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Well done Sue. But the trouble is this. If I were cruising to New York I would visit a park, Central Park. It has a reputation, some cache' and is a well know tourist attraction. Now, reverse that trip. Cruise from the U.S. to Dover and would you really want to visit a local park, no matter how good we know it to be? I suspect not. It will be major historical sites that come first, so Dover Castle, Canterbury Cathedral and then London will be very high on most agendas.
Somehow we need to chang that thinking by packaging Dover as a place to visit in it's own right. I can't help thinking that folks need a reason to visit somewhere and that reason is usually linked to something happening. Therefore we need to really promote the events in Dover as well as the immovable objects, and then perhaps one of those events will develop a reputation sufficient enough to make people want to visit Dover.
However, as we all know, Dover discourages anything the public might enjoy and events that do squeeze through the net are rarely publicised sufficiently to make them outstanding successes.
There are lots of bodies involved in putting on events in Dover, and somehow they need to be brought under one umbrella responsible for helping with planning, logistics, legals and promoting for the whole group. That umbrella needs to contain the relevant expertice which obviously includes the experienced event promoters as well as civil servants.
Some while back Dover celebrated a major anniversary and there was an idea to have a year long series of events to celebrate the fact. Of the meetings I attended on behalf of DCAL, I can only say they were unsructured, uncontrolled, amateur, and destined to ensure failure. Not only did we have event groups thinking in silos we had local politicos point scoring and trying to take credit, for what? The meetings were far too late for any sensible funding to be gained, publicity materials discussed didn't materialise and generally there was lack of cohesion or compromise.
That is all water under the bridge, but serves to remind us what mistakes can be made if the structure isn't right and the leadership is weak.
I could go on, and I dare say Roger would have quite a bit to add.
We could do better for Dover and the folks who live here, but will we?