The writings of Max Robinson: Let's introduce a new currency

If you are in Plymouth today, if you are anywhere at all in Glorious Devon there is ONLY one place to be.

That place is Dockyard Discs, an Aladdin's cave of vinyl records operated by LEONITE Patrick.

When you get there you will hear this track being played.

Being specially played for all readers and listeners to today's music page.

So what has that got to do with the title and what has it got to do with the lead picture ?

Be patient, everything comes to he who waits !

It is a week ago now since I spent half a day driving round a number of supermarkets in Milton Keynes inviting them to host a Rock and Roll Party in support of The Food Bank. ASDA Bletchley said get lost we've already got something on that day. I called them and left a voice mail to arrange another date. I sent them an e-mail. SILENCE !

Morrissons, Westcroft, totally mishandled the invitation. I won't be shopping there again !

Tesco Wolverton, Bletchley and Kingston NOT A WORD. The same with Sainsbury's Bletchley and Shenley. The one I really want to work with is Lidl in Bletchley, the layout of their store - the power point, entrance and car park make it a

perfect venue so I am upset they have not got back to me. I am wondering if our old friend Madam Destiny is trying to tell us something.

This is my favourite ABBA song.

Are you confused ? I still have not spoken about the lead photograph and said nothing about today's title.

ANDANTE ANDANTE means SLOWLY SLOWLY. Yesterday Rachel and I met with an old friend of mine Gary Marling who is a marketing expert. Over a burger and fries the two came up with a brilliant idea, one each, which I would like to run past you all now. Tell me what you think.

These are the envelopes with the presentations I took round to the supermarkets last week. I suppose there is time for the

retail giants to spend a moment away from seeing how much money they can prize out of their customers pockets, we may even hear back EVENTUALLY from one or two but let's go at it another way.

Let's set up a new network of drop off points for The Food Bank. Let the supermarkets continue to do their own thing. We will collect the tins from this new network ourselves and deliver them to the Food Bank warehouse.

Let's start with our own Car Boot Sales. Why can't we make our stalls a collection point ? We could invite the regular people who come by each Saturday and Sunday to bring a tin with them.

I am talking to a community centre and Rachel has her eye

on a non-food shop. Why should it be only food shops who collect for The Food Bank ? We could support those who support us to support The Food Bank by delivering leaflets to a few thousand houses in their area inviting people to their shops bringing a tin.

We could put up prizes for a raffle in each location. The price of a raffle ticket would be a tin !

This is the Bletchley Bandstand.

Week after week after week it stands empty, nothing happening, SILENT. Starting in the autumn could we use it for a Rock and Roll Party and a collection point for The Food

Bank.

LEONITES who are involved with Bletchley and Fenny Stratford Town Council and the Residents Association, there are several of you, could you make this happen ?

We could engage the local businesses, distribute the leaflets and bring people into Bletchley on the Rock and Roll days INSTEAD of the supermarkets who are not supporting us.

Now for Gary Marling's UTTERLY BRILLIANT idea. You can see why he is a marketing expert. Could do with an expert in something to sort out GOOGLE - the geeks are screwing up the page formatting here on Blogger - AGAIN ! Anyway.............

Gary knows a place where we could stage a retro disco using our twin deck and vast vinyl collection. It would be an amazing event. Admission to the disco would be a TIN !

Put that lot together and you have something MUCH bigger than the events we offered to the less than enthusiastic supermarkets !

I need some more ink for my printer. I'll ask my bank for an overdraft so I can buy some later ! It's so expensive ! I

wonder what the profit margin the uncooperative supermarkets take on the shelf price.

I want to finish writing and print off something I am playing around with for our boot sales. More of that in a moment.

Yesterday several thousand price tickets for our boot sales

were delivered. THANK YOU LEONITE PAUL AND THANK YOU FOR THE OTHER GIFTS YOU SENT ALONG. I am not going to tell people here what they are, keep everyone guessing until we can take some photographs of them in action ! THANK YOU FOR YOUR KINDNESS.

This is part of a marketing campaign, Gary you would be proud of us, Josh, Jelena and Yours Truly are working on to raise our car boot sales to a higher level. A higher level and make more money !

My idea is to print and hand out a weekly newsletter at the sales, this will start on 4th/5th August. I am guessing we would need to produce about one hundred a week. That would cost about £25 in rip-off printing ink BUT would, I hope put an extra fifty quid into the tin.

We hand out these newsletters and engage the customers in what we are doing. They promote the projects and invite help. Most of these projects will start in October AFTER the Pot Luck Supper but IMMEDIATELY we can work on The Food Bank and finding Blood & Organ Donors.

There will be some fun articles and things to bring back the customers the following week: A lucky number for a prize, a quiz and more.

Here's something I scribbled yesterday. How many can you answer ?

Why did The Fab Four spell their name BEATLES and not

BEETLES ?

By what name is Harry Webb better known ?

What is the date of The Day The Music Died ?

Who sang about his ding-a-ling ?

What was the first record played on BBC Radio One ?

What is the top selling UK single of all time ?

The top selling UK album of all time belongs to which band ?

In which year did Elvis Presley die ?

In which year did The United Kingdom first win The Eurovision Song Contest ?

Which year has gone down in pop music history as The Summer Of Love ?

ANSWERS IN NEXT WEEK’S EDITION - or in this case on tomorrow's blog !

Maureen is not particularly happy that I have emptied the boot of my car and piled everything up inside the house.

This afternoon Josh and Jelena are taking me to have the car deep cleaned. Maureen and I are then going on holiday, can hardly go on holiday with the boot full of stuff could we ?

There are no boot sales this week-end but the diary opens again the week-end after. CLICK HERE for the dates.

We need more STUFF to sell. PLEASE can you turn out your junk ? I am around today and tomorrow then heading to Glorious Devon on Friday, back next Wednesday. I can touch base with you before or after my trip to Teignmouth so we hit The Bletchley Irish Centre on Saturday 21st July.

Let's play some beautiful IRISH music for the lovely people who run the boot sale each Saturday. My great-grandmother on my Mother's side came from Ireland so I do have some Irish Blood in me. Mind you I DO NOT like Guinness.

Jelena said something to me yesterday, something very wise.

YOU DO NOT NEED TO BE ABLE TO DO EVERYTHING YOURSELF BUT YOU DO NEED TO KNOW HOW TO DO EVERYTHING.

Bruce Abbott, my old boss at Leon School, used to tell me I was useless at delegating. I still am BUT within Radio Love and the support we want to bring to good causes I am not needing to delegate, people are racing forward to take on the things we need help with.

PLEASE race forward with lots of things for us to sell.

PLEASE race forward to help us find drop off locations for The Food Bank.

PLEASE race forward to help us make music on Bletchley Bandstand. Music a bit like this.