The town notice boards

We have a new Town Council notice board. The grey pin-board is freshly installed in this new location.

It's sited in front of a window at street level against quite a narrow pavement. I have a memory how the window underneath was previously a smashed glass pane, boarded up. The window may belong to a private building - possibly the living or storage rooms to the rear of the shop on the corner.

To see the board properly, and not block the pavement, I must step back a little; if I want to photograph the board, I need to bend my body back a bit over the road.

 

I wouldn't say it's an ideal location for a notice board, but it's serviceable. Pedestrians must pass. I have half a mind to ask the shop owner (ethnic butcher) if a deal has been struck - we cover your unsightly boarded-up window if you allow us to use a notice board. If so, it probably also fulfils some sort of Town Council remit to support local business: it's open access - anyone can use it - and the board already carries advertising. 

So it's being used. For now. What about its future? What is its destiny? Is there someone to look after this pin-board of community signage? Will the same person who installed the signage remove their message after the event they advertised passed? Has anyone on the Town Council been given the job to check the board regularly for undesirable messages, unwanted graffiti, or temporary signage that's out of date? Is the job of removal of old notices given to the shop owner as part of a deal?

But what about the other noticeboards around the town? We have several. Let's see how they fare. I might be able to predict the future of signage on this new board.

This is one, by the Town Hall and the Library. It's monitored, clearly: the notices, telling me of impending events, are in date. But it's controlled, and locked, so not anyone can stick up notices. I wonder if the librarian is the gate-keeper. The arrangement of notices is appropriately orderly.

This next board too, is under lock and key, and carries up-to-date information about meetings and appointments. I suppose it is not for use by the town, but is for the town, as in You can't complain you weren't told because we put it on the noticeboard. I see text that I'd describe as 'single voiced'. The notices are in the same prose style: slightly pedantic, regular font and spacing style; the tone is of detached administration. It's quite a contrast from the noisy, competing voices that emerge from the other boards.

This next board looks smart. It carries a mix of informal event notices and council information. It's the prestigious board, located in the town square. In case we have any tourists. (I think representatives of our twinned town in Belgium come over once every few years.) There are several voices carried here, but they're under glass, and you still need to know the right person if you want to stick up a notice, because access is controlled by a key.

What of this next board, below? It's located in an access route for pedestrians who must curve round a large building, but it's located on the side of a shop facing away from our town square. Not an obvious site for a board, and quite easy to miss. Notices here are sealed under plastic by some mechanism I can't see. 

I wonder if this eye-height board started life as an advertisement, but the shop that installed it is now gone, and the board was co-opted for another purpose. There's no indication to tell me it is an 'official' Town Council board. I like to think of it as an Anarchist board.

If there was someone who knew how to get under the plastic to the actual board below, then they may have abandoned their gate-keeping knowledge, because it looks like no-one can get to the board now. Under the heavy plastic cover is a notice that tells me of events passed up to six months ago. The notice for the festival last year has lasted longer than the event it announced. 

The board that encloses that information starts to remind me of a time capsule. This was once our town and our time. We tried Anarchy, but we couldn't be bothered to keep it up.

But someone was obviously frustrated by the inaccessibility of the actual board part of the structure. Shortly after I took the photo above, a sign was sticky-taped to the plastic front, telling me of an upcoming event.

I wondered about control of access to the boards - whether this is an ingredient to how likely it will be that the board is maintained, and the notices kept time-relevant. Can it be, providing open access is part of the risk a community needs to take? Perhaps then the board will fill with the type of multiple voices and temporary notices we'd maybe like to see - announcements about future public events, shows, markets, grand openings, sales, discounts, entertainments, meetings. Yes, the board may become defaced - messages might appear there that a Town Council representative might deem inappropriate - but perhaps people would police each other's signs in this space and keep an eye on the outdated left-behind notice?

Not everyone seems happy about the town noticeboard facilities we have, however. Someone here is using their front window as a board under their direct control.

And there's always the car. Can't do better than to drive around with your very own notices stuck to the side.