Ventnor Blog

Another great day of walks lined up as part of the Isle of Wight Walking Festival. If you attend any of the walks and would like to share your experience with our readers, do get in touch.
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The Isle of Wight Walking Festival continues today with a great choice of walks around the Wight.

Follow the links before for more details on each of the walks taking place today.
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We’ve all probably seen the rise of social networks and their replacement by others, as the fashion changes.

Many devoted their lives to MySpace when it arose, collecting as many MySpace ‘friends’ as possible to show others of their ‘friends’ just how ‘popular’ they were.

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The Isle of Wight Walking Festival kicks off this weekend - details of the launch to follow tomorrow. In the meantime, here is a list of all walks taking place on Saturday.

There are loads to do, if you fancy stretching your legs this weekend, including one around the town in Ventnor and Ryde.
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IW Councillor Tim Hunter- Henderson, Cabinet Member for Environment and Transport has taken the decision to accept £6.2m of central Government funding to upgrade the Ryde Gateway.

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SOCIAL care managers on the Isle of Wight are celebrating this week after they scooped a top award for their ground-breaking free home care scheme for the over 80s. (more…)

The sharp-eyed amongst you may have noticed a new button at the top of the right hand column of the site. It’s called Donate.

Don’t take it as an order, think of it more as an option that’s available if you feel the urge.

Why ask now?
As you know, we’ve been running VentnorBlog for over 2.5 years now and we’ve tried to cover the stories that the people of the Island and its visitors find important, digging into stories to find out the details that the other media sources on the Island choose to ignore.
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Isle of Wight Council has cancelled the ‘Moon Walk’ event on Saturday 3 May which forms part of the 2008 Isle of Wight Walking Festival. The event has been replaced with a different walk, titled ‘Breast Foot Forward’.

The council has cancelled the Moon Walk after it inadvertently infringed intellectual property rights of another organisation. (more…)

Many thanks to Ray Harrington-Vail form the Footprint Trust for sending through this update to the Adopt-A-Garden scheme which was launched on the Wight recently. It’s a brilliant scheme but we were surprised to hear that the take up in Ventnor is very low. Take a read through following and if you think you;d like to get involved, contact details are at the bottom. Ed

The Adopt-A-Garden scheme is an innovative idea, which seeks to bring together two types of people. The person who has a garden they can no longer look after and the individual who wants a growing space.
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This Thursday (24 April), the National Union of Teachers is staging a national 24hr walk-out in response to the School Teachers’ Review Body’s recommended pay increase for school teachers. The strike is affecting a small number of schools on the Isle of Wight. (more…)

We’re really proud to give you an update on VentnorBlog’s traffic levels - translated into English, how many people have been looking at VentnorBlog.

Having started VentnorBlog as a bit of light fun, it’s grown over the past two and a bit odd years (some odder than others!), into this time-eating monster that we’re really proud to say, has resulted into a site that appears to have been embraced by Islanders, ex-Islanders and visitors alike.

You may have noticed last week the Isle of Wight County Press disclosed (for the first time we’ve noticed) how many hits they’re getting on their Website on a monthly basis.

To say it made us smile, is somewhat of an understatement.
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It’s a shame that The Guardian has to parade its level of ignorance of what the Isle of Wight is like these days, by publishing articles like Johnny Dee’s today.

Writing about the monarchy, clearly makes dear Johnny feel like he’s actually part of the royalty, as he adopts his best regal tone, opening a paragraph with, “One suspects.” He continues, “this was all the idea of some judicious aide tasked with finding the least exciting place on earth.”

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This has got to be a joke - the council increase the student rider by 100% then say they are keen to encourage more students to use the service. Come on! Ed

Isle of Wight Council and Southern Vectis are joining forces in a bid to make bus travel more attractive to school students. Both organisations are keen to encourage more young people to travel by public transport, and to make the experience good enough to keep young people using buses after they leave education. Building on the hugely popular ‘Student Rider’ scheme, the focus has now turned to delivering increased quality of services.
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Southern Vectis have announced yet more changes to their bus services from Sunday 20th April. This is expected to be the last major revision until September.

Service 3, in common with all other routes currently operating all-night buses, will lose its all-night service except on Fridays and Saturdays when it will retain an hourly service until about 5 o’clock in the morning.
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Say, Hotel, Motel, Holiday Inn!

We’re hugely excited that the rap pioneers, The Sugarhill Gang, will be playing an UK festival exclusive at Bestival this year.

Soak up some original 1979 video footage after the jump (more…)

Everyone knows Underworld from their Born Slippy track that featured in the 1996 film Trainspotting.

Looks like they’ve had a pretty busy year in 2007 when they played Hollywood Bowl, Central Park and a sell out UK tour.

To get an understanding as to quite how popular Underworld are worldwide, a peak at their MySpace shows they’ve nearly got 100,000 MySpace friends and 1.4m.

This year they’ve be gracing the main stage, as headline act, at Bestival on Sunday.

Video after the jump (more…)

Anyone who reads the County Press will have noticed in February and March, the three full page and one half page ad placed by Standards Not Tiers.

The purpose of the adverts was to raise awareness of the proposed changes to the education system.

Members of Standards Not Tiers have worked tirelessly over the last few years to see an increase in the standard of education on the Wight, and worked flat out over the public consultation period.
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Well done to the CP for their thorough, detailed approach to reporting the news.

We see on their site today, they’ve managed to bang out two whole sentences on a story about how sunny it is on the Island.

We’ve heard that their next story will investigate the toiletry habit of bears, particularly within wooded areas.

Following the news from the government of the release of £325m from a PFI, the Isle of Wight Council has decided to take a novel approach to the problem of it’s ropey roads. During a long, late night session last night a majority of Tory councillors voted in the measures. (more…)

It seems that her maje’s appointment of celebrity gardener Alan Titchmarsh, as High Sheriff to the Isle of Wight has upset the apple cart somewhat.

It’s been reported across several publications that the fact that his property on the Wight is his second home and that he is not a caulkhead makes his appointment a bad decision.

Talking to the Daily Mail, Cllr Patrick Joyce said:
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The most telling and we think, shameful vote conducted at the schools reform debate last Wednesday was in reaction to when Cllr Deborah Gardiner suggested that the public question time should be increased, as so many people in the public gallery were keen to raise points concerning the future of their children’s education.

After the chairman, Roger Mazillius, asked her to quantify how much longer it should be, Cllr Gardiner made the suggestion of a total 30 minutes - 15 minutes longer than the time normally set aside for public questions.
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Many thanks to Stuart George from the IW Bus Users Group for keeping us updated on changes to timetables and prices on the Islands buses. Ed

Both Southern Vectis and Wightbus have announced fares increases from 1 April.
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University of Southampton is working on many areas of sustainable lifestyles.

Amazingly 23% of the eco footprint of the Isle of Wight is related to transportation. Luckily this is one area that the Uni is putting a lot of research into.

Three project were covered.

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Thank goodness the need to listen to Alex Dyke’s phone-in show has been removed, now the initial public consultation was ended by the vote at County Hall last week.

Not having to listen to him yesterday makes us realise how much better life is without him. It’s like removing a poison from the room.
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Tons of people at the Eco-Island conference. We heard that there were over 250 people with a waiting list to get in too.

It’s just starting now The Leader, David Pugh, giving the introduction to the event. Lots of big ups about the Island - hurrah!

Great to hear VentBag getting a mention.

Sadly Terry Farrell is unwell and won’t be able to make it. Youshen (sp?), his urban design and planning director has stepped up to take his place.

More when we hear it.

(Well done to the Council’s press office for getting an Internet connection and WiFi sorted out at the venue. It’s will save us a fortune in data changes!)