£10 for free!!!

Less than two weeks till Christmas... time to get shopping! Spend £50 on one present and get a free £10 voucher to put towards another!!

Get your skates on and visit the harbour sports Christmas grotto.

All you need to do is pass through the seven levels of the Candy Cane Forest... Then go past the sea of twirly, swirly gumdrops (Paignton Harbour) and then whats that shining beacon of light? Yes Harbour Sports at last...

written by elf (AKA Al)

Has Santa Clause visited Harbour Sports early this Year...

With Brand New Blazer and Saltrock scooters, accessories, DC clothes, shoes and ski wear arriving at Harbour Sports you would be asking 'has Santa Clause visited us early this year?' Well YES! With Christmas only a few weeks away Santa's little helpers at the Harbour sports shops have been busy making sure all Santa's gifts are hear for you to pick up and wrap this Christmas.

We have everything you need from them little stocking fillers to that special gift! Winter 2011 needn't be so chilly with a whole load of DC clothing and shoes for Youth and Adults.

Save the endless searching for that perfect gift when everything you need for gift ideas are right here. We think you would be hard pressed to find more variety in scooters and accessories anywhere this Christmas time. Not to mention with all this ice and snow on the way ensure you have your bum sled and all your protective gear to save any tears this Christmas.

So why not come down and visit us here at the Harbour Sports christmas groto and turn dreaded Christmas shopping into a magical sleigh ride!


Written by Ali G aka Santa's Little Helper....

Torbay - taste the sea air....

Too often, in our increasingly virtual world, we simply miss the taste of adventure. Oh yes, there is a thrill in twiddling both thumbs rapidly and apparently jumping and pumping from a Black Hawk helicopter whilst unfriendly natives narrowly miss your camouflaged head with an assortment of nasty missiles! But in reality you are still slumped in the chair in a darkened room all alone covered in sweat.

The other evening if you happened to be looking out over Torbay from the lounge at the Redcliffe hotel as darkness started to spread across the water, you will have noticed two Harbour Sports paddlers quietly making their way along the shore in a bright yellow Bic Tobago kayak! Through an open window you would have been able to hear the gentle splash of water as they cut through the silky sea.

What you will not have known is that one of the two had been part of a Channel 4 filming session the day before and was still living the life.

But stand back you harbingers of doom already crying out “Kayaking in the dark! Are they mad?”, or “Goodness me that sounds very dangerous! What happens if they get into trouble?”

Well there you have it. It is the taste for adventure that too often is missing these days and we try to make everything super safe. Oh yes, care must be taken but the joy of paddling along a beautiful as dusk falls, the sparkling strings of light burst into life and the glorious smell of freshly cooked food drifts out across the sea.

Live the life.

GERMAN CHOCOLATE....YUMMY

Story published recently online in "thisissouthdevon"..... (Tuesday, September 06, 2011 Harbour Sports Ltd).

Florian Bippus (21) from Ninzen in Germany is joining Harbour Sports Paignton for a month as a business intern. Ninzen is a town near Freiburg and, according to Florian, is famous for its delicious chocolate. Florian's first job was to present shop manager Kerrie (aka Sister Agnes) Waller (26) with a bumper bucket of chocolate! Florian is studying in Germany to become an industrial salesman and says that his main interest is football.

Harbour Sports work with the Training Partnership in Torquay in providing work placements for foreign students. "Having these students here is so good for the business and they really lift the spirit!", says Kerrie. Harbour Sports have shops in Paignton, Plymouth and Exeter. The Training Partnership is based at the Torquay Innovation Centre in the Torquay.

Requiem for a holiday resort: Torbay 2011.

Well there you have it, another dismal summer weather-wise and a body blow for our battered tourist industry. Do you know, although doubtless some dysfunctional statistician will find the exception, the last really hot month was April 2007. Now I mean hot rather than warm, the sort of heat that has you horizontal in no time at all and not the occasion warm day.

Of course poor weather makes any holiday location dismal and as singer song writer Chris de Burgh wisely said, “There is nothing quite so sad as a holiday resort in the rain.”

But it is more than that. Getting back to the basics is essential and that has to start with whether we here in Torbay really want a tourist industry! Notice the word Torbay. At one time it was simply a case of three towns; Torquay, Paignton and Brixham (soon to become Tesco-By-The-Sea!). That morphed into Torbay and was marketed under the English Riviera banner.

That lasted for a while before being re-branded as simple the English Riviera. Even the English Riviera Centre became the RICC (I’ll leave you to add the words). During that time we had the traditional running battle between assorted hoteliers, attraction owners and others, which really wasn’t helpful. That’s the trouble with clutching at straws.

This year the re-branding boys and girls have been at it again! Yes, we’re back on track with the name English Riviera / Agatha’s Riviera with a newly commissioned (commissioning is seen by some as a little like the proverbial washing of hands) tourist company. That got off to a publicity hungry start but soon bumped into the new mayor and talk of amalgamation between the board and the conference centre (RICC).

Now whilst we are crashing about the questioned has to be asked about the welcome for visitors. Take Paignton harbour as an example. We seem to have an increasing proliferation of prohibition notices, parking restrictions and now the possible idiotic advent of parking meters. I guess what I am getting at is the curious landscape of one sector of the council saying come and have a good time other departments work against that.

For many local businesses this winter will really be a time of seeing darkness at the end of the tunnel and if we are really to make a difference that there is a real and urgent need to get the whole town on board as to what Torbay/ the English Riviera/ Agatha’s Riviera is all about. That requires something more than unhelpful rhetoric and political infighting.

The thing is that unless we wake up and decide whether we want a tourist economy, in these hard economic times, then it is going to slip away whilst we sleepwalk into terminal decline. Let’s stop the dreaming and get on with the here and now. We need to celebrate what we have and either use it or lose it.

The photograph was taken on August Ban Holiday Monday 2011

frank sobey

The Rising Coastline...

You probably will not hear about it on the local news and indeed if you happen to be standing on the South Devon Coast the fact that the land is an inch or so higher will, I doubt, have caught your attention. Yet it is a fact and so here is the hard evidence.

You see it is simply the absence of the combined weight of people and cars! On Saturday as I drove back after a morning at Harbour Sports Exeter the queuing traffic heading out of Devon was stunning. Where the A30 meets the M5 long lines of steaming cars tailed back toward Okehampton and static traffic clogged both Telegraph and Haldon Hill. Heading down the Kingskerwell Road at 40mph, passing slow moving vehicles solidly heading out of the English Riviera. Now you will understand why the land is a little higher!

YET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Today Torbay has coast to coast sailing because this weekend is the combined Torbay Regatta sailing event and craft of all shapes and sizes compete in the various races. The water is flat and already numerous sit on kayaks explore the coastline discovering little coves that cannot be reached from the shore.

Harbour Sports Plymouth is buzzing as the Barbican springs into life greeting tourists and yachtsmen from all over the world. The spectacular news is that after a tediously damaging summer Wales and West Utilities have at last up sticks and the BARBICAN IS ONCE AGAIN FULLY OPEN TO TRAFFIC. Amen to that…..

This is an interesting time at Harbour Sports Exeter because the huge influx of students has yet to arrive and there is a curious quietness about the town. Sunday is a good time for us because many shops are closed and so we have become a destination hot spot. We have a good reputation for action sports that range from longboard skates to longboard surfboards.
So it’s time to drag yourself from the television and endless cyber surfing. Get up, get out and live the life.

Frank Sobey

Plymouth Road Rage in video

You might have already read the bit below about the annoying traffic situation in Plymouth and around the Barbican specifically. Well the rant continues, but this time in video and if you have a smart phone then scan the QR code and take a look. If you don't have a smart phone simply follow the http:// below the QR code.......frank

Summer on the English Riviera

The English Riviera at 11am on Sunday the 31st August as viewed from Paignton Harbour! It’s the very height of summer but where are the tourists, where are the boating people, the swimmers, the children splashing around on the beaches? I hear the constant institutional rhetoric about the boom in tourism, the anticipated thousands home holidaying families and here is the evidence. This beautiful harbour, this stunning coastline, this lovely bay, these miles of open beaches and coastal walks….and yet?

What I find a little curious; well more than a little curious is the gap between what is said and what is actually happening. You can print whatever you like but unless you capture the hearts and minds very little will change. Too much of what we hear is about what we will do rather than what we are doing. Harnessing new information technology rather than printing endless brochures might be a good start. But hey, what do I know? What I do know is the gap between myth and reality.

The biggest factor, of course, is weather and after five poor summers in a row that isn’t too hard to understand. Yet last week, the first of the school summer holidays, the weather was warm and sunny but the beaches were quiet. The second huge factor is the reality of a local welcome. Take this harbour as an example where the proliferation of notices telling folk what they can’t do has become endemic. New fences now solve a problem that we never had and the road surface is covered with white, yellow and red lines! The master mariner harbour masters of a former time would spin in their watery graves. Added to that is the cost of parking and I am still the lonely advocate of first hour free parking.

He travels on……simply wanted to say that the water is fine so come and play…….frank

Black comedy and comic farce…………………….Plymouth Summer 2011

You really would be hard pressed to write a script that had major roads in a city closed or restricted for long periods of time, but in Plymouth we have produced a demonic comedy or epic proportions. It started with the closing of Gadynia Way, the eastern arterial route into Plymouth, over a year ago. Since then we have had a proliferation of traffic cones, massive traffic queues, neighbourhoods shattered by new rat runs as motorists become suicidal attempting to get in and out of the city, diversions and goodness knows what else.

This dysfunctional landscape is with us still offering little hope of a reprieve in the immediate future.

Showing the strategic reasoning of a small child on Christmas Day, Plymouth then allowed a utility company to dig thumping great trenches on the eastern approaches, closing road after road! This, it seems, is essential work to provide us with natural gas for the next sixty years. It is nice to know that those lovely Russian businessmen will be pumping the stuff into Plymouth for years to come.

As I say, you couldn’t make it up.

Now consider this. We employ highly paid local government executives to think strategically, to promote Plymouth as a tourist attraction and to encourage business. But for many visitors this would be their one and only visit to Plymouth having spent pointless hours queuing whilst listening to meaningless traffic reports on the radio.

Perhaps Plymouth’s best known tourist hot spot is the historic Barbican, where I have a shop on the Parade. Yesterday I eventually managed to drive there after queuing, nipping down various side streets and pausing to read the road closed/access only signs. The Barbican, on this hot sunny afternoon, was almost empty. The numerous eateries had a far too many empty seats with staff staring into space and wondering whether, for them, the outcome would be a P45. Hopeless.

But like the proverbial frog we all seem to be being gently heated until we become so lethargic we simply sink beneath the troubled economic waters having been beaten to death by institutional stupidity.

Frank Sobey

SUMMERTIME - WHEN THE LIVING IS EASY

Well here we are at the start of the school summer holidays, the sun is high in the clear blue sky and a warm wind is blowing over the ocean. This is the time for getting out there and living the life. Drag yourself away from the computer, leave the safety of the television and get out on the water. There is no age limit, so sexual bias, no religious requirement and open to all ethnic groups. You can do whatever you want from messing around on a boogie board to scrambling in and out of the sea coasteering!

Perhaps the most popular activity at the moment is kayaking on a sit on kayak! Super safe and so easy to use. Traditional kayaks tend to have you balancing like a pea on a a knife with your legs inside the kayak. But a sit on kayak has you sitting on top with your legs tanning in the afternoon sun. How good is that? Whether you seek the open sea of quiet hidden creeks, a sit on kayak will bring you hours and hours of fun.

Kayaks are available on managers special deals in all our shops and if you are in Paignton we actually hire them from the shop at low low prices. For a single kayak it is only £25 a day and for a double it is only £40! Now that has to be fantastic value.

Come and play...............................

Open Roads

Our last blog was a bit of a rant about the gridlock around Plymouth's Barbican and the fact that to get to HARBOUR SPORTS PLYMOUTH was almost impossible. For us it was another case of 'who cares about the little guys' as a huge utility company crunched through Plymouth. Added to the chaos that has been rampant for the past year on Gadynia Way (the bit just after the Embankment) we were feeling unloved. You do have to question Plymouth Council's strategic planning perhaps.

Anyway last Sunday Frank popped down to the Barbican for a BBC Spotlight interview with Simon Alexander. That went out at teatime and again in the late evening. The following morning folk from the utility company called to see Andy Partridge (our Plymouth manager) to say all would be well.......................AND IT IS.

THE BARBICAN IS UP AND RUNNING and the way to HARBOUR SPORTS PLYMOUTH IS CLEAR........

All a coincidence probably but the outcome is lovely....

frank

The Gridlock That Is Plymouth

What is happening on the Barbican at the moment is like something out of Yes Minister! Well to be truthful it would be a little too far fetched for comedy, although having said that it might work as black comedy.

So last Sunday I am in a van attempting to deliver stock to Harbour Sports on Barbican Parade. I say attempting because the road to the west is blocked by a huge hole dug to accommodate the new gas pipeline. The road to the east is blocked by another whopping great hole and the only way to reach The Parade is a jig trough the backstreets, squeezing past parked cars and worried looking pedestrians avoiding ruthless wing mirrors.

Phone calls about this roadblock to the pipe layers asking how long this is going take receive the usual response from battered call centre staff, which not only leaves Harbour Sports physically isolated but also psychologically scarred by stress.

Business has almost stopped with little hope of anything meaningful being achieved until the gas pipe laying crew eventually drift aimlessly off to a new location. Two weeks they said it would take and that is now long past with little sign of anything meaningful happening. The signs near the big hole say Barbican Business As Usual. Ha. No it’s not.

All this whilst still suffering the gymnastic road works on Gadynia Way which cause daily misery! One day traffic will run freely again to and from town perhaps or simply gridlock.

They say that the new gas pipe will last for eighty years, which is likely to be seventy years longer than the gas supply!

Meanwhile we continue to spend hundreds of thousands encouraging people to visit Plymouth – which for many will be their first and last trip after spending pointless hours in queuing static traffic.

Tapestry.

Frank

Springing.....

It’s a strange old world these days and every time you turn around nothing seems quite the same. We’ve been at this game for over thirty years, teaching sailing, teaching windsurfing, yacht charter, retailing, mail order stuff and all sorts of stuff in between. In that time we’ve seen folk come and we’ve seem them go, yet nothing quite compares with the topsy-turvy world today. The Grim Reaper seems to have cut deeply into the High Street, leaving retailers bleeding on the pavement and too many shops boarded up. A whole new sad meaning to the phrase board sport! Well, we are still here and toughing it out. The thing is that we have the most fantastic staff and as we often demonstrate our people don’t just walk the walk and talk the talk, they really do live the life! We still believe that when you call and see us you take away more than something purchased, you also share in our life. At least we rather hope that is how you feel. Over the past couple of weeks we’ve had some great stuff arrive. The new ANIMAL summer clothing is a dream as is the Quiksilver and Old Guys. Perhaps that is one of the special things about Harbour Sports, the fact that we are not ‘married’ to one brand and that things constantly change. The daylight hours are longer now and already people have started splashing about, skating the streets or simply just hanging loose. Why not come and join them! frank

LIVING THE LIFE

As you know we have three shops, all in wonderful places and staffed by lovely people. In these troubled time we try to make your visits to the shops as pleasurable as we can. The nice thing is that most of our customers are people with a story to tell and also generate energy as they move around. Why on earth should we walk around with a face like a slapped kipper? Yet people do and that simply isn’t fair is it?

So here is the message: come and see us and smile! Positive energy is what we all need to share, so let’s share! Don’t be beaten down by the harbingers of doom. Get up and go!!!!! Lots of new stuff arriving now and at the moment we are still offering 25% off all ladies clothing and 25% off all shoes! That should raise a smile.

The picture at the top of this blog is taken by Exeter staffer Pete Buxton and takes you to a very vibrant Harbour Sports Exeter. We’ve just sent a copy of this photograph to John Harvey, the Exeter City Centre Manager, in the hope that (a) it will show that there is life in Exeter’s Western Quarter, and (b) that he may want to use this lovely photograph for Exeter promotional stuff.

……………..and the other good news? The days are getting longer and the dawn chorus starts before six!

PARKING : FIRST HOUR FREE

A headline in a local South Devon paper caught my eye this week. Traders urged: ‘Vote yes to BID scheme.’ Apparently hundreds of ballot papers have been sent to businesses in Paignton asking them to vote YES for Paignton Business Improvement District matched funding.

BID schemes have been popping up all over the place in response to the deterioration of town centres and the increasing number of boarded up empty shops. The BID schemes require businesses to contribute toward the improvements which then attracts government funding.

Two thoughts come immediately to mind.

The first is the question whether in point of fact we are all, as they say, singing from the same hymn sheet since last summer we had one part of our local council making people welcome and another part making them unwelcome. The photograph at the top of this blog partly makes the point.

The second thought seems, to me, a blindingly obvious way of attracting people back into the town centres in the hope of generating community focused local shopping. MAKE THE FIRST HOUR OF PARKING FREE. All motorists would need to do is print a one hour ticket from the parking meter which would give them a little latitude when shopping, visiting the bank, nipping into the local church for a bit of quiet meditation and generally making contact with the local population.

You can do what you like to beautify the landscape but if the town isn’t car friendly people will automatically drift the out of town cathedrals of consumerism where ample parking is provided with a convenient shopping trolley to prop visitors up as they shuffle around the aisles dazed by the lights and mindless music.

Please spread the word! Support your local community and push for FIRST HOUR FREE PARKING in Devon town centres.

frank

Amelie Duvinage (20) is spending four weeks at Harbour Sports Paignton as a business intern. Amelie is studying commerce at the Lycee Carrell in Lyon, France and her placement has been arranged by the Training Partnership in Torquay. Here is what Amelie has to say..........................................

"J’ai commencé mon stage à Harbour Sports le 10 Janvier 2011, l’équipe fut tout de suite très sympa, l’ambiance y est chaleureuse. Comme en France il y a des similitudes, tous les matins c’est la meme chose. Néanmoins les clients sont plus sympa ici en Angleterre, moins renfermés sur eux, malgres le temps qui n’est pas très joyeux. Beaucoup de pluie mais on prend vite l’habitude. Mon chez moi me manque mais je suis contente d’être ici, c’est une super experience."

"I began my training course at Harbour Sports on January 10th 2011 and found a welcoming atmosphere and nice people who made me feel at home immediately. There are similarities with the start of the day in France however the customers seem much nicer here in England and much more communicative despite the difficult economic times. It has been raining much of the time but I soon got used to it. Although I miss home I am enjoying my time here and it really is a great experience."

Amelie x

It is a curious thing how good intentions slip past without us really noticing. That passing of time became apparent when I looked at the date of our last blog! Well we are still bobbing along on the stormy retail waters and living the life. But goodness me these are troubled times. It’s not just the economic mess that has buffeted us. We’ve had four bad summers, a confused retail market, increasing numbers of people living their lives in a virtual world and then the cold north wind before Christmas that brought the UK to its knees.

Well having said all that we are still working to provide the best possible kit at competitive prices and at the moment have 25% off ALL shoes and ladies clothing. Some of our newer lines have been so successful and include OLD GUYS RULE and the new TUCAGUA winter ranges (warm clothing from Nepal).
We had great fun with Facebook and really enjoy daily updates plus of course the occasion tweet on Twitter.
We will be floor painting at Harbour Sports Paignton this weekend which means that we will be closed this Sunday and next.
The days are already getting longer and it really is time that hibernation stopped……come on- LIVE THE LIFE!!!