Two well known and knowledgeable facilitators for the seminar include, doctor of sports medicine, Dr Nailah Adams, who will be delivering a presentation on the topic of ‘Nutrition’ while Anthony Hatt, Athletics Canada Distance Coach, will speak on the topic of ‘The Strategies for Managing and Maximising Performance’.

They will also be entertaining questions and giving answers based on their expertise in the field.

The seminar is scheduled to begin at 8:15 am and all runners are invited to attend.

The TT IM will be held on January 29 at 5.30 am at the usual starting point at St Mary’s Junction, Freeport. Slow runners and walkers (those expected to take at least five hours to complete the course) will start at 3.30 am. The six-leg marathon relay will be held at the same time and the 5K will run off at 4pm on January 28.

The 5K will start near to Queen’s Royal College and all races will end at Whitehall

San Juan were a goal down and a man down in the first half but Boyce turned things around with a tremendous performance.

The East champions now await the winner of the semifinal involving Presentation College San Fernando and Signal Hill Secondary which is scheduled to kick off tomorrow at the Manny Ramjohn Stadium. Signal Hill got past Carapichaima East 4-2 on penalties yesterday after their quarterfinal game ended 1-1.

Speaking to Newsday after yesterday’s win, Jerry Moe, coach of the San Juan North Secondary team declared: “The team fully deserved the victory as everyone stepped up and played a role in the win today, as well as Boyce came up big and we’re really proud of him.” He warned, however, that while the team could revel in the moment, training resumes today in preparation for the final on Monday.

San Juan will be without their captain Lukeman Brooks for the final, though, after he was shown a straight red card following a dangerous tackle. Elaborating on the impact of missing his skipper for the title match, the coach expressed: “There are 20 something players in the squad and they are trained based on the roles and functions of the positions they play, therefore I am confident the team would be stable and organised for the finals.” Trinity College started the game confident and got the goahead goal in the 10th minute after Saleem Henry’s freekick caused problems for the defence and the ball deflected off the head of San Juan’s Kurdell Sween and ended up in the back of the net. San Juan took five minutes to respond as Kyle Thomas’ shot found a lurking Boyce on the far post as he bundled the ball into the goal even though he looked to be in an offside position.

Trinity College got a numerical advantage as San Juan’s captain was on the receiving end of a straight red in the 38th minute following a rash challenge and apparent words to the female referee. Trinity could have gone ahead after the break as they were awarded a penalty in the 50th minute but it was not meant to be, Saleem Henry’s attempt went well wide of the target as the score remained deadlocked.

After the penalty miss, momentum switched and it was the 10 men – or rather one – from San Juan North who stole the show as Boyce scored a second half hattrick and completed his quadruple to secure the victory. After a long clearance in the 58th, Boyce found himself between two defenders and an onrushing ‘keeper and fired a well-placed shot into the back of the net. Boyce got his third after Jerome Cyrus took a thunderous shot that rebounded off the crossbar and fell directly for the striker to slot home.

However, the man of the match saved his best goal for last as he placed the icing on the victory cake with a delicious lob of Trinity’s keeper, Jaelani Dowers, in the 88th minute to secure the result for San Juan North.

Coach of Trinity College Moka acknowledged the penalty miss as the turning point of the game as well as elementary mistakes in both halves which he felt cost them dearly.

“This is part of life and football as today one team had the desire and passion that was needed to win a game of this magnitude.

We would definitely take this as a learning experience when we prepare for next year’s campaign,”

Although it’s not a recognised medical condition, concerns about its effects on well-being are attracting widespread attention.

“I guess it’s a symptom of current lifestyle,” says Dr Ross Cameron of the department of landscape at Sheffield University.

“We’re so clued into modern technology and things that we’re less observant about the world around us and we’re more likely to learn about wildlife ironically from a David Attenborough programme than maybe from a walk in the woods.” Richard Louv coined the phrase Nature Deficit Disorder in his 2005 book Last Child in the Woods.

He argues that all of us, especially children, are spending more time indoors, which makes us feel alienated from nature and perhaps more vulnerable to negative moods or reduced attention span.

Dr Cameron gave his views on the subject in a lecture at the Royal Horticultural Society this month.

“[The phrase NDD] has been used as a bit of a coverall to describe the thing of where we used to have natural processes, natural experiences in our life, and that seems to be becoming less common,” he told the BBC.

Ways to bring nature back into your life Any green environment – from pot plants to weeds – can provide green space that attracts wildlife and exposes people to the benefits of the natural world.

Some green spaces are better than others.

Fast-growing trees can lock up excess soil nitrates.

There’s another throwaway term, which is ‘nature knowledge deficit’, where we don’t understand as much about the natural environment as we used to, he explains.

And if we don’t experience natural places or “tinker around in the garden”, this can be bad for our mental health.

“As biological beings we are physiologically adapted to be in certain environments – to run, to play, to hunt, to be active basically,” says Dr Cameron.

“The reality is we tend to have the lifestyle of a brick at the minute. We tend to sit for most of the day – we tend to be very sedentary.” His job is to think about how green spaces can be integrated into landscapes. So, could this be part of the solution? “I’ve not sure I’ve got a cure,” he laughs. “Landscape is obviously a very open-ended and undefined term.

“But basically any interaction with nature/green space seems to have some potential.

I would argue that as you increase the scale and quality of it, the benefits also increase.” But he says even small and simple connections with nature can “give people a buzz”, be it a robin at the front door or sitting in the garden watching a butterfly.

“We’re quite interested to understand what those little positive effects have – those little things you notice in nature,” he explains.

“You don’t necessarily need to go to the Rockies or go to see blue whales off the Azores or anything like that.

“It’s trying to see how much of these everyday things people notice, recognise and get a positive emotional response from.” (BBC) Trees have environmental benefits.

The meeting will address a number of business including audited statement of accounts, presentation of the president’s report and election of the executive committee officers. Members must pay up their subscription before the AGM.

Norma Inniss, founder of this non-profit organisation 16 years ago and president from inception says, “AzATT is entering a challenging but exciting time and as we seek to elect new members of the board.

AzATT is inviting persons who have a keen interest in the welfare and well being of persons with Alzheimer’s disease to become active, engaged and committed members of the association’s board of directors.

“The association requires a mix of skills and competencies to develop the organisation hence we are seeking professionals in the community/ field, care homeowners and caregivers, to sit on the board which comprises nine positions including five officers: president, vice president, treasurer, secretary and assistant secretary.

“Two members resigned during the past year, five have come to the end of their term of office and are not eligible for re-election while two members have come to the end of their first term of office and are eligible for re-election.” Secretary, Karen Camejo states the criteria for election : Candidates must be financial members of the association whose annual subscription is paid up for the current financial year 2016/17. They also must be proposed and seconded by members entitled to vote at general meetings.

Directors are elected for a two-year term and may serve a maximum of three consecutive terms.

Duties and responsibilities Willing and able to attend monthly board meetings, special meetings and various events from time to time.

Once elected, board members may be required to serve on a sub-committee or oversee a specific locality such as PoS, Arima, San Fernando and so on.

All interested persons must submit a brief profile/biography for the attention of the secretary of the association.

Non-members can complete and submit a membership form, along with membership fee.

AzATT is depending on the more members of the public joining taking up membership in the association and urge that as a member, you commit to serving a term on the board and/or recommend an interested person – with a skill set which in your estimation is necessary for the board as the organisation continues with its activities.

To ensure the execution of the project, e TecK partnered with “Is There Not A Cause” (ITNAC), the locally based non-profit organisation that gives relief to Haiti and other nations in need of aid.

The e TecK’s employees were put to the challenge to donate non-perishable food items, over-the-counter medication and household linen for the hurricane victims. Staff showed no hesitation to lend assistance and items were donated daily and there was an eagerness to help as much as possible. Although e TecK’s members pioneered with the “Sowing Seeds of Hope” project, they weren’t the sole contributors.

V&S Pharmaceuticals Ltd, one of e TecK’s Frederick Settlement Business Park tenants, donated pharmaceutical supplies. The company was more than elated to be a part of the collaborative effort and support the cause, said a media release. Varune Persad, the company’s managing director stated: “As a company we are always willing to assist those in distress whenever the need should arise.” E TecK’s Corporate Social Response (CSR ) programme’s overarching goal is to enable positive, meaningful change and ultimately sustainable development in many communities and in this instance the people of Haiti, the release said.

Co-ordinator of the Sowing Seeds of Hope project and e TecK’s marketing and communications assistant, Melanie-Joy Anthony said: “Our priority with this project is to plant hope in the hearts of the Haitians touched by this initiative and to shine some light as they cultivate their future.”

Schools benefiting from the “Combatting Climate Change: What You Can Do” project tour were the Scarborough RC Primary, Bishop’s High School, Campbell’s Educational Institute and Signal Hill Secondary.

The discussions and activities were geared to encouraging lifestyle changes and focused on “Eat and Grow Local” and also reducing carbon footprint together with the linkages about how climate change affects all of us. The sessions included Power Point presentations, videos and posters and the information was well received by the teachers and students.

The Climate Change Project, now in its fifth year, is working with schools all across TT . The project funded by the Federal Republic of Germany.

Entertainment for the fund-raising event on Saturday will be provided by DJs Dei Musicale, Selectah Kerry, Gio, Dylan and Gonzales, with special Christmas performances by Mark Hardy and Yung Rudd, Trini rappers who have coined a new genre of music called trapso.

Gonzales explained that trapso is like trap music fused with Trini elements/rapso.

But the young rappers, having done some parang songs in the past few years, will be belting out some of their parang numbers at the event.

More parang is expected from Rome whose current ditty “Spanish Parang” is gaining in popularity.

Two years ago one would remember his “Loveable” on the Parang Fiesta Riddim.

Also on the playbill is Stef Kalloo, a young singer/songwriter who is also now making a name for herself.

Recently coming on board with the venture is Kerra Loves Kids (@kerraloveskids) who has partnered with @ djadam2mv to donate part proceeds of “A 2MV Christmas” towards the children of the Wesleyan Children’s Home.

Says Kerra: “Through the Kerra Loves Kids initiatives our purpose is to empower international change and encourage our youth to be creative, to dream and to believe that they can and will achieve their highest potential.” The fun gets going at 9 pm and ends at 4 am. For more info: 331-1302.

A close relative of the girl sees her working at the eatery. She tells the owner. The owner now has a dilemma. On the one hand, he doesn’t want to seem discriminatory toward the girl, but on the other, he feels she represents a liability to his business. What if word gets out? What if there is an accident in the kitchen? He contrives to move the girl to another part of the operation, eventually firing her on some slight pretext.

This is a true story. And it’s an often repeated one.

While the social impact of situations such as the one above is often written about, the economic impact is less so. This girl is now unable to take care of her basic needs because she has been denied an income, but her lack of a job and ill health has other economic implications for herself, her family and the country.

Trinidad and Tobago’s HIV prevalence rate* is 1.22 per cent of the population as of 2015, or approximately 15, 860 people if the population figure of 1,300,000 is used.

The number could be significantly higher because of under reporting. If the current labour force is estimated by the CSO to be 640,900 people, 15,860 persons with living and working with HIV could have effects on the country’s current and future labour pool and eventually GDP.

The National Workplace Policy on HIV (2008) quoted the ILO as quantifying yearly GDP losses due to HIV at US $45 million in TT. Meanwhile, UWI’s Health Education Unit has estimated that the country could lose up to $2.4 billion of its annual income because of HIV.

In writing about HIV’s effects on the economy Karl Theodore** has said the disease affects four different areas. The first is labour and capital’s the ability for to be productive. The second is the allocation of resources. Resources that may have been invested elsewhere, now have to go toward the fight against the spread of the disease. The third is a reduction of available income for the person living with HIV and his family. Lower income persons are more likely to feel the effects of not being able to work than those in higher income groups.

Finally, as a result of the second and the third effects, a country may not be able to grow and to innovate as others with lower HIV prevalence rates.

But another UN report suggests that the long-term effects on countries’ macro-economy may be even more serious since current research methods are not able to take into account all the variables yet.

“Estimates of AIDS’ effects on macroeconomic performance usually take no account of the loss of “social capital” or of the long-term damage that is accruing to human capital, as children’s education, nutrition and health suffer directly and indirectly as a consequence of HIV/AIDS. The effects of lowered investment in the human capital of the younger generation will affect economic performance over future decades, well beyond the time frame of most economic analyses.”***

As shown by the data, TT HIV prevalence rate has been trending downwards. While this is good, it is not a cause for complacency. In difficult economic times with uncertain ends, everything that affects the economy should be taken into account. That includes HIV.

* The prevalence rate is determined by dividing the estimated number of adults living with HIV at year’s end by the total population by year’s end.

* Karl Theodore, “HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean: economic issues— impact and investment response”. Commission on Macroeconomics and Health Working Paper Series, Paper No. WG1:1 (Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University, Center for International Developments; and Geneva, World Health Organization, 2001).

* United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs/ Population

For the last 6 decades, whatever your thoughts on the revolutionary, Castro strode across the collective consciousness of four generations, his impact on geopolitics inarguable.

Opinions on his legacy to millions of Cubans are also bitterly divided, ranging from sadness and tributes at his passing to celebration in the streets of Miami by Cuban emigres.

He suffered major illness and had been close to death a decade ago.

Even though he defied expectations to live, visions of a Cuba without a Castro leading perhaps started occurring to Cubans for the first time. Such was the impact of the man.

In 1959, Castro managed the impossible. American business interests were entrenched in much of Latin America and the Caribbean but Castro ousted them from Cuba, nationalising all of their property.

The US instituted a trade embargo against the island, just 90 miles from its Florida coast, and was successful in getting many of its allies to follow.

But in the end, Cuba could rely on the Soviet Union, China and other nations with socialist sympathies.

The collapse of the Soviet Union and the pressure of globalisation saw Cuba having to reconsider its position and, as Fidel moved further into the background, his brother inched closer to the US.

The Obama administration lifted travel restrictions and there was talk of reconsideration of the trade embargo. The election of Donald Trump is likely to result in a rollback of the US position on these issues.

The First Citizens Investment Services report, After Trump’s victory, the World is Left to Wonder said improving economic and political relations could suffer.

Tuesday morning, two days after Castro’s death, CNN was reporting that Trump aides were already calling for a change in government in Havana.

Previous main partner, Russia, has moved to more democratic governance and looser control of its economy. Vladimir Putin appears to have a friendly relationship with the Trump White House. At home, Cuba was able to emerge as a leading medical centre, even as millions of its citizens lived in poverty. How would these citizens react to a world without Fidel Castro. Would they lobby to join the world or cling and perpetuate an old order, which, while bringing them benefits, denied possibilities. Is the Cuban diaspora, particularly the group based in Miami, going to become increasingly friendly to a motherland without Castro, or remain aloof in what may be the chilly diplomatic climate between the island and the US.

And what of Cuba’s Caribbean neighbours? Will we be increasingly welcoming of Cuba and will she look to strengthen her partnership with us? Or will Cuba remain a stranger locked away from us as we try to maintain good relations with the US? What position is Cuba going to take, rapprochement or retreat into self? The FCIS report projects that if Trump goes ahead with plans to reverse Obama’s overtures, Cuba’s position on the US may become “increasingly hostile”. The report said Cuba has already launched strategic exercises on the course of several days after the Trump victory to confront what its government has called “a range of enemy actions”.

The report also said Cuba may choose to deepen ties with China and other Western allies.

However, the effectiveness of this action could be limited, however, by what actions the US takes against these potential friends.

The report goes on to say that the post detente tourism boom Cuba experienced under Obama will “lose steam”. It also suggests strained relations between the US may make it difficult for Caribbean manufacturers to do business with the island. According to the report, the facilitation of trade with a new market of 11 million in Cuba may be affected.

Ultimately, as with everything concerning the Trump Administration, uncertainty abounds. Cuba, like the rest of the world, is in wait and see mode.

Over the past three weeks, several media workers were sent home, with companies citing difficult economic times, declining profits and redundancy.

They join they more than 2,000 people retrenched this year, in part the ongoing consequence of a contracting economy. But is there something more at work within the media industry? Social media has exploded the idea of the “mass” underlying traditional media for the last century and a half. TV, radio and print no longer offer exclusive access to audiences and advertisers are taking their dollars elsewhere. Globally, the development has seen a reorganisation and consolidation of media concerns to cut costs, innovate and remain relevant over the last decade and a half. In a world where most people now get their news on their mobile phones, print has been the medium hardest hit with hundreds of closures of regional and national newspapers in the US alone.

For a long time, print has enjoyed a privileged position in the Caribbean, with circulation numbers growing even as newspapers were closing their doors elsewhere.

Are the retrenchments a sign that this worldwide trend has finally arrived at our shores? The journalist too has enjoyed a special status as the person who “broke” the news, but as one of our interviewees pointed out, at least two to three times in a given week, currently, front page and top of newscast stories have been coming from social media.

What becomes of the professional journalist in this environment? “Mainstream media is dead,” said Dane, a mid-40s, 20-year veteran of TV, radio and print. He now focuses his attention on the production and design aspects of print.

Dane illustrates with figures like Donald Trump, who built massive online followings, arguably, without traditional media, largely buoyed by the use of mobile phones, whose number he places in the range of 750,000 in a country of 1.3 million.

Ron, who wasn’t so quick to pronounce on the death of the traditional media, nonetheless acknowledged that mobile was the “delivery method of 2016”. Ron is a veteran journalist who has moved his content online.

“More people have cellphones in their hand during the day,” he said.

Brent, though, doesn’t see the movement to social media as a complete break with the past but more akin to what happened with the introduction of radio and television.

“When radio became a big thing, print didn’t die. When TV became a big thing, radio didn’t die. It changed. Now the Internet is a big thing and people are saying traditional media will die.” Brent, who is in his late 20s and spends most of his days out on the field reporting said the Internet will not kill mainstream, but has made it more unstable.

Employees will have to become more accustomed to rapid, sometimes unpredictable change, becoming part of their work environment.

Media workers, particularly journalists will now have to become multi-skilled creating engaging content on multiple platforms.

“You can’t be a one trick pony anymore. You can’t just be a reporter. What’s that?” said Dane.

Ron believes that while basics like the 5Ws will remain, the journalist will no longer at the vanguard of the news.

If something happens before a journalist gets there, somebody is likely to have already posted it. Our job now then becomes fact checking, verifying than it is breaking the story.” he said, “It may mean that they will have to become better writers. There news is already out there.

We are going to have to package it in a way that people will care about what you have to say.” In this new environment, said Melissa, a field reporter and television producer, stories have to get online, even before the journalist begins writing their story for print, radio or television.

“People will need to understand how to write for web, how to upload video to web, how to shoot for web, getting the right apps on your phone to shoot and to edit for web,” she explained.

And this reorientation should not just be for journalist, but for managers as well. She thought media managers were slow to accept the pace at which the industry was changing globally.

“The people who are running media houses are catching up to the idea that we can’t keep doing it the archaic way, even if society may galvanise around the old, conventional forms of media. I think they are a little slow to realise that they need to revolutionise a lot faster than they are.” Brent said there also does not seem to be the desire to invest in training or new technologies. But this will have consequences, he warned, if TT remained “desperately behind international standards”.

“We are playing catch up. Facebookers, Tweeters, mobile site users, young people using social media are already five, ten steps ahead of media houses, which are becoming more and more irrelevant.” “It used to be that it took 24 hours to generate a story,” said Dane, “The news cycle has shrunk to an hour. If you are an hour late, you are no longer and influencer.” Worse than irrelevance perhaps, is the movement of dollars to online platforms, a problem which no one in traditional media seems yet able to solve. These are valuable dollars, that will salvage jobs and keep doors open.