The highlight of the Layou Nine Mornings celebrations was the willingness of churches to work together, in support of the festival.{{more}}

Pastor Noel Clarke, one of the organizers of the event, told SEARCHLIGHT on Monday that getting the churches together was the milestone of this year’s rural festival.

“This year’s Nine Mornings, we were privileged to have a number of churches coming on board. That was the highlight. It’s the first time we have had the Methodists on board and the Anglicans on board. Last year, we had the Catholics on board, but there seems to be a turn around where all the churches are coming on board,” Clarke said.

Nine Mornings in Layou has occupied a place on the calendar for the past six years and Clarke stated that attendance has been “pretty good”.

“I find the attendance is pretty good for that time of morning. The appreciation shown by the visitors overseas, the people coming home…we are thankful for that,” he said.

“Most of the people are shy, but we are able to persuade them to come up and do poems, songs, drama; special groups take part and [we have] a lot of games with fun and laughter”.

Although attendance is commendable and Clarke said that this year’s festival was well done, the pastor pointed out that more could have been done.

He stated that there were certain limitations that were present.

“Help from the community [is] limited. Because of unemployment, folks want payment for anything they do and that’s not the policy of Nine Mornings. It’s voluntary outreach,” Clark said.

“The committee met late and so we started late and that hindered what we could have done more. Our biggest challenge is getting lights. We wanted to repeat what we did the first time. We light up the wharf and the street and the surroundings. We had that in mind, but we could not afford it; lack of lights and labour”.

However, Clarke has indicated that the committee does not intend to encounter such obstacles next year and so they have planned a meeting in January to assess and evaluate so that they can do better.

“Persons actually came to me and said that it’s a good thing and we should expand it, so we should start early and put things in place,” he said.

The pastor added that he was in support of the 100th anniversary celebrations of the Nine Morning festivities in St Vincent and the Grenadines.

Clarke revealed that he was previously involved in the Kingstown festival and was responsible for one morning for about 15 years.

Activities that were included in this year’s festivities in Layou included bread eating competitions, riddles, bible quizzes and other fun games.

One morning, returning nationals even serenaded the crowd with Christmas carols.(BK)