Tag: devizes issues

Devizes Teenage Gardener Banned from Local Facebook Group for Promoting their Business!

Sixteen year-old entrepreneur, Katie West from Devizes, set up her own gardening business, FreshEdge Teen Landscaping a few months ago, but received a ban from the popular local Facebook group Devizes Issues, trying to promote it. In the scheme of things if it sounds petty to you, it’ll probably be what it is…..

The cost of advertising is spiralling, and can cripple a business before it gets its feet on the first run of the ladder. Marketing on local Facebook groups is an essential method to getting your initial message out there, informing people of your services. Katie mistook one administration rule of the group Devizes Issues, which allows other businesses to advertise, by mentioning where her gardening business operates rather than where they are based, and in pleading her case to the admin of the group, was ignored and promptly banned from it. Strewth; two sugars for my storm in a teacup! Would he have done the same to ol’ Alan Titchmarsh, I wonder?! 

I’m not going to put Katie up against the wall here. I believe anyone starting up a small business in this current financial climate needs a leg up, and I’m particularly impressed when such comes from someone so young. Originally I thought I’d freely offer to write this, omitting the unjust circumstance which spurred it, but, sleeping on it I thought, in fear of it simply coming off as an advertorial, the harshness of the decision to ban her from the Facebook group needs to be said.

This is not an advertorial, I would not ask Katie for money for publishing this. I wouldn’t even expect a hedge trim; I actually like tending my garden, it keeps me away from doom scrolling precisely this kind of petty nonsense on social media! The admin of the group in question really needs to grow up, or if we are to use gardening analogies, position a grow bag in line with their pelvis, lie down in it, and grow a pair!

I’m sorry, but I’m sick and tired of hearing about locals being unfairly banned from this same Facebook group for inconsequential reasons. It leaves people frustrated, and if they react, the admin plays their victim card like drama is addictive, every time. Ban those being offensive, abusive, or prejudgemental, I dare say, but Katie finds herself in an ever growing collective of covid support groups, other councillors or candidates of opposing parties, or residents who dared to speak against the opinion of the admin, and found themselves kicked out unjustly of a group which claims to be an impartial community page. Orwell couldn’t make it up!

As it is, and something you should take heed of despite not seeing it on a certain Facebook group, looking at photos of their past work, FreshEdge Teen Landscaping appears to make a top class job of it. “I’m a 16-year-old gardener offering affordable garden tidy-ups and outdoor work,” Katie explained. Her current offers are a full day gardening service for £160, and two days for £220 within the Devizes area, “no matter how overgrown the garden is!”

Her services include lawn mowing, weeding, patio and driveway cleaning, planting flowers, hedge trimming and general gardening tidy-ups. Katie, who tells me she often brings her boyfriend to help too, is friendly, hardworking and “happy to help get your garden looking great again!” And, in return, I firmly believe we should be helping our local young people with such initiatives, not casting them aside for accidentally breaking a hidden rule of a Facebook group! 

One satisfied customer said, “I asked Katie if she could weed my gravel as I find it difficult to bend as I have osteoporosis .. Katie along with the help of her boyfriend did an amazing job that has saved me hours of back breaking work … good to see young people prepared to work hard.”

You can message Katie for gardening bookings or questions here. Please support her.

As for the Devizes Issues, silly sausages say “it’s a popular group,” to excuse themselves for staying in it. Hit me with a snooker ball in a sock if it ain’t true, I say bullying is a spectator sport; leave and the powertripping is greatly reduced. 

Why stay in a group disciplined like the admin is the daddy of a borstal, when there’s others with admins who understand the meaning of words such as compromise and compassion, waiting for residents to join them? Oh, and get your garden smartened by Katie while you decide!

Trending….

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Love Devizes Issues? The Local Facebook Group Which Banned a Covid Community Support Page

On the day the first Ukraine refugees arrive in Devizes, and government shockingly announces its intentions to set up concentration camps for illegal refugees in Rwanda, it seems Devizes Town Councillor Iain Wallis has played his small part in the hypocrisy, by banning the Facebook page Love Devizes Covid19 Support from his large and influential group, Devizes Issues.…..

Love Devizes Covid19 Support was set up at the beginning of the pandemic, its ethos to enable “the people of Devizes to support, inspire and strengthen one another,” has seen volunteers running needed shopping and prescription trips for those self-isolating, manning advise phone lines, has advised and assisted with the vaccine rollout at the Corn Exchange, and has been a pillar of support in our community.

As the focus on the pandemic is gradually easing, the group has partially turned its attention onto the Ukraine crisis, extending a warm hand of advice and support for those entering the Devizes area, fleeing war-torn zones, and those taking in refugees. It continues to support the community too, helping to create and promote the Devizes Living Room, a social gathering group which meets in the Shambles.

The Facebook group not to be confused with many others of similar names, has come under scrutiny of bias and censorship beyond its set out rules and regulations; heck, I was banned and so too has the Devizine page for hinting Boris Johnson may not be the deity he’s made out to be! So, yeah, I’ll confess some bitterness, because at best what Devizes Issues has done is create a worthy forum of local matters. It remains open to political debate on local and international matters, and encourages members to participate in such discussions. Though it appears more and more the group will not tolerate anyone disagreeing with admin, but to outright ban a community group created to help those most in need is seriously counterproductive to the reason it exists, surely?!

Admin, Councillor Iain Wallis has not given comment reasoning the ban at this time, but I would encourage the group decides its precise purpose and not pose as an impartial community group when quite clearly it holds an agenda, for whatever that reasoning is, intended to block community support groups. Holy Moly, the issue in Devizes is the Devizes Issues; it’s all getting a bit Jackie Weaver out here!

Trending…….

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Devizes Issues or The Ministry of Truth?!

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

1984 by George Orwell

As the jollity of a carefree leaflet campaigning outing, for the new Conservative Wiltshire PCC candidate, Philip Wilkinson, and backed by Danny Kruger, is brazenly and shamelessly shared across the popular Facebook platform Devizes Issues, anyone with a questioning opinion is immediately thrown out the group; including me!

Allow me thus, to throw my toys out of my pram in dismay, the best way I know how! Oh, the calamity, the drama! The only real issue in Devizes, is that even social media is a predisposition.

Yes, I shared the “almost” parallel Orwell quote above, after my comment was deleted, twice, expressing the anger felt by many Wiltshire residents as to why money is ploughed into the candidate’s campaign, while taxpayers could face a £1.4m bill to hold another election, because of the Conservative Party’s impertinence in running a previous candidate who had a criminal record making him unable to stand. I figured it was a genuine and just thought, considering the circumstances.

Hardly a big secret, heck, you all know the story; Conservative candidate Johnathan Seed pulled out of the first election after hit and run, and drink driving offences the party carelessly assumed could be brushed under the carpet, came to light. And rather than the cost effective and democratic process of simply going with the second choice, Lib Dem candidate Liz Webster, it’s been decided a Police Crime Commissioner couldn’t possibly be anything less than a tory, so the whole shebang would have to be rerun.

Meanwhile, Wiltshire Police launch an investigation into the scandal, which is, to-date, still in progress. Yet the election goes ahead on 19th August, when I ask you, them, and everyone of Wiltshire, if you think it right not to wait until the inquiry has concluded prior holding a new election? With such a shocking revelation, how can any of you trust a Conservative candidate ever again, if it was discovered the Party knew of the convictions? And furthermore, what kind of madcap, totalitarianism is this, which dismisses such an assessment as a thoughtcrime?

I personally don’t want anyone who stands for a party which allows criminals to run as a Police Crime Commissioner, there’s an irony there sky-rocketing over some serious heads!

Ever a poor imitation of the original, The Devizes Issue, and named in such a way to narrowly escape trade descriptions if it was a product rather than a Facebook group, Devizes Issues has a 12.9k audience. The Facebook group is perhaps the second most popular general page for Devizes residents, initially set up by local Facebook users disgruntled by the original group’s ruling of no political subject matter, but run under the iron fist of a local Conservative town councillor, I and many others have often criticised its naturally right-wing bias. My argument thus; call a spade a spade, if you intend to have a group for local Conservative thinkers, then call it something which relates to this, but do not disguise it as general local group, for that is deceitful.

Ha, nearly as deceitful as fox-chumping Mr Seed, see a pattern evolving here?

Now I’m advised, if I get the chance to interview Philip, I should take it. In other words, that’s my way out of room 101, and back into what is, primarily, a great and informative Facebook group. Day-to-day it provides an endless stream of informative local matter. Such a shame so many have been pitilessly shoved out of it, including many opposition councillors, MPs and candidates, simply for arguing a contrasting opinion.

The only element incomparable to Orwell is it’s far from the bee-all-and-end all of local social media. There’s more than one way to skin a cat; if you rely on me sharing Devizine articles there, you may well have to change your habits by ensuring you’ve liked our Facebook page, or followed us on Twitter, for the time being. There’s a thing, I think the heat is getting to him, he just needs a big, teddy bear hug!

Because of my local social media diplomatic immunity, I get a response from admin, an honour most traitors to the Tory line are not bestowed. I’m told, “he [the new Conservative Wiltshire PCC candidate, Philip Wilkinson] is a good man and has sympathy that he has had to refinance due to the previous election. Philip should have been the candidate last time and wasn’t, it’s a mistake but it can’t be changed. We have to move on and make sure people get a fair choice.” Yes, Conservative Party; pay the cost of the re-election, then we can move on.

An opportunity I would be honoured to, and welcome, as I have interviewed previous PCC candidates. A process which, I might add, is counter-productive for Devizine, as any one-party candidate I do interview tends to receive angered social media comments condemning my reasoning for allowing a platform to a party they personally don’t like, and any previous interviews I have conducted with other party’s candidates and independents is long forgotten. It must also be noted, the majority come from, coincidently, a conservative ethos, when in all actual fact, Johnathan Seed was the first PCC candidate I interviewed. So, stick that in your pipe!

Because, and please take heed Mr Wilkinson if you are reading this, the assumption seems to be my comment was an attack on you, when it never was about that. The point was if the Conservative Party are at fault, should they not cover the £1.4m bill to hold another election, rather than squander cash on a campaign.

And neither is this article an attack on you, or anyone else. Rather it is a shame, I believe, when political bias has to get in the way of a relationship otherwise built on pacification, by those who feel the need to pettily censor local social media. It’s not the Daily Mail, anyone with a Facebook group of over a thousand “likes” is not Rupert Murdoch; there is no need for political bias, the town is a guaranteed Tory haven anyway! The result turning Seed’s way despite all the well-publicised dishonour and humiliation is proof of this blind voting; if they splodged a blue rosette onto a lobotomised potbelly pig, Wiltshire would still vote it in.  

Unless, no… unless they suspect the tide is turning! We live in hope.