Celebration - Can Wincanton Emulate the Olympic Feel-Good Factor?
It's Tuesday 28th August 2012. The first half of the greatest sporting show on earth has ended, and now the biggest ever Paralympics is about to start. Athletes from all over the world compete to be the best in their field. Many will celebrate winning the largest gold medals ever created for the Games. Others will go home empty handed, and gutted because they didn't win.
As a small nation (very small compared to USA and China) to come away with 29 gold and a large assortment of silver and bronze medals was an amazing feat. If you do the maths and prorate the number of gold to the population size, we see a very different picture. I believe our wee country would stand above all the super powers. Now that's amazing. But that would mean that Grenada, winning its first ever gold medal, is the most successful Olympic nation. It all depends how you interpret the numbers. But that's true about most things in life.
In a serious recession UK plc spent a lot of money on these games. Was it worth it? Did they make a profit? Maybe they will. Maybe they won't. Watching the Games and the response of the people says that the games were a huge success. They fired up our nation. It was great to see so many UK medals, and great expectation for even more medals in the Paralympics.
However it wasn't the medals that hit me as the high point. As a true Scot I was blown away when the national anthem was sung. Not because it's the British anthem, but by the volume at which it was sung. It was tremendous. Here, for this short period we witnessed a nation united.
No daily childish bickering politicians. When will our politicians learn? For once we saw the real picture dictated not by politicians, but by the people of this nation. Our politicians need to come back from their arduous summer holidays with a new honest approach to the running of this great nation.
What's this got to do with Wincanton? Wincanton may only be a small rural market town. However if we emulate the spirit of the Olympic Games, I believe that we too can achieve greatness in our business and residential communities. We need to plan for the future of Wincanton. Just like the Olympics we need that plan to give us direction.
In case you don't know that plan already exists. The Wincanton People's Plan was designed by asking the people of Wincanton for their views. It's a 20-year plan. We are just about to see a KFC open on the edge of town. This was requested by the young folk of Wincanton. It's a great plan only lacking your support and participation. Wincanton is a town with both business and residential communities. For Wincanton to be a vibrant and healthy community we need both the business and residential communities to work side by side.
Working together brings great bonuses for our town. Working together brings such events like the annual Christmas extravaganza, Discworld Weekends, and many other events that happen throughout each year. I want to encourage you all to get involved. If more people stand up to the plate we can do even more. What about resurrecting The Wincanton festival as a spring/summer event to balance the Extravaganza? One of our local businesses would like to stage a "Daytona Karting Day. It can all happen, but only if more people get involved.
Contact us on and get involved today. Make Wincanton an even better place to live.
John Smith
Chairman, Wincanton Businesses Together
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