Sponge Bob Boys
Monday, April 26, 2010
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Theo, Merven & Kelvin meet up in Kwambo's
On the {we will not mention date} Theo & Merven took a midday stroll to meet kelvin in Kwambonambi. As can be seen from the photo they were having a blast and the balance of us were quite jealous as evident from the emails.Merv what happened to that hair bru?
Monday, April 19, 2010
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Friday, April 16, 2010
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Ashwin Ramhith - Hidden Treasure of South African Craft
Dikeni Arts & Crafts by Peter Delmar
It’s a good thing Ashwin Ramhith doesn’t need much sleep – because if he needed a full eight hours every day this busy entrepreneur would never keep up with his hectic, self-imposed schedule.
He might live and work in a sleepy little Eastern Cape town but Ashwin, 37, is a human dynamo. Most days you’ll find him at Stutt Motor Spares, his shop on one of the main roads of Alice, the university town he has called home for the last 18 years. Most of the time, when he’s not travelling to promote Dikeni, his arts and crafts business, Ashwin is in the back of the shop in the workshop where he creates wood-turned objects of rare beauty and exquisite workmanship.
When he’s not working at one of his two businesses, Ashwin spends much of his time on his Round Table activities (he is a regional president of the charity) or at the Fort Beaufort Golf Club, of which he has been captain several times. He also lectures and demonstrates extensively on the vanishing art of woodturning. “It helps that I’m a workaholic, a bit of a busybody,” laughs Ashwin. “And that I don’t need much sleep. Most nights I’m here at work until 2.30 or 3.30 in the morning. It also helps that I love what I do.”
A teacher who trained at Fort Hare University in Alice (the university that produced such famous liberation leaders as Nelson Mandela), Ahmed Kathrada and even Robert Mugabe, Ashwin has turned a part-time hobby into a thriving small business and an almost full-time obsession. He makes all of his products – bowls, plates, platters, wooden pens, candlestick holders and corporate gifts – himself and by hand. Each product is unique and, says Ashwin, he never knows how a piece of wood is going to look inside until he puts it on the lathe and finds out. The wood he uses – invader species and local timber from trees including white stinkwood, yellowwood, wild olive, lemonwood and buffalo thorn – is all from fallen trees or reputable sources.
Ashwin’s workshop is packed with state-of-the-art machines, including lathes, pyrography equipment (pyrography refers to the burning treatment he gives many of his pieces) and a vacuum chamber, an expensive piece of equipment which Ashwin uses to remove bubbles from the epoxy that is his business’s unique selling point. Ashwin is the only South African woodturner working with epoxy resin, a material that he cleverly incorporates into his natural medium, often injecting the resin over locally-produced beadwork to form stunning pieces of art. His resin pieces sell, wholesale, for some R2 500 each, a third or a quarter of what other, less original, pieces sell for overseas.
Working with the local community is a key theme of Dikeni. “You’ve got to be part of the community, to empower the people around you,” says Ashwin.
A multi-award winning woodturner, Ashwin has exhibited at trade shows around South Africa and internationally. He knows what an honour it is, as he puts it, to “represent my country overseas”. When he does so, he says, he is acutely aware of the responsibility that comes with this; to represent those crafters less fortunate than himself. “Arts and crafts is a unique element of our tourist offering. It’s something authentic, something creative that says something about our heritage, something that isn’t about politics or exclusive to one ethnic group. It’s about who we are.”
Being in a small town that receives little passing traffic and even fewer tourists, Ashwin says, means that he has to live by his wits – and use technology for all it’s worth. A creative marketer, Ashwin never misses an opportunity to exhibit his wares at trade shows, regardless of the time and expense involved. And he spends much of his time on his website, www.dikeniartsandcrafts.co.za. Thanks to email and the Internet it doesn’t matter to the overseas agents he’s met at trade expos and who sell his creations in the United States and across Europe that he is in a small town that most South Africans couldn’t place on the map.
“TEP have really come on board for me,” says Ashwin. “They’ve been doing a lot for me in 2009. They’ve helped to expose us to international markets and to the big customers, the corporate and others.
It’s a good thing Ashwin Ramhith doesn’t need much sleep – because if he needed a full eight hours every day this busy entrepreneur would never keep up with his hectic, self-imposed schedule.
He might live and work in a sleepy little Eastern Cape town but Ashwin, 37, is a human dynamo. Most days you’ll find him at Stutt Motor Spares, his shop on one of the main roads of Alice, the university town he has called home for the last 18 years. Most of the time, when he’s not travelling to promote Dikeni, his arts and crafts business, Ashwin is in the back of the shop in the workshop where he creates wood-turned objects of rare beauty and exquisite workmanship.
When he’s not working at one of his two businesses, Ashwin spends much of his time on his Round Table activities (he is a regional president of the charity) or at the Fort Beaufort Golf Club, of which he has been captain several times. He also lectures and demonstrates extensively on the vanishing art of woodturning. “It helps that I’m a workaholic, a bit of a busybody,” laughs Ashwin. “And that I don’t need much sleep. Most nights I’m here at work until 2.30 or 3.30 in the morning. It also helps that I love what I do.”
A teacher who trained at Fort Hare University in Alice (the university that produced such famous liberation leaders as Nelson Mandela), Ahmed Kathrada and even Robert Mugabe, Ashwin has turned a part-time hobby into a thriving small business and an almost full-time obsession. He makes all of his products – bowls, plates, platters, wooden pens, candlestick holders and corporate gifts – himself and by hand. Each product is unique and, says Ashwin, he never knows how a piece of wood is going to look inside until he puts it on the lathe and finds out. The wood he uses – invader species and local timber from trees including white stinkwood, yellowwood, wild olive, lemonwood and buffalo thorn – is all from fallen trees or reputable sources.
Ashwin’s workshop is packed with state-of-the-art machines, including lathes, pyrography equipment (pyrography refers to the burning treatment he gives many of his pieces) and a vacuum chamber, an expensive piece of equipment which Ashwin uses to remove bubbles from the epoxy that is his business’s unique selling point. Ashwin is the only South African woodturner working with epoxy resin, a material that he cleverly incorporates into his natural medium, often injecting the resin over locally-produced beadwork to form stunning pieces of art. His resin pieces sell, wholesale, for some R2 500 each, a third or a quarter of what other, less original, pieces sell for overseas.
Working with the local community is a key theme of Dikeni. “You’ve got to be part of the community, to empower the people around you,” says Ashwin.
A multi-award winning woodturner, Ashwin has exhibited at trade shows around South Africa and internationally. He knows what an honour it is, as he puts it, to “represent my country overseas”. When he does so, he says, he is acutely aware of the responsibility that comes with this; to represent those crafters less fortunate than himself. “Arts and crafts is a unique element of our tourist offering. It’s something authentic, something creative that says something about our heritage, something that isn’t about politics or exclusive to one ethnic group. It’s about who we are.”
Being in a small town that receives little passing traffic and even fewer tourists, Ashwin says, means that he has to live by his wits – and use technology for all it’s worth. A creative marketer, Ashwin never misses an opportunity to exhibit his wares at trade shows, regardless of the time and expense involved. And he spends much of his time on his website, www.dikeniartsandcrafts.co.za. Thanks to email and the Internet it doesn’t matter to the overseas agents he’s met at trade expos and who sell his creations in the United States and across Europe that he is in a small town that most South Africans couldn’t place on the map.
“TEP have really come on board for me,” says Ashwin. “They’ve been doing a lot for me in 2009. They’ve helped to expose us to international markets and to the big customers, the corporate and others.
Semper Sursum Lyrics
Semper Sursum
Lives are in the making here.
Time for work and time for play.
Mindful of our Alma Mater
Raise our voices and with us pray.
Semper Sursum, Semper Sursum
Raise the torch and onward go
Semper Sursum, Semper Sursum
May our torch always glow.
May we humbly bear the honour,
Of the torch we hold on high.
And by the loyal loving service
Ever faithful Stanger Secondary.
Semper Sursum, Semper Sursum
Raise the torch and onward go
Semper Sursum, Semper Sursum
May our torch always glow.
Light of wisdom, truth and beauty
Flower that maketh all things pure
Shower upon our school their blessings
Loving Father evermore.
Lives are in the making here.
Time for work and time for play.
Mindful of our Alma Mater
Raise our voices and with us pray.
Semper Sursum, Semper Sursum
Raise the torch and onward go
Semper Sursum, Semper Sursum
May our torch always glow.
May we humbly bear the honour,
Of the torch we hold on high.
And by the loyal loving service
Ever faithful Stanger Secondary.
Semper Sursum, Semper Sursum
Raise the torch and onward go
Semper Sursum, Semper Sursum
May our torch always glow.
Light of wisdom, truth and beauty
Flower that maketh all things pure
Shower upon our school their blessings
Loving Father evermore.
Friday, April 9, 2010
Sagren Naicker's Drag Bakkie
This little monster has a Toyota 20 valve engine and runs at about 245km per hour at 8.500 rpm. Does the quarter mile in 13.9 seconds. By the way Sagren features prominently in the Speed & Sound. He is one off the accomplished tuners or "Choones" on the North Coast.
You make us proud. Keep the pedal to the medal.
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