It’s harvest season in Dubai and I’d love to hear from residents about the results of their gardening efforts this year in JVT.
In my small garden, I have had the most luck growing capsicum and tomato plants.
What did you grow?
Dear JVTers,
Earth Hour is nearly upon us. This Saturday evening, millions of people will switch off their lights for an hour at 8:30pm. Surely, more is needed to protect our planet but this is a common action we can all easily take.
If you are ready to do more, join the crowd that will be attending a free community screening of ‘Home’ at JLT. This film is a beautiful documentary by Yann Arthus-Bertrand that is almost entirely composed of aerial shots of various places from fifty-four countries. It poignantly depicts how Earth’s problems are all interlinked. Engaging and educational, the film is ideal for family viewing !
Even more, the viewing supports SURGE, a non-profit investing in delivering clean water solutions to communities in need around the world. Surge Middle East operates a primary school program in the UAE to educate young people about the global water crisis and encourage conservation efforts. Myself a Surge volunteer in Dubai, I wish to personally invite all JVTers to close their tap, switch off their lights and come over to JLT to join us for this free film on Saturday evening.
Screening is at 7:30pm on the 19th of March at JLT Community Park, behind cluster ‘O’.
To watch the trailer, see the location map and RSVP you can visit the FB page of the organizer Urban Bedou at: https://www.facebook.com/events/501045000080400/
For more information about Surge, visit their website.
Surge is also looking for companies sponsors of the school program. This provides your business and employee volunteers an excellent opportunity to directly contribute to an important issue in the UAE as part of your CSR agenda. If interested, email me (linda.merieau@surgeforwater.org) for more details.
Have you always wanted to have a lakefront house? Some on JVT can enjoy easy water access today!
Hopefully everyone has arrived home safe and sound. More rain expected tomorrow and schools are closed.
There seems to be a bit of damage around the village.
It seems we have faired better than Abu Dhabi. A video of a ceiling collapse which appears to have been in AD today.
Stay safe!
We hope there are many more fun carnival days to come with The Arcadia Prepatory school here in JVT.
If you are reading this on Friday afternoon, there is still time to come down before 7pm and enjoy a game, grab a free burger or get a refreshing ice lollie all compliments of Arcadia.
Thanks to our new future neighborhood school!
Today, I have just discovered the delights that await in the Nutcracker boutique. I couldn’t resist sharing this with you all as you start your weekend.
Drop in to indulge in the many treats on offer at The Nutcracker.
I hope to offer you all an exclusive interview with the owner who it just so happens is one of our own, a JVT resident too! More to come for sure on this sweet little spot in the Triangle.
Pictured above is a delightful raspberry cheesecake.
Family Fun Friday on March 4th
Pompeii Warrior is a great new service for anyone trying to count their calories and manage their weight. Prepared and packaged just next door in Jumeirah Village Circle, you can expect truly fresh produce delivered right to your door.
When I heard about this new service, I decided that I had to check it out for you!
Just back from a visit to the Pompeii restaurant, I got a behind the scenes look at the food preparation. I also had the chance to chat with the restaurant manager to understand the service better.
It is straightforward and hassle-free. Simply log onto their website and select the monthly meal plan to suit your needs. You start with an easy-to-do calculation which will indicate your recommended daily calorie intake. Then you have only one choice to make: should they deliver meals for 5, 6 or 7 days out of the week !
The meal plan provides the number of calories you selected over breakfast, lunch, dinner, two snacks and even the occasional dessert. Simply select ‘order’ and leave all the meal planning to the Warrior. No more lists, shopping trips or counting calories. This is all done for you whether you require 1,200 calories per day or up to 3,000 for the really active among us.
Fresh cooked meals will be delivered to your home on a daily basis. The well-balanced, meal combinations were designed for Pompeii by a nutritionist from South Africa. “Fresh ingredients are key to locking in all the important vitamins and nutrients. Nothing is frozen in our monthly meal plan,” Katrina assured me. If you are health conscious but don’t have time to plan and shop for all the right ingredients or feel overwhelmed by calculating the amount of food you need to consume to maintain or lose weight, the Warrior is for you!
I was curious about the Body Building menu plan. This offer includes only high-protein lunch and dinner but, alas, no snacks and clearly no desserts! As the Body Building plan is aimed at trainers, I am told it is the perfect choice for someone looking for healthy meals and the option to use their own hi-energy shakes for example. “We have selected and developed very yummy dishes that satisfy your cravings while keeping you in shape,” says Katrina. It’s worth mentioning that the Monthly Meal Plans can be adjusted for special dietary concerns. The price may vary but don’t hesitate to ask if there is a particular food on the plan that you can’t eat.
If you don’t want to subscribe to their monthly meal plan, you can also order ‘a la carte’ off their healthy menu for a one-off delivery. With healthy options, such as the beetroot and feta salad or the hammour fish fillet with vegetables, this seems like a great option when you just arrive home from a long trip and have nothing in the fridge.
This service could certainly be a life saver for the busy professional who doesn’t have the inclination or energy to cook after a long day at work. Why not give this a try one week when you have no time for shopping! And do tell your friends as their deliver all around new Dubai.
To order, call: 800POMPEII OR 04-3697746
And if you just want a pizza, they make some good ones at the Pompeii restaurant.
With ‘Makani’ and the new street signs just announced this week, JVT residents fear no more! Being lost in JVT will soon be a thing of the past. No more waiting hours for your food delivery. Visiting friends should find you without circling hours around the neighborhood!
Have you seen these? The promise that it will be possible to navigate around JVT with ease…
Coming soon to a villa near you!
Nakheel has even designed a new community map. It’s color-coded by district. With three shades of blue and two shades of green, it is not clear that the color system will help much, but at least every villa and townhouse will display the district number. You’ll note that each house now has an alpha-numeric code.
Overall, this represents a clear improvement. Looking forward to seeing if there will be any other directional or way finding signs in the future. Personally, I don’t care for the road-side advertising that recently sprung up along Tulip Street and wonder if the fees will at least be re-invested in community development projects. Let’s ask Nakheel.
Are you looking to buy or sell something? Our neighbor Adham can certainly help through his new online venture EZ Heights.
The company tagline is ‘Making it EZ for you to Browse, Click, Buy.’ As a social market place, EZ Heights is a classifieds website with a difference. The site aims to make it easier to post your ads and communicate with potential buyers across all types of social media. The team is also keen to ensure the ads are authentic. All new advertisements are manually approved for quality control of the ads on the website. With over 200,000 listing on the site, this makes for a lot of work.
Among the useful features is the website ‘chat’ to help buyers and sellers communicate more efficiently without any phone calls. Another nifty add-on is the Whatsapp integration were you can share ads via Whatsapp as well as chat to buyers and sellers directly. As part of the EZ Heights community, you can review ads as well as update your status (looking for, need help with, etc). See things you like from a regular poster? It is possible to ‘follow’ users so that you stay updated with their latest posts and products or services. “We integrated these social elements to make communication more efficient and more fun,” Adham explained. I think that EZ Heights should be a good alternative to posting about furniture, cars and villas for sale on the various JVT Facebook groups!
“I started this business because I saw a lack of quality classifieds websites in the UAE. The existing portals usually concentrate on quantity rather than quality,” says Adham. “We concentrate on both but mainly quality which is why we manually approve our ads.” He tells me that the actually the idea stems from his childhood when he would accompany his father to the Deira fish market. Seeing the exchange between people buying, selling and negotiating inspired him to “take the traditional market experience and modernize it online.”
Born and raised in Dubai, Adham moved to our community over this summer. “JVT is such a beautiful and quiet community, and since I started socializing a little with the people living here I found out that this is a nice and supportive community,” he remarks. “They even helped me find my lost cat (his name is cat) recently!” It is free to post an ad, but Adham will offer JVT residents with their own businesses up to 20% discount to purchase site banners. Just mention the JVT Community Blog when asking for this special privilege!
Get selling or buying by visiting: www.ezheights.com
The Sunmarke school recently held an Open Day at Milestone in JVT. I stopped by to get you the full story on one of two new schools set to open within the JVT neighborhood. Starting in September 2016, Sunmarke will provide quality primary and secondary education as well as a nursery school catering to the youngest infants. There is even an option to avail of the afternoon nursery program hours for non-working Moms that just need a bit of a break!
The school will accommodate up to 3,000 learners at total capacity. In the opening year, we can expect 1,000 pupils as the school plans to gradually expand the staff and classrooms. Secondary school students from their sister school, Regent International, will be moving in for this coming Fall semester. With a long-standing experience in this region, the parent company Fortes Education certainly can ensure that this facility will integrate well with the community and provide outstanding learning experiences.
For example, we all know that traffic woes are a common sight in front of most Dubai schools. I’ve been assured that Sunmarke has taken this on board in the planning process and will have a multi-storey car park to avoid the usual traffic tailbacks at drop off and pick up times.
With a 600 seat auditorium, 2 swimming pools, football pitch and a multi-purpose auditorium, the community can also expect to benefit from these superb facilities. I am told that many after-school activities will be scheduled with external organizers that will welcome children from the neighborhood as well. Hopefully, this can also provide a great space for community clubs to meet or sports groups to practice.
For those enrolling their children, it can be expected that your children will greatly benefit from the human values program and the multi-smart learning platform which incorporates the arts, music, drama, dance, self-development, logic, language and people skills with all the core subjects. Importantly for parents, the school is offering a significant Founder’s discount on the first three years for those enrolling in the opening year. Get more information on their website: http://www.sunmarkedubai.com
We look forward to a fruitful relationship between Sunmarke and the community for mutual enrichment.
Jumeirah Village Triangle 