Free vaccines

The health centre in Skopelos has secured (after many attempts) various extra vaccinations in these difficult economic times. They are able to give them to insured and uninsured patients who are not able to afford the shots. The vaccines are mostly for children, and anybody who would like to get more information should call 24240-22222. So far, we know they are vaccines against measles, mumps, diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, polio, chicken pox and Hepatitis B.

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Would you like more recycling on Skopelos?

Dimitri Papas (veterinarian on Skopelos) has started a campaign to get the municipality of Skopelos to recycle more. He is doing this via the online organization Avaaz. The aim at this point is to reach a 1000 signatures. It is very simple. If you would like to support his campaign please click on the following link and write your email address and sign/ΥΠΟΓΡΑΦΩ here

Skopelosnews has translated the Greek text that Dimitri Pappas wrote to support his campaign.

Recycling on Skopelos
In 2016, more than 630 municipalities in Greece participate actively in the recycling programme with the blue containers for glass but also plastic, metal and paper, which are the main byproducts of a household or a business.
The Northern Sporades are all involved except Skopelos.
Recycling on Skopelos, our GREEN island, should exist because:
• Recycling aims to maintain a balanced relationship between humans and the environment.
• Recycling has a direct result on the existence of less ‘dirty’ garbage in the streets as the discarded packaging is being washed and so there is less odour, and it is less likely for stray animals to spread the trash everywhere.
• Recycling results in less pollution in the seas and beaches as trash won’t end up there so easily.
• Recycling will give the island substantive grounds to be called green by tourists as the urban centres of Greece and abroad who have recycled for many years. So the image of a tourist who cannot recycle has a harmful effect on the image of the island.
• Recycling will directly lead to lessen the waste on the Skopelos landfill, as large volumes of recyclable material will end up in sorting centres on the mainland.
• Recycling will help the municipality cleaning staff to work more efficiently and their workload will be lighter as they will have less garbage to manage.

For all these reasons, we agree and endorse this declaration as a club and/or as individual citizen.
We wish the municipality to set immediately, clear and effective timetables and proceed to full participation in the recycling programme.

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Scramblin’ up that hill

The fabled blue tablecloth, laid out at Agnontas

Last Sunday’s walk with the Skopelos Scramblers to Agnontas via the heliport and Amarantos was enjoyed by all, especially the dogs Ector and Sammy, who were glad to meet up again after a long time apart.

Sunday February 28
The meeting point for this week’s walk will be the Asklepeion archaeological site above the town beach at 10.30am. The group will climb up to Mili village and further to the Agia Marina spring, where they will share a picnic while enjoying the views along the ridge over Skopelos town. The walk is all downhill after that, passing behind Carrefour supermarket and returning to the starting point by the Asklepeion. They will then make their way into town for what they hope will be a coffee or drink in the sun.

As usual, all are welcome on Scrambler walks. If you need more information, call Muriel on 24240 24732.

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That’s the way to do it

While visiting another house we saw this beautiful washing “line” in the village below.
What an inventive way to hang out your washing when the sun does not reach the area that you would like the clean clothes to dry.

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Ready for the big day

Some of the ruined ornaments on the small Agios Reginos shrine on the crossroad Stafylos-ring road were copied and made out of clay again by Nikos Rodios and were placed on the shrine a couple of days ago. Ready for the big day today.

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Patron saint’s day on Thursday

Due to celebrations in honour of the patron Saint of Skopelos, Reginos, tomorrow Thursday most shops, bakeries, banks and governmental offices will be closed.

You can visit the monastery from early in the morning until the afternoon. You can light a candle, visit the church and outbuildings and you will get sweets, bread and a drink afterwards. Take the road from Skopelos to Panormos that goes inland, past the quarry. Before the first incline up into the hills there is a sign for the monastery on the right. Park there and walk the short distant up to the church, especially if you are going early in the morning. If you come from the Glossa, Klima and Elios direction, drive to Skopelos and by the hairpin bend at the bottom of the last descent towards Skopelos is the sign for the monastery on the left.

A lot of local women go to the monastery a week before to start cleaning the church. They decorate several places with flowers and get the food ready for the celebration. The bishop and several other priests who come from the mainland days before to participate will visit the schools on the island and have talks with the students about issues that concern the young people.

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A fond farewell to Maria

As many people will have already heard, Skopelos’s finest English-language historian Maria Broadley died suddenly last week.

Maria and her husband Peter moved here full-time in 2004, although they first visited and fell in love with Skopelos in the mid-1970s. Many will have got to know her from the periods when she worked alongside Peter in the tourism sector here, and also as a tour guide, translator and English tutor (she was a teacher by profession); others knew her in a more social context with her Greek/expat singing group, some memorable am-operetta productions, the Christmas carol concerts, her fiendish quizzes, and most recently wine tastings at Gialos.

She gained international admirers with the 2010 publication of her Insider’s Guide to Skopelos, and followed it in 2013 with …Of Bells and Pomegranates, a detailed study of island culture and tradition. The book that will probably set her reputation is the Footsteps Through Time trilogy, which she launched in 2015 with an impressively researched and written account of the history of the Sporades and Thessaly from prehistory up to the advent of Roman Greece. She had recently completed the second volume, which brings the history of the region up to the War of Independence, and which Peter hopes to publish with her English publishers, although it is uncertain if she had completed the third volume, which would bring the story up to date.

Her friends mourn a vivacious livewire who liked a party as much as trenchant intellectual debate, was at home in both Greek and expatriate communities, was a generous and kind friend, and along with Peter was an excellent host who enlivened any dinner table. Her funeral is at the town cemetery at 2pm on Friday, although her friends are planning a motorized cortège from the port at 1.30pm to take her on a last volta along the paralia.

An update on the funeral: People have been asking us about the “motorized cortège”: this has now morphed into a perhaps improbable New Orleans funeral procession, which Maria had requested, although in our version with the vehicle carrying the coffin and a car following playing authentic New Orleans funeral music, while others are asked to disemvehicle and follow on foot to Gialos and around the old port, Tremé-style dance moves at your discretion, and then proceed to the cemetery…

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What a night

The cultural and folkloric association of Skopelos organized a fantastic heart warming evening on Sunday with young and older members dancing their hearts out. Hope for a very bright future for this association Skopelosnews saw. Active board members, dance teachers and many volunteers. The association will give other dance performances in the summer so visitors on the island can enjoy them too.

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SIFFY here we come

The organizers of the Skopelos International Film Festival of Youth ( Jill Somer, Daphne Jaeggi-Chliverou and many other volunteers) want to thank everybody from the bottom of their hearts for donating money to make the festival possible again this year. Via the Kickstarter campaign $8,625 USD was raised. Some money was also directly donated on Skopelos.

It is amazing to experience that something that is so close to our hearts and the young people who participate also matters to so many people who are scattered all over the world and donate. The festival gives us and the participants an opportunity to create, to dream, to meet, to interact and to believe. Big words but this is what is happening every year at the festival and we continue the effort so the young filmmakers can keep on dreaming!

Theme this year: At least ten short films will be created based on why ships and the sea are so vital to Skopelos. The organizers are busy inviting filmmakers from all over the world and are looking at how participants can be taught about the sea and the long tradition Skopelos has with boat building.

We will keep you informed!

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A chance to see

Tomorrow, Sunday, one of the last New Year’s cakes will be cut in Skopelos by the Folklore and Cultural Association. The association organizes many dance classes amongst other things and Sunday most classes (modern dance, ballet and traditional dance), from young to older will give performances.
The dancers of the traditional dance class will be dressed in traditional clothes of Greece and Skopelos. Sunday at 17.00 hours in the gymnastics hall next to the Health Center.

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