News

Early registration at school of music and dance

Thursday, 16 May 2019 13:07

foto escola md1 The culture and education departments of the Formentera Council report that early registration is now open for the Escola de Música i Dansa. New and returning students have until June 24 to sign up to reserve a spot.

The process can be completed online at the OVAC or in person—at the Citizen Information Office (OAC) or, next Thursday from 4.30pm to 7.30pm, directly at the school. Administrators will contact applicants by calling the phone number provided at the time of application, either to finalise enrolment or to schedule entrance exams.

Course offering:

Music (accredited; 8 and up):

Clarinette
Flute
Guitar
Piano
Trumpet

Music (non-accredited; all ages):

Traditional Music (castañuelas, tambor and flute)
Musical Band
Choir
Initiation to Music (5, 6 and 7 years old)
Brass Band Workshops (flute, saxophone, clarinette, trumpet and trombone)

Dance (accredited; 8 and up):

Classical and Danza Española

Dance (non-accredited; all ages):

Flamenco
Modern Dance
Classical (adults)
Initiation to Dance (3-7 years old)

May 16, 2019
Àrea de Comunicació
Formentera Council

Formentera Film Festival runs tomorrow to Sunday

Wednesday, 15 May 2019 16:09

for-film-1- The Formentera Council's culture office reports that the fourth Formentera Film Festival, a gathering of short films, documentaries and video art, begins tomorrow and continues to Sunday (May 16-19). Screenings, which start at 8.30pm and are free to attend, happen tomorrow in la Mola's plaça del Pilar and in Constitució square, Sant Francesc, for the remainder of the festival.

Submissions to the official FFF competition, as well as the complete festival programme, is available at www.formenterafilm.com.

Semblen cordes, an exhibit of photography by Pilar Aldea which opened this Monday, is also on the FFF programme. The show ends its run at the sala d'Exposicions this Sunday. From today, Wednesday, Sa Panxa in Sant Ferran will host a show dedicated to Marta Pantaleo, the illustrator behind the graphics for FFF 2019.

May 16 (la Mola)
FFF's 8.30pm kickoff will come with a video by the children of CEIP el Pilar de la Mola. The evening of screenings will continue with eight shorts that range from animated productions and fiction to documentaries.

May 17-18 (Sant Francesc)
An evening of screenings for children starts at 8.30pm in Centre Antoni Tur Gabrielet and includes snacks like pizza and popcorn.

Paul Powell will also be on hand for an opening concert of a blend of blues-rock that is both caustic and nostalgic. The programme includes a nightly selection of nine shorts.

May 18
“Let's talk cinema” (Parlem de cinema) is the title of an event scheduled for 11.00am in plaça de la Constitució—a round-table discussion that is open to the public and will see the participation of FFF specialists.

Evening entertainment
Fritz Lang's Metropolis is at the centre of this year's FFF evening party, which runs from 11.30pm to 4.00am and includes a live DJ set and video imagery from León Convalia, alias Alterphase. Next up is Ibizan d.j. Angeles Blanes Noguera (“Lost Angels”) and Toni Planells (“Untaltoni Dj set”). A guaranteed party.

May 19
The Balearic Islands' symphonic orchestra will be on hand to perform “Palma Brass Movie Themes”—an assortment of selections from film soundtracks.

At 9.30pm, as part of ExtraFest, festivalgoers can see screenings shorts not included in the 2019 festival. Nine local youth (and one film fan of just seven) took part in a workshop which was led by Niccolò Falsetti and titled “Let's Make a Short” (Fem un Curt). As per FFF tradition, the fruits of workshop participants' labour—always a guaranteed audience surprise—can be viewed on festival days.

The FFF awards ceremony is scheduled for 10.00pm and will include screenings of 2019's winning submissions.

May 15, 2019
Àrea de Comunicació
Formentera Council

Organics pick-up is back—Formentera reactivates collection service for island's biggest waste producers

Tuesday, 14 May 2019 15:17

foto-porta-a-porta-mate--ria-o1 The environment office of the Formentera Council reports organic waste collection will resume this year on May 15 and be provided through mid-October. In a continuation of last year's setup, pick-up service will be operated on two routes servicing medium- and large-sized waste generators on the island.

All told, 170 businesses are handing over their bagged organic scraps as part of the door-to-door pick-up scheme. Businesses who have questions about the programme can put questions to two of the environment office's informadors (“informers”) or three other dedicated agents.

Following the success of last year's ministration, in 2019 the Council is also offering door-to-door plastics pick-up at businesses located inside ses Salines nature reserve.

The non-profit recycling promotors Ecoembes have put together funding to hire an additional environmental informer to help boost recycling on the island.

A look back at 2018
During five months of service in 2018, 527.4 tonnes of organic waste was collected from 170 participating establishments. The success of the effort in 2018 was key to contracting an additional informer and distributing yellow collection bins at business to encourage increased recycling.

The administration's environment councillor hailed businesses' collaboration in the initiative and said she hoped the positive reaction would hold strong, “because the benefits aren't just environmental, they're economic, too”.

May 14, 2019
Àrea de Comunicació
Formentera Council

Formentera hosts yearly meeting of 2014-2020 'Rural Development Plan' monitoring panel

Wednesday, 15 May 2019 15:56

foto-grup-pdr1 Members of the monitoring commission for the Balearic Islands “PDR”—the Progama de Desenvolupment Rural, or “Rural Development Programme”—for 2014-2020 gathered today in the plenary hall of the Formentera Council. The event was attended by Bartomeu Escandell, the Council president's office chief and rural affairs councillor; Mateu Ginard, the agriculture and livestock minister of the Govern balear; spokespeople from the European Commission; the Ministry of Agriculture, Fishing and Food and Govern de les Illes Balears; and industry representatives.

On the day's agenda was a proposed increase of the PDR budget with €155 million from the Sustainable Tourism Levy (Impost de Turisme Sostenible), though Ginard indicated that the figure could reach €167 million by 2020. Attendees took a look back at some of the programme's successes as of December 2018, including assistance payouts of more than €47 million to rural families that practice traditional agriculture. That figure is expected to hit €72 million by year end.

Councillor Escandell said he welcomed the opportunity to host the island's first PDR gathering, and indicated that key projects for the island's primary sector would benefit from the plan. “In recent years Formentera has been leading with primary sector revitalisation efforts”, he intoned, “and the role of PDR funding in those has been essential”.

Money for young agricultural workers, for the Cooperativa del Camp, to rebuild drystone walls, to activate the irrigation pond, plus door-to-door organic composting pick-up, has come thanks to the support of the EU's Leader fund.

The decision to decentralise the annual encounters, historically celebrated on Mallorca, was made at the start of the legislative session in an effort to show the ministry and the European Commission some of the effects of “insularity” (a process whose real impact is often doubled or even tripled) on the Balearic primary sector. In the last two years, PDR meetings have been held on Mallorca, Menorca and Eivissa.

Compensation for the knock-on effects of insularity happen to be at the heart of the islands' biggest appeal in talks over the 2021-2027 Common Agrarian Policy (CAP). Acting minister of agriculture Luis Planas said on a May 7 stop in Palma—his last official visit to the islands—that he shared the viewpoint of the Balearic administrations on this point.

May 15, 2019
Àrea de Comunicació
Formentera Council

Formentera forces of order up their game on public safety

Monday, 13 May 2019 15:10

curs-tedax-formentera1 The TEDAX unit of the Civil Guard facilitated a training course for the emergency response workers of the island this morning. The session took place at Formentera Local Police station and saw the attendance of officers and members of island law enforcement, Civil Protection, local Civil Guard, Formentera firefighters as well as lifeguard and rescue services and other individuals.

The TEDAX special officers gave participants an overview of response strategies in situations where public safety might be at risk or rescue missions involving micro-explosions to reach hard to access sites. The TEDAX unit of the Civil Guard are specialists in defusing explosive devices.

Participants of the training session also reviewed common interventions on Eivissa and Formentera in recent years, discussing past Civil Guard finds like explosives or navigational flares dragged by currents and washed up on the shoreline.

The day was also attended by CiF president's office chief Bartomeu Escandell, who praised such efforts as key to local emergency response training, and saluted the collaboration of law enforcement forces in “making Formentera a safer place”.

May 13, 2019
Àrea de Comunicació
Formentera Council