May 5, 2014
WINNIFRED BEACH UPDATE

After almost 5 years Winnifred beach is still in court against UDC.

All the attempts to reach a mediation failed and we are very concerned about the lak of responses. We proposed UDC to lease the beach but we did not hear an answer.  We also are managing the beach since a long time and we believe that that should give us some rights.

A group of people is working at the beach every day ,keeps it clean, fix the road, cut the bushes, fill up the bathroom tank with water, make sure that no sand mining is happening in the nights.  Plus the Free Winnifred Benevolent Society pays for all those activities such as garbage collection, water, maintenance expenses.

We invite whoever is interested to join us and support our struggle.  Next court day has been postponed ot September and we plan to have a pacific demonstration and to ask for people in Portland the right to have a community place.

Love 

Maria Carla Gullotta


04 October 2011


WINNIFRED UPDATE

The Committee of Winnifred Beach Benevolent Society would like to express their thoughts in reference to the article published on the Sunday's Observer about the dispute between UDC and our association.

Click here for the letter

5 April 2009  
UPDATE S


Dear Friends and Supporters of the Free-Winnifred Beach Society, finally Winnifred is a formal benevolent society.  We are now a formal entity able to represent itself and its instances and we continue to be grateful for your support and concern.

The efforts continue to keep beautiful Winnifred Beach as a public beach. In order to apply to the courts and to be recognized as a formal entity a Free-Winnifred Beach Benevolent Society has been formed and is structured to include a Chairperson, Treasurer, Secretary and various committees including Audit, Fundraising and Projects, Environmental and Discipline.

The Society is comprised of members of the beach vendors, the surrounding community, and representatives in the Portland area from health, business and service communities.

24 October 2007
WINNIFRED UPDATE

Dear Friends

to the all of you support WInnifred Beach, first of all a big thanks for your help and for all the strength we got from you and from your messages. c We got plenty from all over the world so we do not fee lonely in such a struggle  But probably most of you are looking for some updates. 

Winnifred case went to Buff Bay Courthouse in July and the case has been set for trial on November 19 in the same Courthouse.  Also Nepa has filed its statement to the Court . We solictated NEPA for more than a year but until we decided to do without their help we did not get any support Now, something must have happened to convince them to follow us, but honestly we prefer to be in court by ourselves to avoid any further delay.

 The issue presented is court mention prescriptive rights,which means that, according of the National Beache Act, if a beach has been public for 20 years without any interruption, the same beach cannot be made private.  In the meantime we are still looking at the way how the beach has been sold and we hope to have some more reasons to counteract UDC.

We also wrote a petition to the new Prime Minister, Mr Golding, hoping to get some attention and we have included the petition with all your signatures.  In the meantime we try to keep the beach going at our best Luckily we got very small damages by hurricane Dean and so the beach looks lovely same as before.

Actually we are trying to improve the road to the beach and the water system so that visitors can use bathroom facilities and even have a shower.  We, the Winnifred people, thanks again one more time all the friends we have found in this adventure and we will keep you posted.