Totally Locally

I've just come across this whilst checking a few friends Facebook sites. What fantastic sentiments and advice! We should all make a copy and read it every day!

I heard the other day that someone was trying to set up a Totally Locally meeting here in Stone but I can't remember who told me. And I haven't seen anything about it since.

Does anyone out there know any more? It sounds like a campaign we should all support. The future of towns like ours depends upon us all practicising the ethos behind the Totally Locally campaign.

Exciting times ahead!

I love meeting people with a passion for Staffordshire and who, like me, believe that small is beautiful! Today I met such a person - Emily Whitehead who is the inspiration behind an amazing website, Simply Staffordshire. Emily wants to get Simply Staffordshire members involved in the Uttoxeter Food and Drink Festival (and, I hope, the Stone Festival in October) so we met up at the Racecourse this morning to discuss various ideas with her.

Most of her members are small producers and businesses who have been handpicked by her to ensure high standards. As she spoke, I could almost hear echos of Brian Blundell in my ears! Like Brian, she believes that it will be the small local businesses that will do most for the local economy. She, too, believes that we should be proud of our food and drink heritage.

Emily clearly has some very useful PR and marketing skills and I have no doubt that Simply Staffordshire is going to become a business to watch. It's going to be good working with her.

That's the way to do it!

On Monday evening, I chaired the AGM of the Bonfire and Firework committee and it was all done and dusted in under an hour!

All our hard work goes up in flames!

I've said it many times but I'll say it again - this is a great committee to be involved with. Everyone is there to make sure that we have a brilliant show and they all do their own specific jobs. No arguments or back stabbings. No personal agendas. Its a pleasure to work with them.

The bullet points from the meeting were that we approved the accounts for last year (another record payout of £11,00 to the local groups who organise the event - see below); confirmed the date of this years event (Saturday 3rd November); agreed to hold the entry prices at last year's level (no change for three years) and confirmed a similar budget as last year for the fireworks.

It was also decided that we must be more positive in explaining that the event is wholly organised by volunteers from various groups in the town including Scout and Guide groups, Army Cadets and a PTA. Many people are under the mistaken impression that the show is put on by 'the council'! Oh no it isn't!

And we shall be stressing that the profit is split amongst the local good causes who are either involved in organising the show or who are nominated by volunteers. Last year, we distributed £11,000 amongst Stone Outward Guides, Stone Army Cadet Force, 1st Stone Scout Group, Aston & Little Stoke Scout Group, St Michael's PTA, Stone District Scout Council, N. Staffs Basics Accident Doctors, 2nd Stone Scout Group, Stone Stroke Club, Katherine House Hospice, Stone Alzheimer's Drop-In Club, St Michael's Church Bell Fund, British Red Cross and Douglas Macmillan Hospice.

And that makes it all worth while.

Four thousand Page Views!

I've just checked the statistics page for this blog and received a very pleasant surprise! Whilst I was away over the weekend this site had it's 4,000 page view!

And the fascinating statistic is that the posting with the highest number of hits was the Joules clock story (not a great surprise) closely followed by my suggestion about using the police station site and car park to create a full one way system around the top end of town (very surprising!).

So a big thank you to everyone who comes to look at my blog.

My annual pilgrimage!

Call me an anorak if you wish but I just love steam trains! I'm old enough to have have used them regularly when I was a schoolboy. I used to catch the 8.35 from Barlaston Station to school at Newcastle. Yes, that was in the days when Newcastle had a railway station. No trace now of course - the D road obliterated the line completely and the station site opposite the Borough Arms Hotel now forms part of the walk through the gardens to Queen Street. And Barlaston station is no more, either.

The largest loco - 70000 Britannia

So whenever I have the chance I always try to get down to Minehead for the West Somerset Spring Steam Gala. And Janet takes advantage of my trip to go and see her girls in Dartmouth. So we were up at the crack of dawn on Friday and made good progress down the M5 to Taunton. There Jan dropped me off at the bus station and, using my bus pass (one of the advantages of age!) I enjoyed a delightful  bus journey through the beautiful countryside of North Somerset to Minehead. I saw so much more than if I had been driving a car.

And the smallest !

I then spent the rest of the weekend hopping on and off steams trains. Wonderful! The West Somerset Railway is a proper railway - over twenty miles long and eight stations. Apart from a handful of paid employees, the whole operation is run by volunteers - over 600 of them. I've been a member for several years and just wished I lived nearer. If I did, you'd never see me! I'd be there with my sleeves rolled up at every opportunity!

But the weekend brought home to me just how important leisure and tourism is to the local economy of towns like Minehead. Every hotel, guest house and B&B was full; restaurants and pubs were doing a roaring trade and, due to the brilliant weather, the ice cream stalls all had long queues. I had a conversation with a local who was of the opinion that without the visitors to the railway the town would have gone out of business years ago. We've no similar attraction in Stone but we must must make the most of what we've got to attract the tourist pound. Which make our Farmers' Market and our Festivals all the more important.

Great excitement!

Over the last few weeks, I've been heavily involved in helping to organise a new food and drink festival at Uttoxeter Racecourse in June. The events team at Uttoxeter contacted us a couple of months ago and asked if Stone Food and Drink Festival would be willing to work with them to put on a summer festival and we were only too pleased to help. Indeed we were honoured to think that they valued our input so highly.

Obviously we had to negotiate an appropriate financial arrangement with them and we were able to do so on the basis that Stone Food and Drink Festival would receive all the benefits accruing from our involvement. So it's been full tilt ever since!

This morning I popped over to Uttoxeter to have an updating meeting with Dan Whitehead and came away 'on a high'. Both Dan and I had been receiving exactly the same positive responses from traders and public alike. Bookings for stalls are well above expectations and a couple of hundred entrance tickets have already been sold online!

We're lining up several meetings for next week with more traders and a couple of potential sponsors. Busy times ahead! And the beauty of it is that all the work involved is being done in tandem with our own Stone festival. So we all benefit!

Credit where credit's due!

Some time ago I was highly critical of the new boxes which had been installed to contain the electric power supply in the High Street. They were unpainted galvanised steel boxes and tarmac had been tamped around the bases - all looking pretty ugly.

That's better!

Well, today, I am pleased to report that the boxes have been painted black and the tarmac replaced by cement. A vast improvement! I asssume that the Town Council are responsible so I retract my original criticism and thank the council for finishing the job properly.

I sincerely hope that traders at the monthly Farmers' Market and stallholders on the town market, such as the oatcake trailer, will have access to the electric supply. Traders who have refridgerated cabinets and who require lights will only come to town if they can plug in.