Miss Cayman Islands belongs to the community

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Last weekend in Cayman Brac, the Lions Club ably demonstrated how good service clubs are in this country at organizing things.

From beach clean-ups to fundraising there are many charities, non-governmental organizations and service clubs that do a great job at making things happen.

The Miss Teen Cayman Brac Pageant was not only very well supported by the local community, the whole event was extremely well put together by the local Lions with the support of the GrandCayman Lions Club and the Brac Leos.

From the announcement of its re-establishment, the selection of the contestants and their promotion across all three Islands, to the eventual final, the members of the Cayman Brac Lions Service Club can be very proud of what they achieved.

The pageant was a reminder of days gone by too, when the country’s major beauty pageant, Miss Cayman Islands, was also run by the Jaycees service club and locals in the community rather than Government.

More importantly too, this was when district contests were used as a build up to find that one special local girl that would eventually represent her country in both the Miss World and Miss Universe competitions.

It is often the case that although governments in any given country might be good at running and managing some things, there are others which would really be best left for others to manage and organize.

While in the end Miss Cayman Islands may represent this country abroad and offer opportunities to help promote our tourism product, in short managing and promoting the competition to find her, should really be something the community does through either a specially established fundraising committee or one of the service clubs could take on.

The main reason is that such pageants are about the community.

It requires volunteers and people at the grass roots level working toward the ultimate final night and the pageant would benefit from being closer to its community once again.

To see district rounds would also create more excitement and again bring the event closer to the people.

The example set this past weekend on Cayman Brac demonstrated that local people want to see the youngsters from their districts do well and achieve.

Re-organising the Miss Cayman Islands pageant with district contests would mean the final would truly be a local affair where all residents would be able to support their girl and it would provide wider sponsorship opportunities.

While some suggest that the pageants are old fashioned and do little to advance the cause of women, many people here support and enjoy the contests and the youngsters involved, far from feeling it undermines their position as women, it helps them to be more confident.

With their continued popularity the pageant circuit is here to stay for the foreseeable future, and it is time to reconsider how much Government really needs to be involved with something that would be better placed in the hands of a local service club.

Getting things done efficiently, co-opting the support of volunteers and generally organizing things properly are often far better done outside of the bureaucracy of Government.

To get volunteers to man the doors, sell the tickets, chaperone the contestants is done by a show of hands and trust. Memos do not need to be written, approved and stamped in triplicate.

This is currently all undertaken by the Miss Cayman Islands Committee but the autonomy should really go to a franchised service club.

Without the need for endless meetings, reports and paperwork, people in the community undertake tasks allocated to them and more often than not enjoy what they are doing.

Once things become too formalized, the whole point of the exercise can easily be lost.

The Miss Cayman Islands pageant belongs in the community and there is no doubt that the Lions Club or a combination of service clubs could take the competition back for the people.

With the re-introduction of district contests to find the finalists from all the six electoral districts could see the local neighbourhoods pulling together to ensure a fair and efficient contest.

All the Department of Tourism need do is sit back and wait until the crown is awarded when they have their ambassador.

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