|
|
Havant Borough Partnership
Letters written to Havant Borough Partnership seeking information relevant to the promotion my alternative career |
|
|
|
|
"Remembering Lorelei", The Book Technology Diversification Centre The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
|
Introduction to correspondence with Havant Borough Partnership
As I had not heard from Mr Marshall, Managing Director of Havant Borough Partnership, about the Memberships of Havant Borough Partnership Board, following a letter to Roger Sherlock, of Havant Borough Council and the reply from Mrs Cheverton, and time was pressing in terms of other correspondence, I decided to write to him directly.
Mr P. Marshall, Managing Director, Havant Borough Partnership, 49B Market Parade, Havant, Hampshire, PO9 1PY Ref: RLK1227 24th January 2001
Dear Mr Marshall, Board Memberships Havant Borough Partnership and others Following my letter of 16th January 2001 to Roger Sherlock of Havant Borough Council (reprint enclosed) I received a reply from Mrs Cheverton, P.A. to the Chief Executive, by return of Post. I was pleasantly surprised, not only by the speed of response but also the tone of Mrs Cheverton's letter. The inclusion of a tourist map of Wesermarsch was very appropriate as my new, replacement, career has strong tourism and publicity connections, not just for this region but Germany as well. The local Chamber of Commerce realises that as does the German-British Chamber, to which they introduced me. As far as my request for information on the present composition of the Board of Havant Borough Partnership was concerned she said that she had passed this on to you. Although I am aware that not a great deal of time has passed there is a degree of urgency for a number of reasons. There are developments and it is appropriate that the Members of the Board should be aware of those. Similar reasoning applies to the Members of the Board that was set up to oversee my Project and what it was turned into. So it would help to know their E-mail addresses. I have a draft E-mail ready to send to the Portsmouth and South East Hampshire Chamber of Commerce, following the very helpful introduction I was given to Dr Atenstaedt of the German-British Chamber. Because of the positive developments resulting from that, the promotion of my alternative career, the Web Site and so on, the E-mail will be circulated elsewhere. The distribution currently stands at over seventy, and rising. Most are to people in Britain but Europe and the United States plays an important part, because off the German connection (plus a lesser French one) and the oft received opinion that it will "go a bomb" in the States, as well as renewing contacts with senior business people from there. (I have even located a route to Richard Bach whose life story is the only one that stands comparison with mine, except that I have the unique added German extra that I talked to Dr Atenstaedt for so long about and which could (should) encourage tourism, here and in Germany.) If nothing else, it will prevent the Members of the Boards from being "caught on the hop". Obviously, I am well aware of some of them but not their E-mail addresses, to which it is, obviously, easier to append the relevant parts of the Web Site than conventional mail. Besides, as it is information that I would have thought was publicly available, the Council should be able to simply provide a sheet of paper with the information laid out on it, as Mike Bedford of the Council did many months ago, though that is an old version and there was no E-mail information anyway. For related reasons, details of those present (and not present) at the Board Meeting connected with the Project at the time of my cessation of involvement in/exclusion from would be helpful. Probably understandably, I did not receive any minutes of that meeting, though I never received any for the one before that either. The E-mail to the local Chamber of Commerce has been held back for some time already. If necessary, I will have to go with it and add an explanation for any lack of inclusions.
I note from the Havant Borough Partnership Brochure that: The Partnership is contracted, "to articulate local business and community views, support and actively promote economic development, help regenerate local business communities and to support both business and community projects". "New events and markets, Christmas lighting, flowers, fund raising, town guides, marketing and promotions are just part of the support provided for the town centre economies. Identify strategic objectives for town centre vitality and regeneration." "At the new Broadmarsh Business Centre at Harts Farm Way, the Technology Centre will provide opportunities and support for local businesses to promote themselves through internet and e-commerce facilities." "Considering a change of direction? Thinking about expansion? Looking for new customers and suppliers? Embarking on a new project? HBP can help you get the most from the area and provide the business expertise to get the right results."
I have long been of the view that the Borough, both Council and Partnership, should have been assisting with my other career if what was in its brochures and other publications were not just empty words, quite apart from other matters. Going by the above, as well as what has been written elsewhere, the Borough should be going, more or less, flat out to market me and help me improve my Web Site, among numerous other things, especially as I have begun to generate more support abroad than from the region, apart from exceptions like the Chamber of Commerce, of course. Moreover, it should have been doing so for at least the past two years, instead of completely ignoring me, until last week. From correspondence alone the Council and Partnership have been aware of those matters for that long. The present Web Site is clear and functional, though not quite as good as it might be. That is because I had to teach myself how to build a Web Site from scratch --- not a good advertisement for help available in the region. I have also had to make promotional connections for the Site myself, though, fortunately, I have already been published to some extent, have started to make more progress in that field and genre, and am developing more contacts, including Web Sites and Web Rings, only too willing to provide connections. As stated elsewhere, we are already at a "Richard-Lorelei" follow-on address in the United States, search engine submissions have been made and E-mails have gone to relevant people, including Web Masters, in the United Sates, Germany etc., e.g. Wilfried Wittkowsky, a fellow engineer and the Web Master at Wesermarsch. I am fortunate in that, although there are millions of Web Sites a certain unusual person is considerably rarer than one in a million and makes my/our Site completely different, unique. I am not only "considering a change of direction", I have been forced into one since my engineering career was, effectively, wrecked by events in Havant. I always was intending to go public, or more public, with my other aspect but, had I not been stopped, I would by now being doing so, almost certainly, as an Associate Professor of Brunel University, having already set up a major technical and business facility for the region and the South of England. It would also have given me a considerable amount of leverage to generate massive amounts of sponsorship (see Web Site). Now I have to do things in the reverse order, a much harder way. My engineering career and second career would, by now, be running in parallel. Havant and the surrounding region would have benefited from both. The commercial possibilities of that were, I would have thought, blatantly obvious. Certainly numerous conversations with others have resulted in the same conclusion. Yes, Brunel University do know about it, two Pro-Vice Chancellors; Professor Mike Bevis, to some extent Professor Heinz Wolf, and other Professors; Peter Russell, Director of the Science Park, Philipa le Marquand, Head of Publicity; Sue Curly, Alumni Officer; to a degree the Vice Chancellor, etc., etc. The reactions varied from acceptance, to interest to fascination. Overall, it did not faze them one bit. (See Web Site.) There are bound to be some people who think I am "barking" and that I made it up. The shear mass of material, checkable events and many people (mostly local) involved almost completely precludes that. Besides, having had everything else taken from me, I have little, if anything, left to lose. Havant could still put matters right, to some extent at least. I suppose it depends on whether the Borough is prepared to go to Damascus or not. The Site consists of twenty-two Web Pages, equivalent to about a hundred sheets of A4 paper if printed out. The origins of the Technology Diversification Centre and what happened to it originally constituted only about 10% of the Site; the rest was the promotion of my other aspect. The inclusion of letters to Mike Bedford, Roger Sherlock and yourself, plus material resulting from conversations with Councillors, will have increased that, though probably not by much, particularly as the other part is growing quite fast as well. The purpose of this letter was to elicit the requested information as quickly as possible. I had a feeling that something like the rest of the letter might follow. Anyway, the Site visitors might be interested. So, the information I would like, ideally by return. As for the rest, that is up to Havant. Since Mrs Cheverton's letter appeared to, possibly, herald a new positive attitude from Havant Borough Council, I responded immediately in case the Council really was willing to be constructive. Other than that, there is nothing much to be done about the rest unless you know H.G. Wells extremely well, or have some other means of access to a time machine, though I assure you that I know a great deal more about time than many other people (again see the Web Site). I created, almost, a large positive for the region. Havant turned it into a huge negative. Part of the purpose of the Web Site was to seek White Knights to recreate the positive. I am not interested in discussions or arguments. At this stage the Web Site visitors and others can judge for themselves. Just the details of the Boards will do nicely. However, if the Borough Council is willing to be constructive, then, no doubt, such actions will be seen as such by those same persons.
Yours sincerely,
Richard King
Copies: Roger Sherlock, Economic Development Officer, Havant Borough Council Mrs Hilda Cheverton, P.A. to Chief Executive, Havant Borough Council Web Site |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Links> |
Home Page ** About Me ** Jo ** Lorelei ** Cathy ** "Remembering Lorelei", The Book ** Lives Remembered ** Healing and Healing Groups ** Technology Diversification Centre ** Havant ** Business Ethics ** The Good, The Bad and The Ugly ** Jeanne D'Arc ** Diana, Princess of Wales ** Marie Rheinhart (Telepath) ** Coincidences ** My Family ** Directory of Related Links |