Dorset Flag

Wednesday, 30 April 2008

Snippet from Dorset Echo

If you can't read what it says to the left....

THE idea of creating a flag for Dorset has already turned into something more than just talk.

David White of Dorchester and a group of other flag enthusiasts have produced badges and cards and put in an order for real flags to fly showing a gold, white and red cross design chosen to symbolise the county.

One early bird snapping up a smart little badge was Leslie Phillips, former Mayor of Dorchester and a Dorset man through and through.

"Look what I've got," he said holding out the trophy for friends to admire.

"We all want one as well, " was the response.

No doubt supplies will soon filter through in sufficient quantities to meet demand.

If you want a badge, sticker, postcard or flag - then we have them....

Results of meeting with DCC.

Today Mssrs White, Brown and Chisholm, supporters of St Wite's Cross met with John Peake, Chairman of Dorset County Council, along with Sally Northeast, DCC Public Relations Manager.

Chris Brown and Alistair Chisholm in full Town Crier dress vocalised very much the frustration St Wite's campaign now finds itself in and how St Wite's Cross very much meets criteria laid down by the Flag Institute and at least has some historical bearing.

Sally understood this, but both John and herself still wished to see a more democratic approach. John Peake was also regretful at his statement in 2007 where he stated they would not create a flag.

The 'competition' will still go ahead, but it has been stated that there will now be a clear end date within the next couple of months. Concluding that there is nothing the St Wite Campaign can do about that, we will go along with it(perhaps reluctantly - we didn't want council interferance and Chris made this clear a few times.)

When all submissions are in, a panel selected from a cross-section of the Dorset community will make a shortlist of flags to be voted on. The shortlist will then be presented to the public in a publication - votes will likely be either by post, phone, email or on a website - this hasn't been finalised yet.

Alistair and myself made it very clear that the panel should have at least some heradic and vexillogical experts onboard and provided Sally with the Flag Institute's 'Flag Design' booklet as well as the NAVA 'Good Flag, Bad Flag' booklet.

Sally will use this information to create criteria that flags must meet if they are to be considered.

Hopefully this will be a speedy process and Sally seemed to indicate that it would be. A new press release will goto the Bournemouth and Dorset Echo's detailing the new 'rules'.

It was established in this meeting that the question was no longer 'should there be a Dorset flag' but 'What will the Dorset flag be'?

Bournemouth and Poole Boroughs at this stage have declined to be part of this. This does not mean that he people cannot adopt the winning flag or indeed, St Wite's Cross. The St Wite's Cross campaign will continue with large flags becoming available in under two weeks.

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Well, this is pretty much how I thought this meeting would go. It was worthwhile grilling them about what had previously been said. More importantly though, it was worth giving Sally the booklets with how a decent flag should be designed and to make it very clear that a flag needs to be simple and NOT have charges placed on it.

We are disappointed in what has happened, given how much time and work has gone into this from our end. So ours now becomes a campaign to win the vote as it were. We have no choice but to play along.

If you haven't, I would advise re-reading our detailed explanation for our choices of colour and why we truely believe St Wite's Cross should be the flag of Dorset.

Today is the day...

We meet John Peake today, chairman of Dorset CC. Peake has instigated his own 'public consultation' for a flag, after the success of our campaign.

Some designs appeared in the Dorset Echo today that are not on the website.

Yes, we may be biased - but seriously - meh.

My thoughts:

Flags are not concerned with colour co-ordination. If they were, we'd never notice them. They're meant to stand out in a crowd! They're supposed to clash in order for us to see them and take notice! Get over green and blue - seriously!!!

Please read here : http://www.nava.org/Flag%20Design/GFBF/gfbf-1.htm

One design is seriously 'meh'. Looks like a Scandinavian style flag with this years colours for your front room.

The other, a Jamaican reject flag with Scottish undertones. What?

Another, a verbal complete letdown in four shades.

Sorry for the criticism, but I don't see anything inspirational so far.....

Friday, 25 April 2008

Bournemouth Echo follow up

Bournemouth Echo have finally put up the piece involving John Peake:

http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/search/display.var.2220456.0.flag_for_the_people_by_the_people.php

You'll note that their piece is la lot less gushing than Dorset Echo's and they don't ask you to send in your design to them. In fact, the article in the Bournemouth Echo doesn't mention that he wants you to send in your ideas....at all.

Chris Brown, myself and Dorchester Town Crier Alistair Chisholm will be meeting with Mr Peake on 30th April to discuss things.

There are many, many things that need to be raised.

Wednesday, 23 April 2008

Yes, this is a setback.....

http://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/news/local/display.var.2217770.0.do_you_have_designs_for_a_flag_for_dorset.php

Dorset County Council Chairman John Peake has decided to open the field to everyone and his aunt. Now, this is strange that 8 months ago, he wasn't interested:

http://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/search/display.var.1580074.0.flag_calls_rejected_by_council.php"John Peake, chairman of Dorset County Council, said: "Dorset County Council now serves only part of the county since Bournemouth and Poole were given unitary status in 1997 and we therefore have no authority to introduce such a flag."A small number of people have, on occasions, raised with us the question of creating a new county flag, each with their own idea of a design."We have our own flag for our purposes which represents the area we serve but it is not appropriate to use this for the whole county as Bournemouth and Poole also have their own."

It was all over the press this time last year. Why didn't he start an initiative then? And indeed, if there has been groups that have approached them over the years, why didn't they start doing something then?

No details whatsoever have emerged at how this is to be undertaken - except, send your ideas to the Dorset Echo who will pass them on.

Jason Saber says "he has still given no details about how this so called competition is going to be arranged – just some sort of appeal to send in ideas – to whom? by when? He’s using the newspaper to do it – they will send the ideas to the council?? Can they be relied upon to do that? Surely the ideas should be sent directly to the council? Shouldn’t someone question why the council isn’t doing this directly but using some sort of intermediary? Is this a serious venture, or just gesture politics? Who is going to be the judge of this so called competition? A few councilors after an evening of drinks? It seems open ended i.e there’s NO closing date."

There's more to this that I can reveal at the moment, but this is somewhat of a backstab for us.

The whole reason we started this campaign was because the council weren't interested. Now that we've got going with it, they want to jump on the bandwagon and take over.

Point to note. Both the Dorset Echo and Bournemouth Echo knew about this last Friday. Which paper ran the story? Which one appears to have deliberately not?