OKEHAMPTON needs to do more to promote itself and help new people moving to the town to feel welcome. That was the view of Okehampton Chamber of Trade chairman Richard Appleby ? he used his address at the chamber?s annual meeting to talk about his aim of preventing Okehampton from simply becoming a dormitory town as its population increases. ?I want to encourage people who move here to feel they belong to Okehampton,? he said. ?Why not have a general campaign to shout about how good our town is?? Mr Appleby said he wanted the chamber to work in partnership with Okehampton Town Council and Devon Heartlands to develop ways of making locals and newcomers alike feel part of the town. He said the chamber had plans to develop a range of initiatives and he was looking forward to launching some of these over the coming twelve months, The chamber is also in the process of compiling a register of all the businesses operating in the town. Mr Appleby appealed for any new businesses or those which feared they may have been left off the directory to get in touch with the chamber. The register, which was compiled last summer, lists more than 250 businesses? activities in the town, but the chamber say there may still be businesses which are not listed. The chamber is also compiling a new associations? register for sports clubs, charities and other organisations. The annual meeting was held at Okehampton Youth Hostel last Thursday with a talk and slide presentation given by Graham Payne of Rapid-UK about the group?s international search and rescue work. l Chamber members will also be balloted on what time their monthly meetings will be held in the future. Meetings were held at 7.30pm until last year when they were moved to an earlier time of 6pm. At the meeting it was decided members will be sent a ballot form with a choice of possible times with their next set of minutes, and they will be asked to return it with their preferred option.
