Fans
Fans of the Christmas Goat
The biggest fan club of them all, that is what I want to name The committee of the Christmas billy goat. A devoted group of people, determinated to build the Christmasgoat every year and to see it live past New Years Eve.
There are a lot of fans to the Christmas billy goat of Gävle. Other cities has built their own goats.
Some students on the Basic training program
for Police Officers in Umeå university have made statistics over the Christmas goat.
And a couple of bands has written music about the Christmasgoat.
About me?
My name is Rose-Marie Forsberg, also called roosa, and I love my Christmas billy goat. I own about a half kilo of the Christmasgoat as a member of the community Söders Köpmän. Since the committee didn´t show any interest in a special website for the Christmasgoat I took a private initiative and I hope you will enjoy the result!
And I am very satisfied that the Christmas billy goat survived its 40-years anniversary 2006.
***
Last year, 2008, I decided to resign as a member of the board of Söders Köpmän and as a member of the Christmasgoat committee. It was not an easy decision, but I was completely tired of being the person who everybody thought should fix everything and anything. I also had enough of being "the bitch" who always had to object when things wasn't done the right way.
I'm still very confused that so highly placed officials as the members of the committee know so little about laws, taxes and budgetwork.
I'm amused about the fact that Anna Östman asked me how it could be possible that I could make a website about the Christmasgoat that looks as the real official website.
Maybe she as a member of the local government bureaucracy don't thinks that a craftsman who got her hands dirty with work every day has a brain =) After seven years with the committee I know that I knows more about internet, websites and computers in my little finger than the hole lot of them...
So far the committee has managed to built the Christmasgoat every year but for the last years there have not been enough with money to guard the billy goat. The essential cause is that Anna Östman has a lot of expensive ideas how to market the Christmasgoat. I'm afraid that in a few years the cost will increase considerable.
***
What happened with Söders Köpmän after my resign? Not one of the 70 merchants was willing to set aside one hour per month to keep up the work with the community. Especially not the ones who complained most, talked most and done least.
So with only a couple of years remaining to the 50th anniversary Söders Köpmän is no more. And that includes no more Christmasstars or Christmastrees over the main street.
No more influence over the Christmasgoat.The ownership has passed to Gävle Centrumsamverkan.
I have no respect left for my fellow merchants that yielded two of the most valuable trademarks of Sweden.