tryall club

THE TRYALL CLUB time a guest arrives at a villa, we open an account for them at the commissary and they will sit with the villa chef, or the villa head- of-house, and they’ll discuss what they would like to eat during the course of the week that they spend with us. And then, the chef will create a series of menus; more often than not, they will use the commissary to source the produce. But if, for example, the guest is particularly keen on having a primarily fish diet throughout their stay, each villa chef has a relationship with a local fisherman, so he or she will call that local fisherman and ask them to go out in the morning and catch, and then come up to the villa, so the guest can actually choose what fish they’d like to have either for lunch or dinner, that evening.” BVM: In addition to taking great care of its guests, the Tryall Club is known for its wider philanthropic activities. Can you talk a bit about the Tryall Fund? Barber: The Tryall Fund exists to provide care in the local community, primarily in our own Parish, Hanover, but also in the neigh- boring Parish of Westmoreland. It’s partic- ularly focused on education. Children start school at the age of seven in Jamaica and in order to be admitted to school, they have to be literate. Hanover had an alarmingly high rate of illiteracy, particularly amongst children who were to start school, who were then denied that gift that should be with- in every child’s grasp. Through the Fund, a program was created, called ‘Success by Six.’ It’s a program that teaches children from the age of three upward how to read using a phonics system.We’ve taken it to every single ‘basic’ school – these are the primary schools in Jamaica - in Hanover and quite a few in Westmoreland, so that when the child has reached the age of seven, they are fully literate and are able to start their for- mal education. So, we’ve raised the literacy rate among children to almost 90 percent.We also provide scholarships, every year for tertiary education as well as further education. “We have a fairly wide-reaching health- care program. For example, this week, we have a dental mission at the Club; we bring dentists from America who are based both at the Club and within a church in nearby Hopewell, and they offer dental cleaning, fill- ings, and other dental treatment, all free of charge.