he is receiving medical attention, are world class facilities.” Young said Khan, earlier this year, had, “some issues related to his heart and he went through some non-invasive medical procedures.” He said it was for Khan and his family to decide what would be the next step in his treatment and whether this would involve him being medically evaluated in TT when he returns.

With Khan out of the country, Finance Minister Colm Imbert is acting as Energy Minister. Imbert himself underwent surgery earlier this year at the St Clair Medical Centre, to remove an inflamed gall bladder. Trade and Industry Minister Paula Gopee-Scoon had an emergency appendectomy.

Rowley underwent medical checks at a facility in California in August and was given a clean bill of health. There were several posts on Khan’s Facebook page, from people wishing him a speedy recovery.

Young also disclosed that early next month, Government will go into retreat at the Diplomatic Centre in St Ann’s. Newsday understands that among the issues to be looked at would be the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) election which takes place on January 23.

The woman was, up to last evening, being held at the Gasparillo Police Station, police sources confirmed.

Jenice, a pupil of the Whiteland Early Childhood Learning Centre, died on November 24.

An autopsy revealed that she died as a result of blunt force trauma.

Investigators said the child, of Morocoy Extension Road in Whiteland on the outskirts of Gasparillo, sustained multiple blows to her head and stomach area.

Police were initially told that a female relative found Jenice unresponsive on a mattress at her home at about 9 pm that day.

The little child was rushed to San Fernando General Hospital where she later died.

Police were told that earlier that day, the child who had “suddenly fell ill” was complaining of stomach aches.

A file is being prepared to be sent to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions for instructions on how to proceed in the matter.

If charged, the woman would appear before a San Fernando magistrate on Wednesday

On the one hand, while millions of dollars have been spent on this programme, it is unclear what role it has played within the overall architecture of the Ministry of National Security. It must be assumed that the Government’s decision to scrap the programme has come after a review of its merits. But since the patrols were always shrouded in secrecy, we are nowhere closer to understanding its aims and whether it met targets.

Will the programme be replaced with more community policing from the Police Service? Or will the municipal police step in to play a greater role in this regard? Is there a risk of creating an untenable gap in the interim? It would appear the patrols were not principally about arresting criminals, though officers were said to have these powers. Rather, the visibility of these patrols added to a feeling of comfort and security. But this was always a fragile thing.

The scrapping of the Community Comfort Patrols must lead us to question the efficiency of many other programmes that fall under the Office of Law Enforcement Policy (OLEP) as well.

How have other areas, such as the police clubs, been working? Are there enough programmes that help build trust in the police and that meaningfully engage youths, parents and stakeholders? It is reported the Comfort Patrols will be scrapped effective January 1.

What lessons have been learned? The Patrols were always in an untenable structure that opened the doors to allegations that they were a private political police force with no legislative backing — a kind of mini-SAUTT on a local level.

According to former minister of national security Carl Alfonso, officers employed in the programme reported to the director of the OLEP, not the Police Commissioner.

Further, private companies engaged in the programme reported directly to the Minister of National Security. Aside from whether this is an effective arrangement, it must also be asked whether it was lawful.

Alfonso said in July 2014, personnel were recruited through private security agencies which are responsible for recruiting officers and screening applicants. The qualification criteria for each post are determined by the private security companies and the OLEP “ensures that applicants possess a character suited for public safety.” Accreditation involves a cover letter, resume, electronic birth certificate, ID, passport photograph, letters of reference and a recent police certificate of good character. Did these specifications work in practice? In Parliament in February 2015, Alfonso said the patrol officers held rights of citizens’ arrest. How frequently were arrests made and what was the experience in relation to them? Alfonso said the patrols were conducted using private security companies approved by the Private Security Network Commission, a body comprising private security agencies registered with the Ministry of National Security and the Police Service.

He said the ministry engages private security companies, with OLEP being “the supervisory body for the programme.” Respective private security companies submit monthly reports to the minister and the permanent secretary.

There do not appear to be specifications for the scope of these reports as far as we can tell, since there is no statute governing the body of officers.

In 2015, annual expenditure of the Office of Law Enforcement Policy reached $7 million.

We note the unsatisfactory aspects of the programme appear to justify cancellation. The question is, what did we learn? And also, what comes next?

Both parties were currently locked in conciliatory discussions at the Ministry of Labour’s St James Street, San Fernando offices up to late yesterday. The negotiations are for the period 2014-2017.

Speaking to reporters outside of the Ministry’s offices yesterday prior to attedning the negotiations , Roget recalled that following marathon negotiations that lasted some 14 hours and ended at 2 am on Tuesday, the company had “failed to make an offer, for us to have considered and resolved these negotiations.” “What happened following is that they were requested to go to the line Ministry and the Minister of Finance and to get a proper response,” Roget said.

“We hold the Minister of Finance accountable for what will happen next in Petrotrin, we hold the Minister of Finance accountable and responsible in total for any form of austerity measure, any form of IMF conditionality,” he said.

“And to suggest that Petrotrin did not have the authority in one way or another to offer zero-zero-zero, which coincides with his position, we think it is very deceitful for him at this point in time when it was the Minister of Finance who signalled there would be zero-zero-zero,” he added.

Roget once again reiterated the union’s willingness to initiate strike action saying they were “not prepared to go any longer than which is lawfully necessary before we call strike action.” “We don’t want to do it, but we are forced to do it, and when we do it, don’t blame us. The cost of settling these negotiations are wide and sweeping,” Roget said.

“At the appropriate time, as night would follow day, if we did not get the appropriate response, not the one before the court, this issue is not before the Court, the issue which is before the Court is the period 2011-2014,” he said.

Roget also warned that workers may boycott those businesses aligned with the San Fernando Business Association and the Penal Debe Chamber of Industry and Commerce for their statement regarding the proposed strike action saying they should instead focus on their businesses.

“To the Chamber, the San Fernando business chamber and that lady who is crying foul, tell her to back off, Chamber of Commerce, back off, Penal Debe Chamber back off,” he said, adding, “we are preparing to boycott their backside wherever they are.”