I was delighted to be invited to two lovely ladies' luncheons over these past two weeks.

The presenters at the Jamaica Broilers luncheon almost had me convinced that I wasn't as happy as I appeared to be because of my less than perfect attendance record at church. And the host of the Jamaica Observer luncheon wanted me to spread the word about the wonders of cassava, the necessity and benefits of dual citizenship and concern over the waste that was going into the ocean as a result of all the heavy 'development' happening on the coastline.

While a little more than the usual polite conversational items occurred at both luncheons, I was thrilled nonetheless to break bread with some of Jamaica's leading ladies.

First, I must congratulate the Jamaica Broilers Group of Companies (JBG) on their 50th anniversary. Companies that last as long as they have and continue to be profitable are rare these days - it's a testament to their business acumen and smart sense to engage in a business that can count every Jamaican as a potential customer. Chicken is clearly a very good business to be in, in Jamaica; for while I've complained bitterly about the price of a whole chicken tripling over the past 10 years, I continue to buy it weekly nonetheless after playing an intense game of "find a hormone-free chicken for under $600" at the supermarket.

But high prices being what they are, I've had to curtail my large household's chicken habit somewhat, and so instead of buying an average of eight chickens every month, I now buy four or five and get creative with the chicken-free Sunday dinners.

In that way, I'm perhaps no different from many of the hundreds of illustrious women that the Levys invited to take part in their birthday celebrations at a luncheon at the Hilton Kingston Hotel: an informal survey of the hard-working professionals at my table revealed that we are all feeling the pinch, and a few of us have already started kitchen gardens to defray the costs of fruits, legumes and vegetables.

The Jamaica Broilers Group, according to reports, pumped some $71 million into the Best Dressed 50Fest celebratory and Christian outreach events which included: a two-day, internationally billed gospel concert and family festival; seven medical clinics; basketball, netball and football clinics; community work projects and numerous in-school 'good lifestyle choices' promotions.

In bearing witness to the love of God, the president and CEO of Jamaica Broilers, Robert Levy, has been nothing short of generous. By all accounts 50Fest - organised by the Church of God in Jamaica, the Jamaica Association of Evangelicals, the Jamaica Association of Full Gospel Churches, the Jamaica Council of Churches, the Jamaica Pentecostal Union (Apostolic), and the West Indies Union of Seventh-Day Adventists - was a tremendous success, with over 250,000 people attending the events in Mandeville, Montego Bay and Kingston and 10,000 of those became born-again Christians.

It might have been 10,001 had I kept my head down during Pastor Luis Palau's prayer at the end of the luncheon, but I was busy trying to calculate how many free chickens the JBG could have given away for the money they spent on their anniversary.

I came up with 150,000 - clearly the festival reached far more people than a free chicken promotion would have. Additionally, in the aftermath of 50Fest, the organising church groups will continue to work together with a view to looking at national issues.

Not a bad idea if concrete action can be taken to address some of the issues which continue to plague us as a nation: crime and violence, upward spiralling costs and downward spiralling morals and values. I am very clear on the fact that our problems are not all the prime minister's doing, but a result of a world in crisis. A barrel of oil costs US$123, we bargained on it stabilising at US$100, and as a result the cost of everything has been affected and the void between the haves and the have-nots is growing larger and larger.

So as a nation with a majority of female heads of households we've got to pull together and see how best we can help pull through the tough times ahead. But we've got to do a little more than just talk about it over very nice lunches of vegetable coulis and tossed greens with caromelised onions.
The Jamaica Observer chairman, 'Butch' Stewart, voiced my fears at the luncheon and talk-back session he hosted for women leaders at the newspaper's conference room on Wednesday. "Let's see who are the talkers and who are the doers," he said when he challenged the ladies around the massive boardroom table, after hearing their views on issues affecting the country, to form mini-action committees to actually do something about the problems we face.

But when we had an opportunity to foist 10,000 kilos of cassava onto the shelves of a major retailer who was at the luncheon, we allowed him to carry us wide into a discussion of how there was just as many kilos of beautiful cauliflower in St Elizabeth unable to find a market.

And when we spoke about the contradictory law preventing dual citizenship being archaic and insulting, we suggested that someone else, not any one of us who have foreign card carrying children, mount a challenge to the law. And our discussion about the pollutants entering the sea and killing the reef ended when we heard about the many monitoring reports that are being prepared on the subject.

Clearly the discussion needs to continue, and Jamaica's leading ladies need to roll up their sleeves and not be dissuaded and derailed. I'm not too sure that I'll be invited back to the luncheon when the ladies regroup down the road, because I too had few solutions to the many problems we face. But I hope they call me again, it'll be nice to have another chicken lunch.

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