Dear Editor,
I refer to the letter in SN on June 11 relating to the recent fair at St Margaret’s School (‘Allegations… misconceived’), and in particular to the statement, “the music was loud enough to attract attention to the activity, an acceptable marketing ploy if you want to generate excitement and induce people to support the event.” The question is, what is considered loud enough and by whom, and what was the decibel level? Is it that which one still hears in a confined area in public transportation or on the seawalls on Sunday afternoons? What sort of excitement? What kind of ‘excitement’ was involved, and was it exacerbated by the consumption of alcoholic drinks, bearing in mind that the loud music would have attracted any Tom, Dick and Harry? I would hope that the pupils at St Margaret’s who are on the brink of teenhood could resist the much bandied-about peer pressure and would not have allowed the spiking of their soft drinks with beer purchased by some seemingly affluent youths in their saggy pants.
Editor, I would have to ask why the writer did not seek to compare the music and the atmosphere with that which was in place at the recent fair at Marian Academy prior to the one at St Margaret’s, instead of a comparison with Mashramani school events. Wasn’t the DJ instructed before the event what sort of music he was expected to provide? No wonder the few seconds that it took for some to recognize ‘bend over’ and then have it discontinued as being inappropriate.
The writer may be unaware of the vulgar gyrations seen at a children’s Mashramani competition some years ago at the Sports Hall, which evoked a lot of criticism in the media. To what extent are the pupils at St Margaret’s allowed to participate in Mashramani children’s events?
I am sure that with a school population of 750-odd pupils that the parents and guardians would have been eager to assist in selling two to four tickets each to a restricted clientele in order to assist in raising school funds. After all, a school fair is not a wide open sport, a Village Day or the Main Street Lime. The behaviour and atmosphere which should be encouraged at a primary school fair is that which conforms to the code of conduct during a recreation period in the school compound, except for added attractions which a correspondent in SN said “ironically were quite scarce at the fair” (‘Music from St Margaret’s fair could be heard a few blocks away,’ June 12).
Was the event all about maximizing funds where the end justifies the means, and then damage control was put in place?
Yours faithfully,
Aubrey Alexander
