St. George's has come up with a new plan that should help to push the old town to the top of the tourist map.

For many years many craftspeople have been using St. George's as their base of production while sending their products out to other areas to sell. Small workshops and studios working on their own would seldom engage in self promotion, so they remained one of the hidden aspects of St. George's.

The St. George's Arts and Craft Community will recognise St. George's unique arts and craftspeople and unlike the Craft Market that exists in Dockyard, those in St. George's will stay in their own studios. Although they will be separated geographically they will be unified under one name and image in joint ventures of advertising and publicity.

The Community logo sports a dragon.

Members of the Community must be involved in the production and selling of Bermuda arts and crafts and must have a solid reputation in the production of their craft, says Joan Aspinall who got the idea from the arts and craft community in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.

"Gatlinburg had an incredible craft community which is mostly situated out of the town. The community has a flyer which has a detailed map of all the shops and what they sell and a logo,'' she says.

The logo is displayed on the flyer and on all the member businesses. "A community refers more to the environment that is created rather than an association of people,'' says Ms Aspinall.

To identify themselves members of the St. George's Arts and Craft Community will display the Community logo on small signs outside of their shops. The logo will also appear in a flyer which contains a numbered map of all the members' locations. The map details the street and the area of the businesses, and contains a brief descriptions of the products.

After much deliberation Ms Aspinall decided to use a dragon for the Community's logo.

"I was going to do the deliverance with an art pallet but I did not have time to complete the art work so I chose the dragon.'' Ms Aspinall said the dragon was fashioned after one of the dragons on the bridges in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

"The town of Ljubljana has a small river flowing through the middle of it, so there are many foot bridges. The bridges have dragons of the entry post and I drew one of them for a St. George's Corporation art competition years ago.'' Members of the Community will volunteer to conduct walking tours of the craft establishments and explain the different disciplines as they go along. The Community also hopes to make others aware of their existence through posters and tourist reference material.

So far 13 shops have signed up to be a part of the Community and Ms Aspinall is expecting more.