Martin Wise Cabinet Member for Thanet District Council’s press department on the new press department rules.

Martin Wise Cabinet Member for Thanet District Council’s press department. 

I have done my best with the picture, in the circumstances I didn’t want to use one from the council’s website as I don’t want to get in to trouble for breach of copyright and understand that asking to use their picture could take a month before they answer.

I asked martin for his position on the chanced press department policy and he was courteous enough to reply for publication here it is.

Michael,

It is not the sending out of information by E-mail to bloggers, it is

the flood of requests that follow for each one that is the problem. If

you multiply your own enquiries by the number that come from other

bloggers, and the media, then you will see that the number of requests

become unmanageable for the resource available.

Like it or not we are living in changed times and have to face many new

realities, and so we will cut the cloth according to what we can afford.

We cannot afford to give instantaneous response to every request for

information, but I am content that there are sufficient channels

available for the public to get the information they need about the

Council and its activites without the press officer being constantly

on-call to every individul seeking information.

Whilst I acknowledge that your blogs receive a large number of hits each

day, and do provide much useful historical information that is both

enlightening and interesting, I am not sure that it is the thirst for

factual information that drives most people to them. From observation (I

check out Thanet on Line several times a day), and without wishing to be

controversial, I would suggest that many of your readers are more

interested in tittle tattle or their own desire to rubbish the Council

at every opportunity. Even you must agree that Bash the Council is a

popular sport round these parts?

Whether you or your readers accept the point, it is my view that the

vast majority of Council officers and members are trying to do a good

job and for the most part are succeeding, despite the best efforts of

some to rubbish their activities. As for the Cabinet, we are as intent

on identifying areas of weakness and working with officers to deliver

improvement. As well as the huge day to day responsibilities of each of

the services we are acutely aware that each have a number of long

running issues that must be resolved if Thanet is to provide the jobs

and future prosperity that our residents (young people particularly),

deserve. Our focus is therefore to identify these and then ensure that

do what is necessary to get a result.

I am happy for you to publish any of this that you wish.

Regards,

Martin.

I also asked the council’s press department what the new situation is, but they haven’t replied to me.

Finally I put in a foi request asking them what their new policy is about, I would say that in terms of Thanet District Council information my press release blog and this blog are the two main sources, apart from the council’s own websites. I think I have asked the council’s press department about ten questions this year so I was surprised to be boycotted in this way.

In the foi request I have written I have tried to cover all of the angles, the difficulty here is that the council may take up to a month to reply, so one has to try to cover all everything. The problem from my point of view is that I don’t really understand their motives, here is the link to the request http://www.thanetonline.com/tdcfoi/

I have suspended my press release blog, although once I have discovered what the council’s criteria is for being an accredited news source I may be able to fulfil it and reinstate that blog.

I will add to this if I get more time.        

Thanet District Council’s new war on the prominent Thanet Blogs

I have just received an email from the council saying that they won’t be sending me, or any other prominent bloggers, any more of their press releases and presumably no more of their accompanying photographs either.

Apparently they are only going to send press releases to the mainstream media, they also say that I can no longer ask the press department questions on behalf of my readership and any questions I have should be addressed to their freedom of information department.

From past experience this would mean that the average time they take to answer a question would be a month, with the maximum time about a year.  

Particularly interesting as I notice from the counter thingy on the sidebar that the last 30 days viewings for this blog have exceeded the 20,000 mark.

The more cynical may think that the council offering considerable income to the mainstream, through advertising has something to do, with this.

I will add to this when I have asked the council’s press department about it.   

Sunday Ramble and some pictures of Quex garden and the Spitfire and Hurricane Memorial Museum today.

GEEKISH NOTES.

I have noticed that some bloggers are having difficulties uploading pictures to their blogs, this may be due to using internet explorer particularly with if you are still using Windows XP.

In a general sense I think this due to the wealth level in Thanet where a substantial number of people are using old computers and operating systems, this means that the latest version of Internet Explorer, version 9 is something they can’t install.

As far as I can see from my web statistics the average Thanet user is using out of date and unsupported software, myself included. There is no easy way for me to update I have four scanners and five printers, most of which don’t work properly with Windows 7 drivers.

Fortunately the solution for blogger and images is to download and use the Google Chrome browser and use this to publish your blog posts, this also overcomes problems with copying and pasting into the blogger publisher.

RAMBLE.

The weather was to unpredictable for anything much today, I had contemplated the French Weekend in Sandwich, but didn’t fancy wet children and cameras.

Sorry about this if you were on tenterhooks for some pictures, they will mostly be gardens at Quex as one can go into he house when it rains, on this sort of day Quex is really the only place in Thanet that the children will tolerate for several hours.

The Turner Contemporary usually has some sort of indoor activity for children, but the other adults just get bored after about half an hour of the gallery, it just isn’t really big enough to make a family day of.

My own approach to art galleries and museums, photographing and sketching exhibits and the people looking at them, usually causes some sort of problem eventually.

For instance photographing the events like the Dancing Queens or the Margate Meltdown seems to be no problem at all, even getting in really close for the videos or asking people to pose seems to be very acceptable.

In and around historical attractions the security soon become agitated and in art galleries people are inclined to start behaving like primitives who think you are trying to steal either their souls or the essence of the exhibited art.

Gardens seem to be an exception, a sort of neutral ground.

Fortunately here in Thanet people have got used to me and seeing the pictures on the web, but there is nonetheless a tension or strain involved with taking photographs that doesn’t seem to be present when photographing gardens.

QUEX, MUSEUM, HOUSE, GARDEN, BARN.

Although primarily the museum is a natural history museum of the stuffed animal and bones type, not something that is really my bag, although it provides considerable entertainment for my children. There is a considerable cultural artefact oriental china collection, which from an arts point of view rivals anything I have ever seen from the point of view of diversity.

I would think most people would be entertained by the collection for several hours, oh yes there is also a considerable weapons collection, once again not really my bag.

Photography isn’t allowed in the museum so you will just have to take my word for it that it is worth going.

The house is very much a medium sized Regency Country House with about eight largish rooms open to the public, at one time more of it was open, including the nursery and a bit of the below stairs part.

It is furnished in the manner of gentry of the time,parts of it with an oriental influence, there are some interesting clocks, maritime paintings and associated Napoleonic items, a Congreve Clock in the library. The atmosphere of the house and the friendliness of the staff make it pleasant to visit with children.

The gardens are my favourite part and despite the rather iffy weather today I managed to take some pictures, links to them below.

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop611/id6.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop611/id7.htm

As gardens in East Kent go these rate among the best, I am still learning the buttons on my replacement camera but I hope the pictures give you some idea.

We ate at Quex Barn, this is on the way into Quex Park there is a shop where thy sell quality produce and a restaurant that is very good, food and drink for four adults and two children coming out at under £10 per head, link takes you to the pictures.

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop611/id8.htm

This is a good place to eat if you have children, the staff are very friendly and accommodating.

On the way home we stopped off at the Spitfire and Hurricane Memorial Museum, this has free entrance, link to the pictures below.

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop611/id9.htm

Margate Art Lovely Lovelys is 120

Lovelys the art shop in Northdown Road, Cliftonville in Margate is celebrating its 120^th anniversary, I went there today to get some bits and pieces and they have just opened a contemporary art gallery upstairs.

The picture of the advertisement above is from the book I publish “Margate and Westgate With Birchington 1903-04”

The exhibition on there, starting today and on until 9^th July is called “Fish and Ships” this is three dimensional pictures and sculptures made of papier-mâché (French lit; mashed paper). This is well worth a look at.

I once made a full sized rowing boat out of papier-mâché and can imagine it wouldn’t be easy stuff to sculpt well.

I was very taken by the brush and the three dimensional picture of Lovelys shop.

When it comes to buying artist’s materials Lovelys is the place to go in Thanet, they have some very good special offers and a comprehensive high quality stock.

As I mentioned in a previous post I have taken up painting and drawing again after a forty year gap and decided the painting had better be watercolour, at the moment I am at the pre amateur stage with this so am using mostly the quality of materials that children use. However there are some things you just have to buy from an art shop, one of these is gummed tape so you can stretch the paper, otherwise it goes all crinkly when you get it wet, another is a small flat pocket water bottle, unless you are going to make your own water, as it were.

When the need for these came up I had to visit a certain well known shopping centre with a chain art shop, they didn’t have either. The gummed tape in particular surprised me as you can’t really paint with watercolour without it and they had masses of watercolour paint and paper.

Anyway Lovelys had a selection of both.

Bit of a problem with the my new camera, I still haven’t got used to it so that it takes me much longer to get the settings right, taking pictures in a relatively small place like Lovelys, moving very slowly and pressing the wrong buttons tends to unnerve people.

I wanted to get the three dimensional pictures to look three dimensional, sorry to say this didn’t work too well, anyway here is what was on the camera card http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop611/id5.htm

Midweek Ramble

A few pictures at taken yesterday, see http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/611/id5.htm with a few notes here on them.

Granville Marina Restaurant is coming on a pace although my concerns about the cliff maintenance behind the extended part don’t seem to have been addressed yet, everything else about it looks ok.

The Pleasurama development seems to have pretty much ground to a halt, at the pace they are moving I would think it will take several decades to build, it is a great pity that the other parts of this prime site are not being used for some sort of visitor attraction while the delays continue.

Something has gone wrong with one of the outfall pipes on the main sands so that whatever fluid is in it, is coming up through the beach. Obviously after heavy rain there will be discharges from overflow and emergency outfall pipes, I would say that this happens pretty much everywhere and isn’t peculiar to Thanet.

The problem in Thanet though seems to be a lack of local coordination, so that if there is some sort of contamination no action is taken. The tests go on with out any qualification, so we lose our Red Flags (sorry correction, it’s red rags and blue flags isn’t it, I should have written Blue Flags)  . No warning signs go up when the sea is known to be contaminated by a discharge, so people lack confidence they are swimming in safe water. In short all of the work is being done the tests being done the discharges being recorded, but lack of basic coordination means that it is all pretty much wasted.

Ramsgate Maritime Museum is still closed and I will try to find out why, the prominent council owned assets in Ramsgate are becoming something of a local joke.

A jewellers shop that was in Margate High Street have moved their shop to Harbour Street in Ramsgate and will be open soon. A sad side effect of Margate High Street declining to the point that it isn’t possible for them to trade there any more.

The community café in King Street Ramsgate that was run by the charity Mind and suddenly closed seems to be being opened by another charity The Skillnet Group, who support people with learning difficulties.

The last picture shows the bad state of King Street, of course much of this is down to the council not implementing the “Impact” pedestrianisation project properly and as the public consultation wanted.

On to the blogs.

An interesting comment on the last post from by John Hoyler pointing out that Laura Sandys has asked a question in parliament about the export of live animals through Ramsgate harbour.

As far as I can see the council don’t have any animal welfare policy in place, which is something they may have to look at. As I have pointed out before as a drinker of cow’s milk I haven’t really got a leg to stand on over this, the majority of live animal exports are due to all of the unwanted calves produced to ensure milk production and the lack of demand for veal in the UK.

With four children and a limited income, I am afraid it is a case of doing ones best but economic restrictions mean we have to consume products that support farming practices that are the norm for the majority.

Blog post of the week has to be Thanet Waves “Who is the sexiest councillor” see http://www.thanetwaves.co.uk/2011/06/who-is-tdcs-sexiest-councillor.html what a choice.

Newspapers.

The Isle of  Thanet Gazette and Thanet Times website seems to have gone totally down the pan, even the papers journalists don’t know how to find the recent articles there.

Your Thanet that stopped being a paper newspaper recently and now only have an online paper with very little local content apart from press releases mostly from the council, have started sending me spam emails.

Thanet Extra seem to be pretty much the same as usual see http://www.kentonline.co.uk/thanet_extra/news/todays_news.aspx

The problem of how local papers deal with the internet is a very tricky one and I think goes back many years to when local papers first started to produce free papers, the idea being that the advertising would pay for the journalism. What started out with the odd free paper has had its up and down spirals   

Ultimately the problem with the internet is as once something written has become an electronic file, how do you get anyone to pay anything for it? From this follows the question, how do writers get paid?

I write what you read here during odd moment in the bookshop when I wouldn’t be doing anything else and have never considered deriving any income from doing so, but for the people who derive their living from writing this is a serious problem. 

After some fiddling about I think you will find the following link takes you to the online versions of most of last Friday’s Isle of Thanet Gazette stories http://www.thisiskent.co.uk/people/Isle%20of%20Thanet%20Gazette/profile.html 

Thanet District Council Cabinet Reshuffle

There is what I would call a strong rumour that the cabinet is to be reshuffled with some Labour representation.

Sorry about the rather short post there, a busy morning in the bookshop, I will do my best to expand what I have heard.

It’s gossip really, so I wouldn’t take much heed of it.

The cabinet is to have a reshuffle and as you would expect in Thanet this is a totally behind closed doors affair, I think the idea is to give the less senior of the senior men more responsibility, while the more senior of the senior men get less.

Apparently the Isle of Thanet Gazette wanted to get the press release before everyone else, so that they could meet the copy deadline for Friday’s paper and so they tried the old journo trick of pretending that they knew more than they did, this backfired.

With the Gazettes website blown to pieces, all the links to their stories sending you to error pages or advertising, they are reliant on old fashioned paper and of course their FaceBook site http://www.facebook.com/thanetgroup where they say:

Isle of Thanet Gazette

Thanet District Council will announce the new cabinet positions today. The Isle of Thanet Gazette team believes that the following councillors will be made cabinet members for the said positions: Councillor Chris Wells for Housing and Community Safety; Councillor Bob Bayford for Finance; Councillor Alisdair Bruce for Regeneration, Port and Tourism; Councillor Martin Wise for Internal Performance (Thanet council staff performance and council overall); Councillor Simon Moores for Waste and Parks. The announcement will be confirmed later today and we will bring you the news as we have it.

The cabinet don’t seem to want to release any press release until they have shown it to the Labour group, and certainly wouldn’t tell a lowly blogger like me until last.

I am not really sure if there will be a Conservative group press release or if this will only be a council press release. 


The real problems though relate to the no overall majority business and the fact that there are no councillors from the two main Thanet towns in the cabinet.

I will add to this one as more information becomes available.

Bucket and Spade Old Motor Vehicle Run Ramsgate 2011 Pictures

These are straight off the camera card so some of them will be pretty bad as I am getting used to anew camera at the moment and haven’t mastered all of its buttons yet.

I will try to enhance them a bit tomorrow, I am afraid it was a case of rain stopped play for me.

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/bs2011/index.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/bs2011/id3.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/bs2011/id4.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/bs2011/id5.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/bs2011/id6.htm

Here are last year’s pictures

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/bs2010/

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/bs2010/id3.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/bs2010/id4.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/bs2010/id5.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/bs2010/id6.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/bs2010/id7.htm

WhatEver Happened to the Isle of Thanet Gazette?

Their website that is usually at www.thisiskent.co.uk/thanet seems to have gone, I asked Mr Google who usually seems to know where websites have moved to but he doesn’t know either, nor does Mrs Bing.

Can one lose a newspaper’s website on the internet, does this sort of thing happen to The Fun Loving Sun? I ask myself.

This is my fault really, I usually buy a copy on Fridays, but I forgot this week, I do sometimes and then I cheat by looking online.

The http://www.thisiskent.co.uk website has a section called “Where I Live” this lists Canterbury Cranbrook Faversham Rochester Sevenoaks Tonbridge Tunbridge Wells Whitstable and Crowborough. No sign of Thanet, perhaps we have vanished and not the newspaper.