New Mayor of Medway elected
Posted by Alan Collins on Thursday, May 8th, 2008 at 08:02

Alan Collins congratulates Cllr David Carr on his election as Mayor of Medway

Rainham North Councillor David Carr has been officially elected Mayor of Medway, at the Annual Meeting of the Full Council.

Cllr Carr took over from Cllr Val Goulden, who has served Medway fantastically over the past year, at the meeting at the Corn Exchange in Rochester last night.

Over the coming year, Cllr Carr will have to perform a good few hundred duties, beginning with an official photo shoot today and then the Medway Rugby Club’s Annual Dinner on Friday.

I believe that Cllr Carr is an excellent choice of Mayor, a position elected from and by Medway’s 55 councillors, and have no doubt that he will undertake his duties professionally, independently* and with great enthusiasm.

* The Mayoralty is a non-partisan position, so I have refrained from referring to Cllr Carr’s political group and will continue to do so for the duration of the Municipal year.

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Friday, May 2, 2008
Posted by Alan Collins on Saturday, May 3rd, 2008 at 16:28

Medway Messenger

Hardly a champion on democracy

I READ with anger the hypocritical comments made by Labour Cllr Paul Godwin, comparing Medway Conservatives to Robert Mugabe.

Perhaps Cllr Godwin can tell me when Gordon Brown attended the Robert Mugabe School of Democracy, having failed to hold an election when he was appointed Prime Minister, a referendum on the EU Constitution (sorry, should that have read Lisbon Treaty? It’s so easy to get confused between the two) and giving all Cabinet appointments and chairs of all Parliamentary Committees to members of the ruling party.

I am sure Cllr Godwin would like to make out that he is some kind of champion for democracy, but his party has hardly been a shining example of democracy in action in recent years and he certainly has no right to lecture other parties on how to conduct democracy.

Perhaps Cllr Godwin would also like to write to Gordon Brown and ask him to invite Tory Treasury spokesman Justine Greening to be the chairman of the Treasury Committee. Either that or accept that they lost the election in Medway for good reason, and that the present system works perfectly well in both ensuring proper scrutiny is undertaken and negative bitterness from Labour and Liberal councillors doesn’t adversely affect the people of Medway.

Alan Collins
Goudhurst Road,
Twydall, Gillingham

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When did that happen … and why?
Posted by Alan Collins on Thursday, April 24th, 2008 at 21:34

Yes I know I said I wouldn’t post until I had finished my coursework, but two things are screaming at me at the moment.

Firstly, I have just read the report of last Thursday’s meeting of the Full Council. Apart from listing under Councillors present Councillor “Ward” (they did a similar thing last year, after the local elections, when Cllr Mrs Prodger had stood down) it hardly makes for exciting reading.

Except, that is, unless you are a resident of Goudhurst Road (I told you it was something screaming at me). For Liberal Councillor Andy Stamp had presented a petition “from 226 residents asking the Council to put a zebra crossing in Goudhurst Road”. 226 residents? I know for a fact I am not one of them, and there’s a good chance not one member of my family signed it.

So when did they collect signatures? And why do they think a zebra crossing would be worthwhile in Goudhurst Road? Could this, per chance, be related to last year’s submission of a petition calling for residents-only parking in Westerham Close, the home of Liberal Councillor Maureen Ruparel? After all, it is the only semi-main road she has to cross to get to Twydall Shops!

The question as to why still has to be asked. Surely even Liberals cannot want to waste local residents’ money. I mean, Goudhurst Road isn’t exactly difficult to cross even at its busiest! The question has to be asked, by myself, by my parents, by other residents: why? What is the point? Well, I think only the Liberals of Medway can answer that - and answer it they must to ensure that their already somewhat dubious credibility isn’t lost forever.

And the second thing? Well, you see there was a teacher’s strike today, and… Oh, never mind, I’ll post it later, once I have completed my Spanish coursework.

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Fitness test
Posted by Alan Collins on Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008 at 23:14

As part of my weight loss I am using the RAF Fit to lead training program, which starts with a short fitness test.

Embarrassingly, I did terribly, although I will still publish the results below. Of course the whole idea is to show how much of an improvement you can make over the six (or in my case, five) weeks.

Sit-ups in one minute: 30
Press-ups in one minute: 11
Time taken to run 1.5 miles: 20 minutes

Matt and I ran from my house to a spot just short of RMGS and back - a route which we painfully worked out as being 1.5 miles. It is the route which will be used again at the end of the five weeks.

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Busy busy busy
Posted by Alan Collins on Sunday, April 20th, 2008 at 23:36

I am just about to get a much needed sleep. I have spent most of the holiday sleeping for many unspeakable hours, but this past weekend has worn me out.

After an approximate getting to bed time of one o’clock yesterday morning, I was up again at about 06:30/06:45 so that I could be in work by 07:30, leaving there at 15:00.

I had an hour to myself yesterday afternoon before heading down to the RAFA Club for the Y Factor final. I was there by 16:30, getting everything ready in my mind - as I was both DJ’ing and performing alongside Matt.

We practiced when he arrived at 17:30 - a lot in fact - and decided Everybody Needs Somebody to Love was our better song. Then the technical difficulties started: the microphones messed around. During our song the backing track went silent for a second, throwing us off for a bit - enabling our entertaining song to be pure entertainment for all the wrong reasons.

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