By ROD AMNER and NYX MCLEAN It has been a curious few days for us at Grocott’s Mail. We posted on Wednesday morning an open letter from Rhodes University philosophy professor Francis Williamson opposing the Rhodes University vaccine mandate. That post drew one of our record number of comments on one post; we were well over 100 comments at last count. In 2021, we issued several appeals for diverse perspectives on the vaccine and Covid-19. Not many readers came forward. Instead, Grocott’s was accused of several things, including genocide, for “pushing vaccine propaganda”. It would have been irresponsible for us…
Author: Nyx Mclean
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By NYX MCLEAN My colleagues and peers are often surprised to hear me rant against excessive social media use, after-hours work texts, and WhatsApp groups. They think that because I work in digital technologies and online communities, I must be pro-technology and digitising all the things even when it is unnecessary. Instead, I am more of a tech-nope; I prefer the quiet of carefully curated tech use and the boundaries of work remaining at the office when I leave at the end of the day. Yes, technology helped immensely with needing to work or study remotely during the worst of…
By SHANNON SKAE, Health and Life Coach at Revive with Shan “To fall in love with yourself is the first secret to happiness.” With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, it is essential to remember the most important person in your life: you. Our lives are filled with stress, chaos, and rushing around. We get caught up in a frenzy of constantly working and then using the weekend to either catch up on work or sleep due to exhaustion from the week. This leads us to a sense of being out of balance and feelings of anger, frustration, and anxiety. …
By NYX MCLEAN I have been back in town for a year now after ten years away. I always found the short trips home upsetting, seeing my home town slowly fall apart over the years away. It wasn’t only in the water or the potholes. It was also in the energy of the space; it looked sad, grass taking over roads, litter being thrown from car windows, people who needed work without work when there is plenty to be done in this town. I have kept quiet about my feelings about Makhanda for the most part. It could be because…
By SHANNON SKAE, health and life coach at Revive with Shan The following question has been on my mind lately: How can we be our own biggest supporters? Most people have an inner critic or a little voice in their head that constantly tells them they are “not enough”, that they “shouldn’t have been so stupid”, “that they weigh too much”, or “do not look good today,” among countless others. These examples are what many would refer to as negative self-talk. The inner critic can be any talk directed at you that sounds negative or makes you doubt yourself and…
By ROD AMNER AND NYX MCLEAN Welcome to another year with Grocott’s Mail. We are back after a much-needed break, and we appreciate your support and understanding over the last few weeks. We will gear up to full production soon as our student journalists start the academic year next month. As late-January temperatures soar, Makhandas are seething with frustration with the municipal water supply. Theoretically, Makhanda has plenty of water. The Glen Melville Dam in the east, which feeds the James Kleyhans Water Treatment Works (JKWTW), has been connected to the Fish-Orange river system for decades. And, after some good…
By SHANNON SKAE, Health and life coach at Revive with Shan It is a new year, but some of the stressors of the previous years remain, making it hard to hit the reset button. Many of us are starting the year feeling stressed and overwhelmed. Stress plagues us no matter where we go. This stress impacts our bodies because our sympathetic nervous system is activated when we are stressed or panicked. This releases cortisol, which has several effects, including suppressing the immune system; inhibiting our ability to digest food; weight gain, causing anxiety and depression and sleep issues; it can…
By GILLIAN RENNIE What’s in the box that makes four professionals smile like this? A bundle of feline pluck with a huge voice, that’s what. Frances Street resident San Knoetze had exhausted all her options (dismay, ladders, long-poled pool scoop, a few other people) when she called in the pros. The cat, too, had reached the end of its terror. Her morning had already included a turn on the top of a wall separating a total of five dogs, a crazed dash across the garden into a swimming pool to avoid snapping canine jaws, a just-in-time rescue by the roof…
By IKHALA VETERINARY CLINIC We are finally here, at the end of a very long and trying year. Some of us may be planning on going away for a much-needed break, but we may not be able to take our pets with us. This leaves us with a challenging task – finding someone trustworthy to take care of our pets. How can you trust that this person will be providing the care or service you expect? There are always risks when leaving your pets with someone else, but there are some steps you can take to ensure that you reduce…
By ROD AMNER The Rotary Club of Grahamstown handed over two sizeable R67 387 cheques to Food4Futures Ithemba Le Kamva (F4F) and Hospice recently. The R134 774 raised is a Rotary Club fundraising record, the successful combination of its online and live ‘Grand Finale’ auction. F4F’s Mary Birt said her organisation was “privileged to be considered worthy of support alongside Grahamstown Hospice which has, for many years, been an inspiration in community service”. “Our grateful thanks to the Rotary Club of Grahamstown for the sizeable donation and congratulations on such a wonderful event,” Birt said. “We have 160 people/families on…