The historic Trough in The Valley took on a different atmosphere and celebration when the Lions Community and the Anguilla Electricity Company joined in sponsoring what was called a Night of Lights event on Saturday, January 6.
ANGLEC is the sponsor of the annual Lions Community Christmas Tree Lighting, and the weekend event came at the end of the 2017 lighting of the area and related activities. It also followed the end of ANGLEC’s electricity restoration work across Anguilla.
Chief Executive Officer, Mr. David Gumbs; Public Relations Officer, Mrs. Jemila Morson-Hodge; Director of Human Resources, Ms. Erimel Franklin, her Assistant, Ms. Marva Richardson; and other staff, including a number of ANGLEC’s field workers, attended the event. Also in attendance were representatives of the Lions Community and members of the public. Ms. Avenella Griffith, a member of the Lions Community, took the opportunity to thank ANGLEC for its continued sponsorship and commended the company for the restoration of electricity on the island.
The event was mainly for ANGLEC’s personnel to interact with residents and to distribute gifts to children. It came as the company is enjoying a great deal of thanks and appreciation throughout Anguilla for restoring electricity on the island, in record time, before Christmas.
During the event, head of ANGLEC, Mr. David Gumbs, spoke to The Anguillian.
“Tonight, we are sponsoring the Night of Lights which is basically a symbol of all the hard work and effort that the ANGLEC teams have put in, over the past four months, to restore lights all across Anguilla,” he explained. “We thought when we were looking at this programme what better fitting occasion it was to incorporate something about lights. Every year we are the main sponsor of this programme. We always feel proud of the programme because the Lions Community does such a great job in highlighting Christmas, and bringing joy to the children and families who come out in a safe, very lit and festive environment. We wanted to be part of it in a bigger way, this year, because our drive was to bring lights for Christmas and what better way to represent that than the Night of Lights.”
Mr. Gumbs continued: “It really is a proud feeling to have accomplished our task. Every day I think back and the only word I can find to represent all of this is teamwork. We worked as a team from top to bottom to make this all come together and successful. The teams that were out in the field put their all into the effort. They really put their backs into the work and made it happen. The support teams that worked day and night to make sure that the workers were well fed and liquefied, the garage and logistics teams, the members who worked on the strategic plan and helped us roll it out, modify it, execute and adapt it, are all to be thanked. Also to be thanked are the Human Resources team who negotiated contracts and got people on the ground, and the generation teams for their work. It was like an unending task and an uphill battle. It all came together because we worked together as a team, and I am so very thankful to all for their efforts. We also had a lot of people in the general public supporting us along the way.
“The media played a real part in helping us to get the word out. Among them, The Anguillian played a fantastic role in helping us push a lot of the updates and the things we wanted our customers to do. The newspaper was really there supporting us along the way as well. We really appreciate the assistance from all around. This was an Anguillian community effort and we are really thankful that it was such successful effort.”
Now that ANGLEC has restored electricity to consumers throughout the island, The Anguillian newspaper asked Mr. Gumbs how the company was handling its own problems caused by the hurricane.
“We have a lot to do,” he replied. “We were so on the high of pushing the restoration work and getting things done every day, as our objective and focus, that we put aside a lot of things without addressing them. We have to get a proper place for our people at the office to work; and we were doing certain work just to keep ourselves going, but now we really have to work to bring us back prior to the hurricane or even better.
“On top of that, we are looking at certain programmes for our staff to make sure that we keep them energised and encouraged. There are a few things we are doing but, to be honest, our biggest effort right now is to make certain that everyone is well-rested and keeping themselves in good health. I, myself, came down in a crash after the whole event was over, and currently I am fighting the flu which I have been doing for the last couple of days. I guess that is what happens when you are full speed and then it all comes to an end. Everything else catches up with you.”
Mr. Gumbs added: “We are focusing on a lot of things in-house, trying to get our customer programmes back on track; our metering programmes rolled out; and to return to other programmes we need – so it feels kind of strange, but it is the realities of things.”
One of the biggest matters which ANGLEC also has to address is the rebuilding of its next-door solar farm which was completely destroyed by the hurricane. However, the focus for the time being is on keeping the main core electricity generation plant in good running order so as to minimise outages.
Meanwhile, as Mr. Gumbs hinted earlier, ANGLEC has undertaken to acquire some additional office space because part of the company’s rented building in the Lower Quarter was destroyed by the hurricane resulting in a number of displaced employees. A number of them will be housed in a section of a newly-erected building owned by Mr. Wilmoth Richardson higher up in The Quarter area – and just off the main road.
