Surfer rides into Christ Church East race

The race for the Christ Church East seat has heated up with another candidate throwing his hat into the ring for the January 19 polls.

International windsurfer Brian Action Man Talma has declared he will be riding the political wave in the Christ Church East constituency in the competition against Barbados Labour Party (BLP) incumbent Wilfred Abrahams and former Member of Parliament and Democratic Labour Party (DLP) minister, Dr Denis Lowe.

The newcomer outlined to Barbados TODAY his vision to empower communities using beach culture to create economic prosperity, through his Organic Tourism AcTioN Plan.

Talma launched his one-man political party, Action Beach Party, on December 22 last year and his manifesto, Action Book, four days later.

He was among the candidates nominated on Monday, Nomination Day.

The former Olympian’s plan is geared toward developing the niche tourism beach culture sector which, for more than three decades, he has been advocating and which has shown success in his Silver Sands, Christ Church and Bathesheba, St Joseph blueprint.

This plan, he said, has shown that when a community has a stake in a product, it is more likely to value it. He pointed to the example of Silver Sands which was once plagued by high crime and beach harassment.

“What I did was I hired only people from Silver Sands in my shop to paint it and do everything. I haven’t had any crime since. It took three or four years for me to articulate it, now London Bar is doing good, people from the community own the apartments, all the locals are a part of the economic process. The whole community is concerned; they can’t afford not to be [because] if they get crime they get hurt too. If they are not a part of the economic process they don’t care,” he explained.

Talma indicated that he will be having political meetings but organically, the ‘Action Man’ way.

“I’ve been doing this for 30 years. If you go into Oistins you see all of my signs, I articulate organic tourism/beach culture. I say what everything means so I’ve been campaigning long,” he said, adding that although getting elected would be difficult, he had a big picture he planned to stick to.

“Some people may not understand where I am going and I don’t care because the big picture takes care of all of us in the long run and if I do it with a good heart, everybody will get through.”

Talma said some people have been laughing at his venture into elective politics but he was more concerned with the movement he has created.

“I say don’t laugh because this whole creation [in Silver Sands] is partially through the vision that I put out there. It didn’t accidentally happen because it didn’t happen 20 years ago when my shop was up by Silver Rock. I came and created all that energy. I inspired everybody. I painted my shop and then all of a sudden people put umbrellas, we worked together and uplifted the community together. . . . I am extraordinarily serious. So, win or lose my vision for Organic Action Plan is happening,” he said. (KC)