Vision of question time and personal litter-picking...

The Herald Express is now a weekly rather than a daily. This is my occasional column for the first edition...

Thursday, July 21, 2011 Herald Express

A couple of months ago, just after the mayoral election, I wrote down a few thoughts about the new political dynasty. My concern was that when you suddenly get what you always wanted you might find that you didn't want it at all! But you've got it and now you have to do something meaningful with it.
I had the opportunity to test that thought process last Thursday when I bumped into Gordon Oliver on the stunningly beautiful main staircase at Oldway Mansion in Paignton. I reminded him of what I had written just after the mayoral election and asked whether he really had got what he wanted. His diplomatic wry smile will amuse me for years to come. As he said, these are early days.

Well, early days they might be, but we live in tumultuous times where, like the Mad Hatter's Tea Party, some things are just so hard to believe. It may well be these are simply days rather than early days. The one thing that we cannot afford is confused thinking because people too quickly become disorientated and worse still disillusioned. There is, more than ever, a need for very clear strategic thinking and a sweeping aside of the curmudgeons.

My reason for being at Oldway was to attend, in the public gallery, a meeting of the full council. My specific interest was the draconian cost increase for families being bussed to school and college. An amendment had been tabled by a couple of councillors to soften the blow, which will financially damage so many struggling families, by spreading the increase over five years. Well, what happened was that a vote was not taken, to the disappointment of a large number of parents and children who had attended the meeting, and the matter was referred back to our mayor, Mr Oliver.

I found that hugely interesting because it made me realise the shocking power an elected mayor has. But an elected mayor is what we all voted for when we went down that dubious dusty road. It seems to me therefore whatever a council may decide is ultimately at the mercy of the mayor!
These are hard times, as we all know. But even now we have the obvious winners who have managed to reach the security of the financial high ground, and good luck to them. But they are few when compared to the increasing numbers beaten down by rising prices, high utility bills, redundancy, reduced services and a myriad of other hardships. As some bright spark noted, never in the history of man has so much been taken from so many by so few!

Where am I going with this? For more years than I really care to remember I have worked with the Duke of Edinburgh's Award as participant and then as a volunteer. I have always seen the DofE as an agent of social cohesion. The gap between those who have and those who have not is getting wider by the day, which will inevitably lead to a lack of social cohesion. We need to look out for each other, help neighbours and do our best to ensure our legacy is not one of selfish greed.

In a whimsical moment I had suggested to our new mayor that we might start perhaps with monthly public gatherings at the Riviera International Conference Centre where ordinary folk can air their views to the mayor in a pleasant and productive way. The questions could be written, for those who don't want to speak in public, but still allow for energetic rhetoric. This must not be a ranting session because I am sure we can find an upturned milk crate on Torre Abbey corner for that pent-up energy of those who simply want to unleash angry venomous rhetoric.

My other little tongue-in-check suggestion was that after the meeting we all pick up a paper bag to do a little litter collection on the way home as a gesture toward community cleanliness! That really is a serious suggestion since we shouldn't wait for others to make Torbay blossom.

How's that for a new vision?

Dreamscape..............

When I was a young man I had a very vivid dream; a dream that has haunted me for so many years and now latterly has an echo of reality. Perhaps that is the nature of dreams that in darkness of sleep we somehow connect with eternity where the past and the future become part of the one. I don’t know and therefore the search for truth continues!

Anyway let me get back to the dream. I knew then as I know now that it was a time in the future. It was a warm day with a stunning clear blue sky and I was travelling on a sort of flatbed vehicle on a road that I knew well with people that I didn’t because I had obviously found myself, somehow, in the future. As we travelled it occurred to me that there were no churches which I questioned a companion about. He smiled at me and said that they had all been demolished a while ago. Where the churches once stood, for I remember them being there, was grassland!

A few days ago I was leaving an increasingly traffic gridlocked Plymouth down one of my numerous rat runs and happened to be in Mutley. There was until recently a beautiful old church on a crossroads that had been the core of the local community. Now it’s rough ground with the occasional pile of bricks poking out over the numerous weeds.

That prompted a church search over the next few days. Some that I once knew have been flattened others have become snooker halls, antique shops, private clubs and designer homes. For me it prompted the thought of the generations who worshiped, were hatched, matched and despatched in these once spiritually vibrant buildings.

Sunday those years ago was a time for families to gather and often attend a church service together. There is still that gathering today but not in the churches. Now families gather in the supermarkets which have become the new cathedrals of consumerism where a false feeling of equality is established through the aisles of plenty and the advent of a credit card.

In this apparently Post-Christian era I make no call for a return to the churches but I do make a call for the spiritual energy that we all hold to be liberated in the hope of building more socially cohesive communities in these increasingly troubled times where the neighbourhood gap between those that have and those that have not widens by the day.

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....