ROTARY CLUB OF GRAND BAHAMA ASSISTS RAND NATURE CENTRE AND BNT WITH COMMUNITY FUNDRAISING EVENT

Members the Rotary Club of Grand Bahama, from left to right: Past President Donovan E. Bowe; Rotarians Tyren Thomas, Dominique Williams, Keldra Pinder, Pristina Russell, Cristina Pratt, Jalisa Rolle; Treasurer Kaijanna Pinder; Founder/Past President Jackie Russell; Rotarian Terrell Hield; Founder/Past President Malvese Capron; Founder/Past President Christine van der Linde; and RotarianJeri Russell

By OSWALD T. BROWN

WASHINGTON, D.C. – April 20, 2024 — Members the Rotary Club of Grand Bahama today continued their dedicated commitment to Rotary Club International’s “Service Above Self” motto by assisting the Rand Nature Center and the Bahamas National Trust (BNT) with their community fundraising event.

Thanks to Founder/Past President Christine van der Linde, I am able to share some of the photos taken at the event along with this brief article with readers of my Washington, D.C.—based online publication, BAHAMAS CHRONICLE, which has a huge following among the Bahamian diaspora across the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom as well as in The Bahamas and the wider Caribbean.

**Past President Jackie Russell and Rotarian Jalisa Rolle volunteers at the Membership Table for the Rand Nature Centre.**

Christine painstakingly provided proper captions for photos I emailed to her, for which I am immensely grateful. As a veteran journalist, who at different times was Editor of both The Freeport News and The Nassau Guardian before returning to Washington, D.C., in 2013 as the Press, Cultural Affairs and Information Manager at the Embassy of The Bahamas here in D.C., it annoys me considerably to see so many pictures posted on Facebook without captions identifying the persons in them.

This is an ongoing common practice by some Government Ministries in The Bahamas, even though the Government has a fully staffed Bahamas Information Services (BIS) News Department.

In CARICOM-member countries, this unprofessional journalistic practice seems to have taken root only in The Bahamas. Indeed, Government Information Agencies in Jamaica, Barbados and Guyana, for example, all do excellent jobs with national news dissemination.

There is absolutely no excuse for so many photos being posted on Facebook by Government Departments and reputable companies without identifying the persons in them. So, I would like to again thank my good friend and fellow Roman Catholic, Christine van der Linde, for the captions she provided for the photos accompanying this article.

Of course, when I lived in Freeport, I was an active member of the Rotary Club of Lucaya.