Chicken or beef? What about fish, vegetarian or a jacket potato? A new scheme is helping prevent disappointment for primary school pupils at lunchtime.

With three choices a day for school dinners, sometimes a child will end up disappointed when their favourite runs out before they get to the counter. But a new scheme being piloted at around 40 schools in the county is changing that.

Schools taking part in the scheme include: · Barnwood C of E Primary · Berkeley · Blakeney · Cashes Green, Stroud · Castle Hill, Brockworth.

· Chesterton, Cirencester · Dursley C of E Primary · Forest View, Cinderford Children choose their food when they arrive at school in the morning and are given a coloured wristband corresponding to a particular dish. They then redeem the wristbands at lunchtime for the right meals – making for happier children and easier meal planning for caterers.

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HURRICANE – It pays for Hurricane High School students to wear their 24-7 Club wristbands and to carry their membership cards.

About once a month Principal Dick Campbell announces early dismissal from class, either at lunchtime or the end of the day, for those wearing the wristband.

“They like that. There’s a flurry of signups whenever he does that,” club sponsor Heather Reed said.

Since Campbell proposed the club in the fall of 2008 and biology teacher Reed volunteered to sponsor the anti-drug abuse organization, more than 200 students have joined.

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LAUDERDALE BY THE SEA–Olga Giner wears her dead son’s initials on a silver ring. A marine blue rubber bracelet promotes the foundation she created in his memory to warn whomever she meets about the dangers of rip currents.Giner’s son Giankarlo Squicimari died in 2007 trying to save two young girls from drowning in the sea off Palm Beach. He was posthumously awarded the Carnegie Medal for his heroic efforts.

Thursday afternoon, Giner visited Lauderdale-by-the-Sea’s unguarded beach where four people drowned in 2008 and two others almost died.

Giner stood next to a round sign bolted to a steel pole with plastic flowers attached. It resembled markers along roadways that memorialize crash victims. The sign warns, “Don’t get ripped” and encourages bathers to swim near lifeguards.

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FOR 12 months Lachlan Fraser has been much more than Marysville’s doctor. Dr Fraser has captured the mood of this town of mixed emotions.

And he did it again yesterday.

As 800 survivors and supporters gathered for a minute’s silence, Dr Fraser pulled off the yellow wristband he had worn for most of the past year.

The band, bearing the Marysville name, had been his personal symbol of the challenges faced by the physically and emotionally flattened community.

“I’ll put it somewhere nice,” he said.

It was the good doctor’s way of saying he was ready to move on; that it was time for the town to move into a new phase.

“I can tell you it has a heart; it’s going strong,” he said of Marysville.

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