A mobile signal for Seil

[NickB]

Petitions collected and delivered to Balvicar Stores, Nick.

Thanks Beetlejuice. I will collect them tomorrow and co-ordinate them all into one document along with the online petition and the interesting comments people made.

I intend to phone Alan Reid's office to let him known that I will present the petition on his visit to Balvicar on Wednesday morning. After that we can reinstate copies of the paper petitions in the shops to (hopefully) gather more signatures and subsequently present it again to Mike Russell at some point, or even perhaps to Mike Mackenzie . . . though frankly I am surprised that none of MM's prolific press releases to date since his election have covered this issue.

Perhaps I should give the Oban Times a quick ring in case they want to include this as a follow-up to their previous piece.

[Beetlejuice]

Good plan to contact the OT and keep the momentum going. With the on-line and paper sign-ups there should be over 200 signatories now.

[NickB]

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I am in the process of putting together the various bits of the petition.

So far:

141 people have signed the online petition
120 people have signed the petition in the Balvicar shop
26 people have signed copies in various places in Ellenabeich

. . . making a grand total of 287 signatures so far.

I have photocopied the paper petitions and will be returning the originals to Balvicar Shop later today as I have no doubt we can collect more signatures. Beetlejuice, or someone, what about putting one in Highland Arts? Easdale Island museum?

(You can download a blank as a PDF file HERE)

I am correlating the photocopies plus a printout of the online signatures and the online comments. These will be presented pretty much 'as-is' to our Westminster MP Alan Reid tomorrow at 10am at Balvicar shop. Mr. Reid's office engaged me in conversation at some length and agreed that it was ridiculous we did not have a mobile signal in this day and age.

I have informed the Oban Times, and while it is unlikely they will be down for the presentation - which I imagine will be very low-key - I did have a fairly detailed chat with someone on the news desk and there should be something in this week's paper.

There is not a community council meeting until some time towards the end of September. I think we should repeat the correlating exercise then and get someone (not me, I am allergic to community council meetings) to present the compiled results at that meeting. We should have well over 300 signatures by then.

As Spiderman would say, Onwards and Upwards !

[Beetlejuice]

Fantastic!
Pats on the back all round - and especially to Nick for doing the work of getting the petition rolling, co-ordinated and presented.
Could Kathy take a photo of you handing it over, Nick?
I'll certainly put a petition in Highland Arts, but I'm allergic to Easdale Island and think I've already done my bit over there!

[Gavin Rae]

Great News BUT ARQIVA the company awarded the £150m contract for the Mobile Infrastructure Project seem to have already phased this initiative

Argyll and Bute and presumably the Isle of Seil are in phase 4 out of 5 - not good news in my opinion !

Could this be highlighted to Alan Reid MP (if he does not already know this !!!)

See link dated July 2013

http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/ru ... a-2-123372

Snoman

[Beetlejuice]

You're quite right snoman. They're doing the easier bits first ... of course ... instead of taking on board the fact that "remote rural areas" (more difficult) are actually the ones in most need.
All we ask for is A MAST, for goodness sake!!
I just took some old "brick" mobile 'phones to an Oban charity shop to be recycled and sent to people in small villages in Africa so that they can keep in touch with each other and improve their trade, contact doctors etc. etc.
Hello?
We're less in touch here than people are in Central Africa!

[NickB]

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That's the petition delivered to Alan Reid MP.

I spoke to him about Arquiva's scoping process and he said he thought the five phases were planned to happen fairly rapidly one after the other. He also said they would be scoping in September, that he would pass the petition results on to them and would suggest that they might profitably visit Seil. I suggested we could perhaps organise a local meeting with Arquiva reps if they are in the area. Generally he was sympathetic and understood the issues involved. It is particularly inconvenient for him, of course, to be out of touch with his office when on these walkabouts to the wild places of Argyll

Meanwhile, the petition is still online, is back in the Balvicar shop and the other ones are behind the counter in an envelope waiting for BJ to collect and return to Ellenabeich and beyond . . . anyone want to put one on Luing?

(You can download a blank here: Petition to Alan Reid and Michael Russell.pdf)

As requested, a picture:

[Beetlejuice]

Nice photo of Wendy!
Well done Nick! Let's hope that Alan Reid does his stuff and prods arqiva into visiting Seil. Mind you, the arqiva guys will probably be unwilling to venture to Seil because they won't be able to report back to base on their state-of-the-art smartphones ...
Petition now lodged in Highland Arts, plus back in OB and Seafari shop. I concluded that it was pointless putting it back in the Heritage Centre because they had to fish it out from under the counter again when I went to collect it. A hardy inmate of Alcatraz has also reinstated the one in the ferryshed there.
Did anyone ever put one in the TnT?

[Beetlejuice]

Thought:
Why not send photo, info about petition and info about discussions with Alan Reid to ForArgyll to extend the audience and potential respondents?

[spiderman]

Another important reason for every community having a signal ASAP:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-24116475.

[Beetlejuice]

Have collected petition from Highland Arts with 99 signatures (including at least three coach drivers and one delivery driver), plus the Oyster one now with 49 signatures. Will try and pick up the one from the Seafari shop, but they aren't open much now.
Nick, are you happy to do the next bit (whatever that is)? If so, I'll drop them off at Balvicar Stores.

[NickB]

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Yes BJ, that's fine - if you drop them off at the shop I will pick them up, collate them and send copies to as many relevant people as possible.

For starters I suggest Reid, Russell, Mackenzie, the Community Council, Arquiva and ForArgyll

Any other suggestions please post them here.

[spiderman]

It might be worth engaging with the Vodafone blog site? They seem willing to advise and direct.

http://forum.vodafone.co.uk/t5/Network- ... -p/1217112

[Beetlejuice]

That's all the petitions delivered to Balvicar, Nick. Managed to get the Seafari shop and the Easdale ferry ones as well.
BTW, on the Highland Arts one people who've given their address as "Lochs & Glens" or "Shearings" mean that those were the tourist buses they were on.
Looks like there are going to be well over 400 signatures!

[NickB]

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I've picked them all up. Will collate them tomorrow (including the online petition, which has 169 signatures) , photocopy the result and send hard copies to various people.

I'll also create a PDF file and put it up on here for anyone interested to download.

[NickB]

Any other suggestions?

[Beetlejuice]

Press release to Herald, Scotsman and Oban Times?

[Sue Fenton]

See: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-g ... t-25951205

Coll is to have a publicly-funded mobile mast, with residents jointly responsible for maintenance (c £2,000 per year). No mobile companies were interested.

Just saying!