Ramsgate Maritime Museum at risk

At the end of this month the curator of the museum goes leaving the museum and all of the artefacts inside uncared for and unguarded.

The museum has already suffered an act of vandalism last Christmas when 17 windows were smashed.

Preston Steam Museum and the council are engaged in negotiations for the steam museum that already owns all of the artefacts and vessels to take over the clock tower building, but at this late stage they still haven’t.

One problem is that the back of the museum is poorly lit and not properly covered by the harbours security cameras.

We have already lost the historical artefacts that were in the museum in Ramsgate Library to the fire and now for our remaining museum to be so vulnerable is just unacceptable.

MORE SUCCESS FOR CUBIT

The latest Operation Cubit has removed another 36 untaxed or abandoned cars from the streets of Thanet.

The most recent operation, which is led by Thanet District Council, also involves Kent Police, Kent County Council, the DVLA and Kent Fire and Rescue Service. During the week of Monday 9 March, the team targeted hot spots across the area, picking up 16 vehicles in Ramsgate, 12 from Cliftonville, six from Margate and two from Westgate.

Since April 2008, a total of 268 cars have been removed through Operation Cubit.

Owners can pay £260 (plus storage costs) to reclaim their vehicles and, of this money, £160 is refundable if they tax their vehicles within two weeks.

If they fail to either tax the vehicles or declare that they are off the road, then a follow-up visit is made to see if the vehicle is still being driven illegally and, if it is, it will be removed. If owners do not claim and pay for their vehicles, then they will either be crushed or sold.

Abandoned vehicles can be reported by calling 01843 577888.

RESULT FOR RED NOSE DAY ROMANS

Thanet district Council press release

Romans have charged into Thanet District Council offices, helping staff to raise more than £500 for Comic Relief.

The council's grounds maintenance team dressed up as Romans for Red Nose Day and raided council offices, collecting money from staff for Comic Relief. Staff contributed £546.01, with much of the money given as part of a dress down day.

Over the last few years, nearly £4,000 has been collected by the grounds maintenance team for both Comic Relief and Children in Need.

Cllr. Shirley Tomlinson, Cabinet Member for Environmental Services, said: "Our grounds maintenance team always do an excellent job of ensuring that staff give generously for charity and Comic Relief was no exception. They're not afraid to make fools of themselves to bring in cash for a good cause and, let's be honest, who would dare refuse a group of Romans asking for money?"

HELP OUT WITH COASTLINE SPRING CLEAN

Thanet district Council press release

Local people can clean up the Thanet coastline with a series of volunteering activities from the Thanet Coast Project.

Spring beach cleans are taking place later this month (March), with sessions taking place at Plumpudding, Minnis Bay between 10am and 1pm on Saturday 28 March and at Pegwell Bay at the same times on Sunday 29 March.

Ramsgate's wild Sea Garden is also the focus for a spring clean with a session planned on Saturday 4 April between 10am and 1pm with artist Ruth Cutler. Spring planting and maintenance will be carried out at the garden, which is next to the promenade car park, at the north end of the road leading down below the Granville Theatre. Help is needed with hoeing, weeding, collecting litter, constructing flint and chalk designs and planting.

Naomi Biggs, Thanet Coast Project Education Officer, said: "These sessions provide a great opportunity to help clean up our beautiful coastline after the ravages of winter. Our beaches could do with extra pairs of hands to help clear away rubbish that's been washed up over the last few months and our Sea Garden needs work to get it ready for spring visitors. We really value the work of our volunteers and we'd be lost without their help. We know, from their feedback, that they get a lot from volunteering."

Gloves and bags are provided, along with refreshments, which Tesco is supplying.

APPLICATIONS OPEN FOR STANDARDS COMMITTEE

Thanet district Council press release

Local people can now apply to play their part in upholding standards in public life, with applications open for Thanet District Council's Standards Committee.

The committee oversees the ethical standards of elected and other members of the district, town and parish councils in Thanet.

It has four independent members, one of whom serves as an independent chairman and another who serves as an independent vice chairman. Most of the committee's meetings take place in the early evening.

To be eligible to apply, you should not have been a member or officer at the council or a parish or town council within the last five years or be a relative or close friend of a member or officer at Thanet District Council.

Ideally, candidates should have an interest in standards in public life, high standards of personal integrity, be objective, independent and impartial and have experience of complaints or standards processes.

For an information pack, visit click here or call 01843 577207. The closing date for applications is Friday 3 April 2009.

PROJECT ENGAGE: FREE PILOT ACTIVITIES

Thanet district Council press release

A new project, to help young people access youth activities in Margate and Cliftonville, has launched a series of free pilot activities in the area.

Project Engage, which is being run by Pie Factory Music on behalf of Thanet Engage, has received money from the Safer Stronger Communities Fund (SSCF).

They have been talking to all age groups to find out what they think about youth activities in the Cliftonville and Margate areas, with the aim of finding out what young people and their parents think would work for them and to fill any gaps in provision that currently exist.

Following this work, two evenings of football and break dancing have already taken place for 11 to 18 year olds at the Quarterdeck Youth Centre, with another planned for this Monday (16 March). These have been organised by Project Engage and the Kent Refugee and Minority Support Group, who are also receiving funding from the SSCF.

Free disability training workshops for those working with young people are taking place in March and April and are being delivered by Project Engage and East Kent MENCAP. This training follows feedback that young people with disabilities often find it difficult to access mainstream provision. The training will equip providers with the information they need to be aware of when it comes to disability, enabling agencies to be more inclusive and making it easier for young people with disabilities to get involved.

Mike Andrea, a member of the SSCF Programme Board said: "The contribution of Project Engage to the improvement of youth services for those young people who currently find it hard to access these services is superb. It is encouraging to see a project that is taking the views of the public seriously and working hard to improve the quality of provision for the young people who need it most."

To find out more about future football and break dancing sessions or to book a place on a disability workshop, contact Steph Kailou, Project Engage Worker, on 01843 596777 or 0779 303 5044 or e-mail steph@piefactorymusic.com

Back to the Future – Destination History

Laura Sandys press release,

Last week we launched Destination History, an important initiative to place history at the heart of our non-seasonal marketing for visitors to Thanet and Sandwich. With over 40 organisations, tourist businesses and event organisers attending, the determination and passion to further promote and enhance our unique history in Thanet and Sandwich turned into some very positive action points that the group is going to take forward.

“I have always been amazed at the wonderful architecture, the history around every corner, our wars and our invasions. We have truly been at the front line of our country’s history – and we have a great story to tell visitors – whatever era or theme of history that they are interested in. This initiative will pull together all the groups that already do so much to promote our history and we were very pleased that Visit Thanet and Visit Kent will work with us to achieve our goals.

If we can attract an increase in non-seasonal visitors who are higher margin we will be able to create jobs in our low season, keep our local businesses working throughout the year and encourage more people to use our historic assets as part of our economic development.”
We will be developing historic maps, website pdf for people to upload to their sites, marketing ideas and some tourist packages. Visit Thanet will also be developing a website presence to promote our historical package.

If anyone would like to be put on our Destination History emailing list then please do contact me at laura@sandys.org.uk and I will keep you up to date with meetings and actions that we are taking to place our past at the heart of our future.

What’s new T D Cat

One part of the councils website that has significantly improved is the part where they put up documents like Reports and Minutes, some of them are even published in ordinary html so opening them doesn’t make my computer angry.

It does however have some serious problems the first being that there is no list of what’s new, so you have to trawl through all of it that takes about half an hour, so I won’t be doing it that often.

Obviously the best way to do this would be to have feeds enabled on their website so anything new that went anywhere on the thousands of pages would appear, like recent comments do on the sidebar of this blog.

Another problem is things seem to take an incredibly long time to appear, which means that they have lost a lot of their relevance when they do appear.

I think the problem here is a bit of a dark ages approach to publishing on the internet, by this I mean that there seems to be an assumption that you have to be especially trained or qualified to publish to the internet.

So it seems that once a council office has written something for publication on the web, it has to go off to the IT department for publication, delaying the whole matter.

I can assure anyone this needn’t be the case if you click on the comments link below this post and type your comment in the window that appears, then click on publish your comment, then you have published to the internet.

Anyway I have put links to the documents that have appeared recently that I found of interest below for anyone who doesn’t fancy a great trawl, the caps are not mine it’s all just pasted and copied from the councils website.

Kent International Airport - Night-time Noise Policy
http://tdc-mg-dmz.thanet.gov.uk/Published/C00000141/M00001512/$$$Minutes.doc.htm
Kent International Airport Variation to s.106 Agreement
http://tdc-mg-dmz.thanet.gov.uk/Published/C00000141/M00001512/AI00001543/$Annex1mgv.doc.htm
Cabinet Minutes of the meeting held on 12 February 2009 at 7.00 pm at Council Chamber
http://tdc-mg-dmz.thanet.gov.uk/Published/C00000151/M00001140/$$$Minutes.doc.htm
OVERVIEW AND SCRUTINY PANEL 27 January 2009
http://tdc-mg-dmz.thanet.gov.uk/Data/Overview%20and%20Scrutiny%20Panel/20090127/Minutes/SubIndex$Minutes.htm
Planning Committee Wednesday, 18th February, 2009 7.00 pm
http://tdc-mg-dmz.thanet.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=115&MId=1164&Ver=4

Main site

http://tdc-mg-dmz.thanet.gov.uk/ieDocHome.aspx?bcr=1