Smile, you're in beautiful Torbay

My words in this week's Herald Express.......................

CANADIAN poet singer/songwriter and former Buddhist monk Leonard Cohen was recently honoured for his work at the Prince of the Asturias Awards in Spain.You can find what he said on YouTube, and I strongly recommend it to you.

In his moving speech he spoke about the soil and the soul of a people saying: "An identity card is not a man and a credit rating is not a country!" That made me reflect upon how easy it is to use convenient labels to stereotype people, and indeed communities. We all too easily think of a nation in terms of credit worthiness in these days of confusing financial statements, yet a nation is about its people.

It also made me pick up on the word 'identity' having recently attended a SW Innovations Centres breakfast meeting at the revamped Cockington Court. I'd not been to Cockington Court for a while and so the new little craft/shopping centre came as quite a pleasant surprise. The whole complex sparkled in the early morning January unseasonal sunshine and seemed to have a mystical energy all of its own.

The speaker at this early morning meeting was Peter Redstone from the Barefoot Partnership, who romped through a quick introduction to creative thinking. In doing so he mentioned in passing the identity of a community as part of a creative thinking process. Sitting next to me was Mark Green from Fruition Design, and Jim Thompson from the FSB. Both, like me, believe strongly in community cohesion and have already established some creative thinking focus groups around Torbay.

Getting people to look at things differently and constructively is hugely important. You see, the thing is there are lots of good things going on in Torbay all the time, but all too often they lack community engagement. Even in the middle of January we have an event like the Health and Fitness Show at the Riviera International Conference Centre, which was designed to offer a platform for good living and positive thinking. What a great way to start the year to see so many local businesses offering a huge range of healthy lifestyle services and products.

In the theme of exciting things, have you been to look at the new Parkfield Centre in Paignton?
What a stunning arena with its international standard BMX track, skate park plus perhaps one of the best indoor climbing walls in Devon — and an external traversing wall which made me realise how unfit I am after only a few minutes of hanging off the grips. Outstanding stuff!

Then, of course, for entertainment you have the pure joy of bumping into the Channel 4 programme The Hotel. What a blast of fresh air in a busy world! Eight programmes on prime time television with loads of lovely shots of the beautiful English Riviera. How good is that? The series is being followed by English Riviera TV (www.englishriviera.tv) featuring the main characters plus a brilliant interview with Cllr Dave Thomas.

The programme comes hot on the heels of Sky Atlantic's Brixham-based series, Fish Town, and of course will attract many more viewers because it is a Channel 4 programme rather than a pay to view. It is also elegantly narrated by Downton Abbey actor Hugh Bonnevile! One of our four-star hotels reported a booking as a result of The Hotel because the visitors watched the programme, thought Torbay looked fantastic and came to stay.

Torbay is fantastic and it upsets me when people focus on the negative when so much good stuff is going on! The big question, to which I have yet to find an answer, is how we generate a Torbay identity which is attractive to all sectors of our kaleidoscope community. I guess, in part, it is thinking about others and looking at things in alternative ways. While we all want to be happy, that should not be at a cost to others. We could start with a sharing and caring attitude, plus a warm smile even when smiling is the last thing you want to do!

There you have it, a new strap line 'Smile on the day – you're in Torbay!'. Well, it is at least a start and a good way of avoiding walking around with a face like a slapped kipper...

Clangers and Clangers......

My scribblings in the Herald Express 21st December 2011.......

Last week I pitched up to a breakfast business networking event at Richard Haddock’s Churston Farm Shop, which was good fun. I think the farm shop concept is hugely important and, just to hammer the point home, as you drive in there is a whacking great big sign recommending that people shop locally. It was my first visit and I felt a little guilty about that because the whole enterprise is quite brilliant. I have to say that the farmer’s breakfast is really outstanding!

Curiously as I drove in through the gate John Humphrys and his Radio Four Today programme colleagues were banging on about town centre shopping because good old Mary Portas was once again waxing lyrical about the catastrophic state of town centre shopping. Of course I have a vested interest with Harbour Sports shops in Paignton, Plymouth and Exeter, which meant that the harbinger of gloom (John Humphrys not Mary Portas) had my full attention!

But you know the localism thing isn’t just about shopping. I do worry that we are becoming a nation of Clangers. Do you remember the iconic children’s programme, The Clangers, about a strange people who popped out of their holes in the ground made a funny noise and then disappeared back into the comparative safety of the hole- home?

The advent (good choice of word for this time of year!) of multi-channel television, the internet, game machines, smart phones, an eclectic mix of other devices and rising unemployment that actually seems that leaving home is almost optional. Home delivery of neatly packed food and cut price alcohol allows us to slump in a heap on the sofa before drifting into a soporific hypnotic state in front of a shimmering screen. Outstanding!

Miles Kington years ago made the slightly amusing comment about understanding the difference between knowledge and wisdom. What he said was that knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit but wisdom is knowing not to put it in the fruit salad! If we really want to hold our communities together then the preservation of local shopping and neighbourhood services is hugely hugely important.

One simple example close to home was the loss of the popular Post Office on Paignton harbour. We had all the pointless rhetoric about slimming business made by highly paid executives but they gave scant attention to the pivotal role that the Post Office played in community life. It was a meeting place for so many, a place for basic shopping, a place where views were exchanged and a source of cash for pensioners. Oh yes it is all very well to have your pension paid by direct debit but it now means that a trip has to be made to the nearest bank for cash.

Ah yes, the nearest bank. Well that is usually in the town centre and here comes the next bit about knowledge and wisdom. This one really is for Torbay Council! Knowledge is knowing that parking meters can generate a very good income which would seem to make sense in these horribly challenging times. Wisdom is knowing that people will only go where their car is welcome and so the short term parking meter income is soon lost as folk abandon the town centre. The local economy and neighbourhood identity will simply wither like un-watered fruit on the vine.

Here is a little bit of advice for Torbay Council. Go and take a look at those big big supermarkets on the edge of the town. Look at the crowded car parks and just think why do people park there when they have to spend £3 for the privilege? Oh yes, of course they don’t pay anything! You simply flop out of the car, prop yourself up at the end of a trolley and slide around the aisles before wheeling your goodies back to the car. Lovely! But in the town centre you have to have a pocket full of change and for a short visit to the shops (less than ten minutes for 20p) you need the sprinting ability of Usain Bolt to make it back to your car before the hovering civil enforcement officer stuffs a ticket under the windscreen wipers. First hour free boys and girls, first hour free!

Happy Christmas…………………….

Nothing stops a bullet faster than a job....

My column this week in the Herald Express 24th November 2011.....

This past week has been Global Entrepreneurship Week when globally folk come together to celebrate enterprise, innovation and that sort of thing. I always found the word entrepreneur somewhat daunting although these days it seems to pop up time and time again. Of course it has been around for many years and indeed try “Googling” (what an amazing computer search facility Google is!) and up pops a huge list. ‘Young Entrepreneurs’, ‘Famous Entrepreneurs’, ‘Entrepreneur Ideas’, ‘Entrepreneur Exchange’; the list goes on and on. Of course it is, as I am sure you know, essentially about business.

During the week events were held across South Devon by the various organisations tasked with encouraging people to be enterprising, to think about business, business start-up schemes business success award ceremonies and so much more. During the week I found myself spending an afternoon as a business mentor with a group of people who will soon graduate from the Devon School of Social Entrepreneurs based at Dartington. This was for me a good thing to be doing because I am fascinated and perhaps even captivated by the concept of social enterprise and, if you like, social entrepreneurship.

For those of you who bravely or foolishly read what I write will know that community action has always been near and dear to me. We live in hugely troubled times and the daily news brings a torrent of worrying detail about economic distress, financial inequality, rising prices, unemployment and perhaps a creeping loss of hope. But there is some good stuff going on, people doing special things, folk working for the good of all and more importantly refusing to be beaten down by the negative.

Of course much of the distress is about the loss of jobs, the worry about losing a job and the fear of running out of money or the reality of having no money. That is where many of the local entrepreneur start up schemes can be so helpful, especially when it comes to building social cohesion. You have only to look at what happened in London and Manchester last summer to see what happens when things tip over the edge.

In California some years ago Jesuit priest Greg Boyle coined the phrase ‘nothing stops a bullet like a job’ and that caught my attention. People, especially the young, need to be valued. Getting and hanging on to a job is being valued. Not getting or losing a job is catastrophic for the individual, for those around him/her and for the community as a whole. Enterprises and especially social enterprise can create jobs within a community and build a sustainable platform. One of the Dartington SSE students was in the process of developing a concept that had the fledgling title of ‘Crime to Career’ and looked at building individual talents into a meaningful career rather than slipping into crime. It is, at the end of the day about captivating a community and building hope.

Now one of the shadows of our time is the rise of unemployment amongst the young. We also live in a time of catching acronyms. One such acronym is NEET. Of course when you hear the word neat then all seems well but sadly NEET isn’t well at all! NEET is the growing band of people who are not in employment, education or training. That is needlessly to say very unhealthy for a society. It is here that the need for enterprise training and building social enterprise is huge. Enterprise is not, in my humble opinion, just about being able to run your own business. It is about collecting life skills that will also be of considerable benefit to breath fresh life into businesses that already exist and indeed to larger public sector organisations.

There are good things happening here on the English Riviera, Torbay, South Devon, Agatha’s Riviera, but they need nourishing. We mustn’t simply roll over and feel that there is nothing to be done because events like Global Entrepreneurship Week and organisations such as The Devon School for Social Entrepreneurs CAN make a huge difference. We simply need to be receptive to the message – said the voice too often ‘crying in the wilderness!’

Parking Meter Highway Robbery!

It’s dark. It’s raining. It’s Wednesday 16th November. It’s just after five in the evening. Paignton is a ghost town. Hyde Road has a handful of cars parked. My wife, who has reached retirement age parks and pops 20p into a parking meter before walking briskly to quickly look in a shop window on the corner of Victoria Street. The expire time on the ticket is 17.12hrs.

Having looked into the window my wife walked briskly back to her car and noticed a civil enforcement standing by her car with ticket machine in hand! The road is deserted, the rain lashing down yet there he is in all his soaking glory! The penalty ticket is timed at 17.16hrs. My wife is 4 minutes late!

At 17.16 the civil enforcement officer has already made out the ticket? So where was he? Hiding in a doorway just waiting for a victim? At least Dick Turpin used to gallop up to those he was about to rob and so everyone knew what was going on!

So here is the irony. I’ve been campaigning against parking meters for a long time especially when they are for revenue collection rather than traffic control. For small towns like Paignton they are catastrophic and do untold damage to the economic viability of the town centre. Certainly my wife is now saying that she has no intention of visiting Paignton town centre again and she was born in Paignton!

If Torbay Council feel that they really really do need parking meters then THE FIRST HOUR MUST BE FREE.

You really couldn't make it up!

Dad's Army at public meeting

My column in the Herald Express Thursday, November 10, 2011

WHEN the coalition galloped madly into Westminster with David Cameron, Nick Clegg and dear old George Osborne at the head of the eclectic horde, I really did worry that we were slipping into some sort of neo-feudalism, as we were scattered in all directions.

Poet David Neita warns us to 'mind the gap' as he observes the widening divide between those who have so much and those who have so little.

As the coalition marches on it seems to me that the gap is indeed getting wider and wider. Part of that widening may well sadly lead to the re-emergence of the feudal class system.

Prime Minister John Major sought a more egalitarian society and part of that thrust was an attempt to make the honours system classless.

Out went the Medal of the Order of the British Empire Medal (BEM) and those deemed worthy were made Members of the Order of the British Empire (MBE). Well, it seems David Cameron wants to re-introduce the BEM because not enough MBE awards were being made for folk who do so much for their communities. Hmm.

Rather than go back to what many described as a 'working class award', I would have thought that simply awarding more MBE gongs to deserving tireless folk who do so much for others would do the trick.

I am sure Mr Cameron is keen to recognise the contribution that all those in his curiously named 'Big Society' should feel we are all in this together, but I worry this may not be the best way.

One thing I do know is that people do indeed quietly beaver away and so often their work is not recognised or acknowledged.

Too often it is not until they stop doing what they do that heads come up like startled meerkats and notice things are not quite as they were!

One such local hero is Bob Brewis, who until last week or so was the chairperson for the Preston Community Partnership.

Bob has been unwell and therefore decided to hand the reigns to others. He has done so much for Preston, for Paignton and indeed for the whole of Torbay.

Gesche Buecker is the new chairman and presented Bob with flowers at the recent public meeting held in the ballroom at Oldway.

Now about that meeting! My reason for being there was to keep the pressure on councillors before too much damage is done by the thoughtless planting of traffic meters.

When the parking meter issue came up you could almost touch the energy in the room.

People were on their feet and forcefully attacking the proposals. Numerous people thought that we should be pushing on with regeneration rather than making Torbay a place that people simply don't want to visit and be penalised by draconian parking charges. Others thought the planting of meters on Preston seafront was yet another tax on local people.

Sadly from where I was sitting the meeting suddenly started to look like a scene from Dad's Army with Cllr Robert Excel suddenly looking like Corporal Jones while Cllr Chris Lewis took on the role of Chief Warden Hodges!

The 'audience' were being told not to panic by Excell/Jones, Lewis/Hodges went for a show of hands and the community voted against parking meters on Preston seafront, leaving Corporal Jones scratching his head!

But all credit to Robert Excell, because he knew the ride would be bumpy but was still brave enough to face the crowd.

But here's the thing. The meeting was both packed and buoyant, demonstrating that a community can gather in a meaningful way.

This was the sort of thing that I did suggest mayor Gordon Oliver might want to think about on a monthly basis.

The thing which caught my attention at the Preston partnership meeting was the energy and constructive comment.

We all need to engage and I truly believe that we ARE all in this together, though perhaps not quite in the way that Mr Cameron keeps bleating on about!

Watch the birth of a new day

From the Herald Express today.................

FRANK SOBEY: Forget the gloom, think positive .Thursday, October 27, 2011 Herald Express

I DON'T know why I start the day listening to the BBC Radio 4 Today programme because it all too often raises my blood pressure to a ridiculous level.

So much so that the other morning I wanted to scream to the harbinger of doom, John Humphrys, that we all know how bad it is but don't need his negative rhetoric early in the day to mercilessly hammer home the message.

Yet still if I am still asleep at 6am it is his highly-paid voice which bounces reality off the bedroom walls and plunges me into the day.

But it does also drives me rapidly from the bed and out of the house with my energetic dog for our daily pilgrimage to the paper shop, since it is my wife that in truth is the Today fan.

Often the wind is off the sea and I really cannot think of a better sensation than the salty air at dawn.

Of course it's not just dear old John who hammers home a message of gloom. David Cameron isn't too far behind with his daily litany of tighten your belts 'cause it's getting worse.

My worry is that both of them either consciously or unconsciously help to develop a feeling of national negativity that might unfortunately become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Sometimes we just really need a positive message to beef up flagging spirits. While we do of course need the news, we don't need a negative spin which feeds the ego of an overpaid presenter at the expense of folk fighting the reality of a new day.

When our affluent political leaders say it's going worse and that we are all in it together it we know that simply isn't true.

Those who have will not be in the same place as those who have not. They never have been.

So even though the days might seem dark that is absolutely no excuse to walk around looking glum or, as I often say, walking around with a face like a slapped kipper!

We need to buoy each other up and look for the positive rather than the negative. We should look for the best in each other and not the worst.

Let's celebrate success and hold a helping hand out when others need support. Don't count the cost or keep a score, just go for it.

Going for it is exactly what Torbay has done with the new £4million-plus Parkfield youth centre on Paignton seafront.

If you have not had a look, then do. I had a tour the other day and was simply blown away. So when people say nothing is happening in Torbay point them in the direction of Parkfield.

As a one-time climber I can tell you the climbing wall is one of the best I have seen. The BMX track is of an international standard and the skate park is simply stunning. There you go John Humphrys, start the day by telling everyone there is a new super-duper facility just opened for young people in Torbay which is breathing new life into the community.

One feature of Parkfield is the fact that all the staff will be Duke of Edinburgh's Award trained, adding to social inclusiveness.

As you doubtless know, you cannot gain a DofE Award without working as a team and helping others. For all those participating there are many older folk helping and that really does offer a brilliant shared social profile, in my opinion.

Now here is something really positive for you all to do when you have the time. At this time of year the sun rises over the sea and if you really really want to feel the energy of life get down to the beach just before dawn.

Sit quietly, wrapped up warmly in a picnic blanket, suck in a lung full of the sea air and watch the birth of a new day. Just do it.

The problem with mixed messages

This is my columnist contribution in the Herald Express 13th October 2011

Too often these days the message is mixed and outcomes curiously confused. Unpacking the rhetoric can be tedious and disorientating. Keep that in mind for the moment.

You see there are, it would seem, things that everyone should do at least once in a lifetime. Famous on the ‘must do list’ might be walking the Camino de Santiago, the Hajj and perhaps a visit to the Wailing Wall. All have a spiritual energy and of course there are doubtless so many others.

Another ‘must do’ with less spiritual energy is to attend a full meeting of Torbay Council! That was exactly what I did a couple of weeks ago and suggest that you might also like to experience that cathartic event. Watching our elected members ‘strut their stuff’ really is quite something. It’s an eclectic mix with a blend of serious stuff and curious comedy.

Each member has a microphone with a red light that flicks on when the civic chairman gives them the floor. The cross party black humour can be tedious but then there are the moments of sheer joy such as a senior member jumping up to second something that hadn’t been proposed, only to be batted into the long grass by the restless chairman!

I was in the sparsely populated public gallery (rows of chairs at the back of the ballroom) with, I think, eight or nine others. My fellow travellers included two young political hopefuls, a former mayoral candidate, two folk I didn’t know and small selection from the Kitsons Top Fifty club.

Now back to those mixed messages. Torbay subscribes to the commissioning model when it comes to local government services. Commissioners are highly paid senior council officers with an annual pay cheque of between £100,000 and £120,000 plus benefits. Part of the commissioning process has been the delegation of services to private companies like the English Riviera Tourist Board, under the direction of CEO Carolyn Custerton, with its own allocated budget to market Torbay.

You could have knocked me over with a fluffy magenta feather duster when during the Council meeting £250,000 was magically snatched out of the reserves for tourist marketing via our mayor and the Torbay Development Agency. That had me scratching my head. Do we now have two agencies marketing tourism?

Hmm. Mixed messages.

Still keeping in step with the tourist theme (must be all that glorious sunshine the other weekend!) I stumble across another mixed message. During Nick Bye’s Mayor’s Vision I followed, via the free cd, the prophetic footprints around Paignton that eventually end up on the harbour. The ‘Vision’ was for a harbour that suddenly became a honey pot for tourist activity. It’s actually quite famous for watersports already. No matter. The whole area is of course, in keeping with the dear old town plan, a conservation area.

You can imagine the surprise just over a year ago when two giant ugly containers landed outside the crab factory where the south quay meets the east quay. The locals, including harbour officials, protested pointlessly to Planning. Added to the summer ambiance is the smell of crab offal and the joy for tourists of watching living crab slaughtered in the open air. This aquatic abattoir is the latest tourist attraction adding a macabre balance to the numerous local eateries. Having said all that I am quite partial to white crab meat with a sprinkling of vinegar and black pepper served on a bed of fresh salad lightly tossed in olive oil!

So here is my thing. We really should say what we mean and really mean what we say. These are confusing times and we are too easily at the mercy of political spin. I know that dear David keeps banging on about us all being in this together but I sense a mixed message. Most of us are certainly in it; but all in it together? Well I am not too sure about that!

When the late summer sun hammered down on Torbay the other weekend it delivered a very clear message: Torbay, the English Riviera / Agatha’s Riviera is a stunningly beautiful place. So let us have a little joined up crystal clear thinking and celebrate what we are lucky enough to have!