now so in demand it is set to hire a second full-time officer.

At the annual general meeting of Keep Bermuda Beautiful (KBB) last night, president Scott Kitson said so much work was being generated, the group's secretary could not keep up with it.

Mr. Kitson said when he took over as president more than three years ago, the group was in need of re-organisation to get the community more involved. He added: "KBB was always known as as the litter clean-up people. We used to get people calling us up asking if we could collect trash that had been left at the end of their street. You can imagine what our response to that was.

"What we have tried to do is educate people and give them a sense of ownership for the Island. What we wanted was for people to understand that it was as much, if not more, their problem as ours. Our role is now to assist and provide advice to people who wish to organise clean-up events.

"As a result, we now assist in an average of one clean-up a week, which involves people in the community, have numerous talks in schools and have even got corporate businesses on board.'' And he said, the hard work was now beginning to show with more and more events and talks being organised across the Island.

"We are a charity, but we need to make this leap of faith and employ another full-time, paid person to do the administration. We have so much work to do, we need another person to help us deal with it.'' Evidence of how many people on the Island are now volunteering to organise events and litter pick-up was on show at the meeting last night when a number of schools, groups and individuals were presented with framed certificates for their efforts by KBB.

The most coveted of the commendations, which were presented by Environment Minister Arthur Hodgson, was the President's Award, which went to CedarBridge Academy in recognition of a clean-up day it organised last year when all 1,200 pupils took part.

Other winners were Salvation Army First Newlands Girl Guides, St Paul AME Young People Department, Elliott Primary School, Dellwood Middle School and ClearWater Middle School.

The Government's Ministry of Works and Engineering also presented an award to guest speaker Emily Morgan, from the Centre for Marine Conservation in the US, for the organisation's '99 Coastal and Marine Clean-Up on the Island last year.

Mr. Kitson said his aim was to get as many people in Bermuda picking up litter everyday as possible.

He added: "If someone spends three hours picking up somebody else's litter then you can be sure that they will never drop litter themselves again.

"It should be everybody's responsibility to keep Bermuda beautiful.'' Anyone interested in applying for the new role working alongside secretary of the group Lennox Boodram, or who would like more information about how to get involved, should call Mr. Boodram on 295-5142.