Wednesday, 9 January 2008

I suffered a disturbed night’s sleep for the third night running. Previously I’ve woken up and felt 100%. This morning I felt a bit off the pace but still headed to Watford with confidence. My 10:00 meeting was cancelled and at 11:00 I was at the Town Hall meeting with our mayor Dorothy Thornhill to talk about community centres, voluntary sector accommodation, the annual audentior awards, IT, and Watford Women’s Centre. Immediately after, I met with a consultant carrying out a feasibility study for Mind, and then I left for a meeting of the Local Emergency Planning Forum held at the military base JSU Northwood just south of Watford.

The base's Commanding Officer gave us a brief overview of the base describing it as “Britain’s Pentagon” in that the site carries out many communication and co-ordination functions for British, European and NATO forces throughout the world. The American Pentagon is artchitecturally bold and confident. To blend in with the surrounding area, JSU Northwood has been cunningly disguised as a semi-derelict 1960s Secondary Modern school. There is also a deliberate policy of accummulating as many abbreviations as possible in order to deflect interest - among those I noted were DCINC, CJTFHQ, COMUKAMPHQ, JTFC and JMOTS. Among all this, it was nice to note that they still have a voluntary brass band.

During the meeting proper, we had a presentation on Humanitarian Assistance Cenres that will now be set up as a “one stop shop” in the wake of any major civil emergency. This was interesting stuff but no-one yet seems to have seriously thought through the potential voluntary sector contribution. I suggested that the local CVSs should be a first point of contact with the local voluntary sector, and I think this was understood by some but not all. Most have only the slightest idea of the nature of the voluntery sector.

More work is needed I think. I was not up to the discussion this afternoon. During the course of the meeting, my temperature had risen several degrees and my throat had almost closed with swelling. I left the meeting as early as I decently could and headed straight home for bed. I never did discover what JSU stood for.