Feeling a little blue......

I’ve been messing around at Harbour Sports for over thirty years and yet things still creep up and bring tears to me eyes. Silly old thing really when I think about it and I guess that in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t really matter. But it does, perhaps sadly, matter to me.

I little over a year ago we picked up a new brand which I thought quite special. Rather than simply stick it on the rails we made it a central feature on our large stand at the Riviera Conference Centre Great Outdoors Exhibition in Torquay last summer.

The brand sold because it is unusual, well priced and fun. The exhibition was hard work but it was exciting to do. The outcome was that we worked at building the brand and nice folk shared in that journey. After all is said and done our Harbour Sports strap line, for want of a better term, is that we don’t just walk the walk and talk the talk we also live the life. This new brand was part of that life force.

We live in curious times and things too often are not as they seem. It saddened me this year when the distributor suddenly started opening new accounts without bothering to consider the hard promotional work that we had put in. Sign of these times perhaps?

Anyway I happened to be walking past a shop not too far away today and found the window full of the clothing brand that we stupidly thought (well not that stupidly since we have a pointless email saying that we had territorial rights) was exclusive to us.

I seem to spend too much time these days placing plasters over metaphorical knife wounds between my shoulder blades. There was a time when a handshake meant something and it makes me sad when people act in the way that the brand supplier has.

But hey, we get up dust off and get on with life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Keep the Faith, or faith if you like...............

Making a bid for a buoyant community

I’ve spent the day on Paignton harbour fighting the good fight at Harbour Sports, which isn’t a bad thing although today I had other plans. But for all sorts of reasons I didn’t have the right people I the right place and so here I am.

Opening the post from yesterday I see that I have a ballot paper for the Exeter BID. The Exeter what? BID: Local Government Act 2003 Business Improvement Districts (England) Regulations 2004. Basically this means that local business pay a percentage (tax) based on rateable value as a contribution toward improving the local business environment to encourage folk back into the town centre. Government then chip in a large chunk and away we go.

Some folk might see this as another tax, but I have no comment on that. What I do think is that unless we address parking then very little will change. You can plant all the flowers you like, paint beautiful walls, ring bells, arrange dancing and whatever else you want but do nothing about parking then it will all end in tears.

A little while ago I wrote an article in the Herald Express about town centre parking and suggest that THE FIRST HOUR SHOULD BE FREE. Locally Torbay Mayor Gordon Oliver is sorting a committee to look at town centre parking, but it really isn’t that complicated. Unless folk can park without taking out a mortgage then they will not come back to the town centre. So please, if you feel that it is worth saving the local community, campaign for FIRST HOUR FREE PARKING.

That brings me neatly to the other restricting process in business district revival, Value Added Tax! 20% really did plonk a big stopper on spending because it arrived at a time when we were already on our knees. Perhaps Mr Cable can ask his new friends whether they might consider a return to 17.5% before we run out of people to collect the tax at all!

Less rhetoric and a little more joined up thinking would be welcome.

He wanders on……………….

Making the most of the elected mayor regime

Herald Express 6th May 2011 - a few published 'Frank' words......

SOMETIMES when you get what you think you want you find it wasn't what you wanted at all.
Perhaps during the process of getting you couldn't understand why everyone was rushing around and now you suddenly realise that you didn't understand the nature of the beast.
But now you have it and perhaps worry that you don't quite know what to do with it!

I've watched the antics of Torbay's mayoral candidates and listened to the almost endless rhetoric. We've now popped out of the first mayoral reign which was a time of visions and dreams, some of which did actually become a reality while others disappeared like the morning mist on a hot day. All this happened at a time of great economic, political and social change. What a stunning rollercoaster! Well here we go into the second term of mayoral leadership. But you know nothing is truly going to change unless you can capture the hearts and minds of the population.

Now I know that term easily runs off the tongue, but it is the essential truth! You can paint the buildings, construct new facilities, plant beautiful flowers and hold endless gatherings, but unless you can capture the identity of a community nothing, absolutely nothing, will change. We live in troubled times and it has been increasingly easy to focus on the negative, to look for what has been done badly and to find fault.

That has to change. Let the new mayor build community that looks for the positive, celebrates what has been done well and seeks not to find the proverbial splinter in a neighbour's eye whilst sporting a plank in our own eye. It isn't impossible but it does require the rejecting of empty political rhetoric and the almost constant cross-party sniping. Whether you like the mayoral system or not is neither here nor there because for a while we are stuck with it.

That being the case, let us use it to advantage and make it a shared experience. It is our system of government and so we must use it as best we can. But here is the rub. Our mayor must also use it as a post of social responsibility and captivate us all into a more meaningful vision. It is a time for pulling our people together, of energising communities and demonstrating that there is a better way. So here is the starting point; an open gathering perhaps once a month at the Riviera International Conference Centre, which has potential as a village hall for Torbay. Gather the people and share the excitement of a shared journey and see a new social horizon together. At the end of the meeting everyone can take away a bag and on the walk home pick up all the waste paper drifting on the wind. What a wonderful shared experience and a simply way of increasing community pride.

There you have it. A new mayoral vision for Torbay.

A Single Tear

A single tear ran down my cheek this morning as I read a Western Morning News (Good Friday 2011) headline “Anglican Priest Makes Catholic Switch”. It seems that Moretonhampstead Anglican vicar and father of eight, with a ninth on the way, is to be ordained as a Catholic priest. So why do I have a tear running down my cheek this morning?

The tear is for all the young men who had a vocation to the celibate Catholic priesthood, giving up the joy of married life and the pleasure of children. Now for them the knowledge that it’s OK to join the club via the backdoor and be a married Catholic priest.

I guess what has caused me to raise an eyebrow is that Father Hellyer is only forty-five whilst most of the other switchers have tended top be rather ancient.

When I was young I thought that I had a vocation to the Catholic priesthood, but my director of vocations suggested that I might be best to work through college first. I met my wife at college and that was the end of my priestly route!

I have a friend who would have made an excellent husband and father but became a celibate catholic priest. We meet from time to time and experience a sort of sliding doors moment in wondering where we might be had the roles been reversed.

Perhaps now is the time for a change in the Church of Rome and allow priests the option to marry or remain celibate. Accepting married Anglican clergy without first allowing Catholic priests the opportunity to marry seems to me to be a little unkind.

Having said all that I would like, as a Catholic, to welcome Father Hellyer to the Church. Perhaps his arrival will trigger a change and that celibacy in the Catholic priesthood will become an option rather than a requirement.

Cristos anesti!

The Making of a Mayor #2 & a glimpse of heaven...

.....................but unfortunately the two are not related!

On Monday 11th April I pitched up at the Mayoral Debate oganised by the Torbay Business Forum at the Riviera International Conference Centre (aka The English Riviera Centre) to see the candidates strut their stuff. As previously stated I am not in favour of an elected mayor for Torbay, however Conservative Central Office in its wisdom has decided that we are stuck with the system and must therefore simply get on with it. Mayor Nick Bye has decided to bravely stand again given that the local Conservative group decided to select someone else as their official candidate and I have to say that it was Nick who carried the evening.

So where do we go now? Well, on May 5th we have the joy of voting for (a) a new mayor, (b) numerous local councillors and (c) a new alternative voting system. Hmm. It's enough to make your head spin, especially since all this follows immediately after the late Easter and the Royal Wedding! Many of us will doubtless stagger to the voting kiosk in a state of religious euphoria or alcoholic semi-oblivion and attempt to make some sense of the assorted boxes just waiting to be ticked.

So the choice is yours boys and girls, do you stick with Nick Bye or elect one of the others? There you have it - one of the others. Hmm. Perhaps that should be Nick's strap line for this election - Stick with Nick. Seems to me that it is one of three devil choices. The devil you know against the devil you don't and as usual the devil will be in the political detail! I guess for the moment my money is sticking with the devil that I know.

..............................and now that glimpse of heaven! The other day Pete Hobbs (Oak Tree Garage in Paignton) gave my Noddy car (a Westfield) a really good going over and when I picked it up in the evening there was only one thing to do - go for a blast! The joy of Devon lanes and the late afternoon sunshine...................brings a little smile, well actually huge smile as Donal Lang and Matthew Porter will testify when I shot through Stoke Gabriel....

The Making of a Mayor

Torbay, despite its size, is a unitary authority with an elected mayor. London has an elected mayor, but it is a little bigger than Torbay. Now here's the thing, despite what you may have been told size does matter, but there we go.

For the past four years we have been under the bailiwick of Mayor Nick Bye and that has, to say the least, been an interesting experience for us all. But you see in my opinion the elected mayor should not be a party animal (political party that is!) otherwise the zealots tend to let rip and sadly they have been very much at play in Torbay. Nick Bye started out as an independent but in truth was always part of the Conservative group and that faction at this time is very much in the proverbial driving seat.

During Nick Bye's tenancy we have been offered a curious landscape that has developed from an almost biblical document known as the Mayor's Vision. I say biblical because the promotional DVD came complete with the little red footprints of an ancient prophet and of course, needless to say, at the time I did produce an alternative script using quotations from the Old Book. This DVD featured images of the Torbay is today followed by a flash of white and then up popped the vision which had high rise apartments, bistro seating and other stuff in a foretelling or perhaps foreseeing role. I have to say that some or the Vision was very good, but some had me reaching for an out of town bus timetable.

On Monday (11th April) I am attending the first Mayoral Debate at the Riviera Conference in Torquay in the hope of hearing something meaningful from the mayoral candidates. My worry is that if that if the local population show the same apathetic response to this election as they did last time and we don't get a mayor with the charisma to disrupt and captivate then the future will be bleak; very bleak indeed. I did talk to Nick Bye recently about the need to captivate people and change the way they see themselves at citizens of a united Torbay. Unless that happens then all the topographical changes will simply be lost in that sea of apathy. I've always thought that Nick has been a little unlucky since he has been the one being belted with rotten fruit whilst others making decisions behind the scenes have kept their heads down. He is standing again which does take courage.

Oh well, let's see how Monday evening shapes up!!

The DofE - Duke of Edinburgh Award

Sometimes I find myself scratching my head and this morning was such a time. Why the scratching? Well it is all about doing the best that you can for as long as you can. You would have to be a brick short not to have realised that we are living through troubled times. So what of the future? What sort of world is on offer to our young folk and they work their way through the self inflicted financial chaos? Who can know? But one thing is certain and that is things will never be the same again. For me there is another certainty and that is unless we all pull together things will continue to unravel. I guess that is why I have always been captivated by the Duke of Edinburgh Award. I am, in the words of HRH, a 'Veteran Gold'! My journey started back in 1962 and I am still banging the drum today because you cannot achieve Bronze, Silver or Gold without sharing with and helping others. That makes the DofE hugely socially cohesive at a time when all too easily things become unstuck! My message is simple. If you are aged between 14 and 24 Google 'DofE' or 'Duke of Edinburgh Award' and follow the link. Sign up and get stuck in. If you are older then do the same thing and see what you can do to help. School and college people? Well our young folk need every 'leg up' that they can get and for me the DofE should be the cement holding the students together. In business? Well what a great way to motivate a work force! Public Services? Of course you are doing this already! Come on people, let's make this happen!