The die is cast on the game board

Well that’s it. The die has been cast. Public nominations for the Chair of the new Dumfries Town Board closed at 5pm yesterday and the full council will ruminate over who shall be appointed, making their final decision known on February 27th.

This new position will then be responsible for forming a board obliged to meet by April 1 and then submit a plan by August 1 that determines how the capital investments of £2 million per annum for 10 years (if it keeps coming …) should be made in Dumfries. Good luck to them. It’s a tall order to cohere a group of people who won’t have worked together into getting a costed plan together by August.

Bye bye curmudgeons

I’m not excited about the money. Greater sums are needed and are available for the right kind of initiatives. But I do see an opportunity here to break a mould and do something new. In choosing this new chairperson and to a certain degree thereby influencing the direction of the rest of the board, I do hope that the entire Council will be bold. I do hope they will give new faces and fresh blood a shot at this, rather than the bilious gaggle of gossipy curmudgeons that spew negativity on everything, quick to anger rather than looking for solutions through cooperation. Down with the usual suspects who have no sense of when it’s time to stand aside.

I suggest the board adopt a motto from the words of Shakespeare.

Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none

It’s a 400 year old idea that still seems to leave us struggling.

Who’s not in the runnning?

FFS Heathhall and Locharbriggs, youse should be raging. Get yersels recognised as part of Dumfries once and for all. Dae yis seriously no think yer Doonhamers?

Take courage

Anyway I’ll leave y’all with the words of Raymond Williams to wish the Council well in their decision making.

To be truly radical is to make hope possible, rather than despair convincing.

But as always, remember, hope is not a strategy.