Saturday, 11 April 2009
Jackie and I enjoyed another day at home much like yesterday: very relaxing.
Thursday, 9 April 2009
I took the car to the garage for a final check on the warning light that has been intermittently illuminated since the engine was changed 3-4 months ago. Today I discovered that the garage which originally did the work has (how?) managed to put the wrong engine in the car.
Wednesday, 8 April 2009
After breakfast, Jackie and I headed for Dungeness and spent the day walking the beach; the sky was clear but it was cold, the wind was bracing and the waves crashed fiercely on the pebbles. Leaving via Romney Marsh, we saw a crow, pheasant and hare together in a field as though holding a meeting. Before returning home, we visited Chapel Down and Biddenden vineyards and discovered that Sissinghurst is closed on Wednesdays.
Tuesday, 7 April 2009
Jackie and I breakfasted in Tenterden and took a brief tour around Romney Marsh (not the one that used to play for QPR). It is apparent that this particular corner of Kent has never enjoyed a period of sustained prosperity. The sky was grey and we spent most of the day on the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway. Hythe was nice enough but Dymchurch was distressingly soulless and desperately needs some investment. Dungeness was magnificently bleak and windswept and desolate and hosts the strangest collection of buildings.
We went to our chosen Inn but despite its glorious location we could not stay there: their garden had no flowers, they served UHT milk with their tea, and their bar smelt of urine. Instead we happily stumbled across the Broadacre Hotel in New Romney (the world will be a much poorer place if it ever loses these local independent affordable hotels) and enjoyed a great meal at the nearby Curry Lounge.
We went to our chosen Inn but despite its glorious location we could not stay there: their garden had no flowers, they served UHT milk with their tea, and their bar smelt of urine. Instead we happily stumbled across the Broadacre Hotel in New Romney (the world will be a much poorer place if it ever loses these local independent affordable hotels) and enjoyed a great meal at the nearby Curry Lounge.
Monday, 6 April 2009
Today I had one more day in the office before a week’s leave. I started off bright and early at the Holywell Community Centre meeting Gill O’Brien of the British Conservation Trust Volunteers. She gave me some very useful in-sights into the site’s environment. At 10:00 I met with a reference group and explained some of my thinking – carefully of course reserving WCVS’s position and emphasising that my trustees have the final say in things. Back at the office, I tidied up some correspondence, worked on our accounts, finished reviewing our insurance needs, and talked with colleagues about work that needs doing during my absence. I finally left the office about 8:00 pm keenly anticipating a few days away.
Sunday, 5 April 2009
Jackie and I went on one of our longer walks through Hatfield Great Park and saw two storks perched just above the River Lea. Later we ate at the John Bunyan which we found very disappointing: there are all sorts of sausages of all different qualities but why does is "jumbo sausage" always awful?
Saturday, 4 April 2009
After a day visiting my sister in Hitchin, Jackie and I shared a bottle of wine and reached a momentous decision. Our chickens Ethelreda and Audrey are very nice and they are efficient layers. But when in their coop, they constantly want to escape and scratch around in our garden. And when they are out scratching around in our garden, they do untold damage to everything except daffodils and slugs (both of which they detest). And we want to use the garden to grow more vegetables. After a year or so of daily fresh eggs, we have decided that we need to re-home our chickens.
Friday, 3 April 2009
This morning, I attended the second meeting of the Community Cohesion Strategy Group. After my posting of yesterday, it was almost inevitable that HCC’s Andrew Burt would be unable to attend this meeting due to car trouble. Having had a van-load of car trouble myself, I of course sympathise hugely and Karen and Vicky Griffiths managed the meeting very well in Andrew’s absence.
There were was widespread concern at the meeting over HCC’s handling of arrangements to set up an Equalities Council in Hertfordshire. To date, there has been little consultation and even less communication and (with no open process at all) a contract has been agreed with CDA for Herts to deliver some initial work. At the meeting, we were advised that CDA for Herts were seen as “the natural lead” for this work. Amongst others, I contested this assertion. And I also defended CDA for Herts from criticism: they certainly cannot be held responsible for HCC’s failure to be transparent and accountable.
There were was widespread concern at the meeting over HCC’s handling of arrangements to set up an Equalities Council in Hertfordshire. To date, there has been little consultation and even less communication and (with no open process at all) a contract has been agreed with CDA for Herts to deliver some initial work. At the meeting, we were advised that CDA for Herts were seen as “the natural lead” for this work. Amongst others, I contested this assertion. And I also defended CDA for Herts from criticism: they certainly cannot be held responsible for HCC’s failure to be transparent and accountable.
Thursday, 2 April 2009
After a morning at home catching up on correspondence, in the afternoon I met Kate Belinis of CDA for Herts to discuss issues of mutual interest. We covered a lot of ground and reached common ground on most matters including some very practical steps to help improve future collaboration. Perhaps most importantly, we agreed that the Herts voluntary sector needs to pull itself together at county level.
We have many instances of good practice and certainly Ann Jansz is doing a very good job as the VCS’s LAA representative. But as a sector, I have been worried for some time that we are “punching below our weight” - missing out on opportunities and too willing to let others set the agenda. More recently, I have also worried that HCC have lost the knack of dealing with the voluntary sector: symptoms include meetings cancelled, network gatherings not attended, consultation processes by-passed, decisions taken behind closed doors, decisions not communicated, and increasingly defensive responses to criticism. At first, I thought these difficulties arose because HCC staff were overworked, there was a period of internal HCC re-organisation, and issues such as the recession and child protection getting higher priority. But the new culture is in danger of becoming entrenched: something has to change if it’s not all to end in tears. As the voluntary sector’s infrastructure, we should be sorting ourselves out and offering a better lead: we owe this to ourselves, to front-line organisations, to the sector’s beneficiaries, and to those many marginalised groups who use the sector to give themselves a voice. But we also owe it to HCC who have a right to expect us to speak up when we think something’s going wrong.
We have many instances of good practice and certainly Ann Jansz is doing a very good job as the VCS’s LAA representative. But as a sector, I have been worried for some time that we are “punching below our weight” - missing out on opportunities and too willing to let others set the agenda. More recently, I have also worried that HCC have lost the knack of dealing with the voluntary sector: symptoms include meetings cancelled, network gatherings not attended, consultation processes by-passed, decisions taken behind closed doors, decisions not communicated, and increasingly defensive responses to criticism. At first, I thought these difficulties arose because HCC staff were overworked, there was a period of internal HCC re-organisation, and issues such as the recession and child protection getting higher priority. But the new culture is in danger of becoming entrenched: something has to change if it’s not all to end in tears. As the voluntary sector’s infrastructure, we should be sorting ourselves out and offering a better lead: we owe this to ourselves, to front-line organisations, to the sector’s beneficiaries, and to those many marginalised groups who use the sector to give themselves a voice. But we also owe it to HCC who have a right to expect us to speak up when we think something’s going wrong.
Wednesday, 1 April 2009
April Fools’ Day
At 9:00 this morning I met with a consultant retained by the Government Office of the East of England region who wanted to gauge my understanding of the Local Delivery Framework within the context of Watford’s Sustainable Community Strategy. It soon became uncomfortably apparent that my understanding of the Local Delivery Framework fell short of her aspirations for me. I did suggest that we talk about the Sustainable Community Strategy proper, where I find firmer ground, but the consultant’s focus stayed on the Local Delivery Framework.
After this, I sat in for Anne to advise a WBC meeting deciding on grant allocations from their one year programme. Next, I spent a short time with Leigh Hutchings discussing various issues related to the Watford CVS and the Watford Disability Forum. And in the afternoon I drove to Rickmansworth for a meeting of the Local Emergency Planning Forum.
Recent reading – aka “You’re not interested but ...”
I tried to read Christopher Brookmyer’s All Fund and Games Until Somebody Loses an Eye, which was ok until about page 12 when I realised I was not his target audience. And I don’t think John McCabe had me in mind when he wrote Herding Cats, but my interest was sustained because however glibly he wrote, he did at least address some important questions - until p 330 when he wrapped the tale up in double quick time (I assume after reaching his contracted word count).
Erik Durschmied’s The Hinge Factor illustrates “how chance and stupidity have changed history” and recounts some good history: I am not sure the “what if” slant adds anything to this.
What if The Beatles had never met George Martin? All You Need Is Ears is George Martin’s 1979 attempt at autobiography, assisted by Jeremy Hornsby. The book offers a fascinating insight into the world of The Beatles where it is too easy to overlook George Martin’s astonishing contribution. And his first wife taught me music in Hatfield in the 1960s.
Sir Ernest Gowers’s The Complete Plain Words (written in 1948; I read the 1974 edition revised and updated by Sir Bruce Fraser) was perhaps the first major salvo in the battle for Plain English. Both authors write with knowledge, commonsense and a lot of gentle humour: when discussing a split infinitive used by some Welsh nationalists, Fraser (I think) observes, “if this is really what they meant, I suspect they will have split their supporters as well as their infinitive.”
Easily the cream of the crop of my recent reading is Peter Hunter Blair’s magisterial 1956 survey An Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England. The first half of this book is a chronological history from 400 to 1066, while the second half explores the themes of Church, Government, Letters, and the Economy. I am not sure how our knowledge and interpretation of the period will have changed since 1956, but good history never loses its lustre.
At 9:00 this morning I met with a consultant retained by the Government Office of the East of England region who wanted to gauge my understanding of the Local Delivery Framework within the context of Watford’s Sustainable Community Strategy. It soon became uncomfortably apparent that my understanding of the Local Delivery Framework fell short of her aspirations for me. I did suggest that we talk about the Sustainable Community Strategy proper, where I find firmer ground, but the consultant’s focus stayed on the Local Delivery Framework.
After this, I sat in for Anne to advise a WBC meeting deciding on grant allocations from their one year programme. Next, I spent a short time with Leigh Hutchings discussing various issues related to the Watford CVS and the Watford Disability Forum. And in the afternoon I drove to Rickmansworth for a meeting of the Local Emergency Planning Forum.
Recent reading – aka “You’re not interested but ...”
I tried to read Christopher Brookmyer’s All Fund and Games Until Somebody Loses an Eye, which was ok until about page 12 when I realised I was not his target audience. And I don’t think John McCabe had me in mind when he wrote Herding Cats, but my interest was sustained because however glibly he wrote, he did at least address some important questions - until p 330 when he wrapped the tale up in double quick time (I assume after reaching his contracted word count).
Erik Durschmied’s The Hinge Factor illustrates “how chance and stupidity have changed history” and recounts some good history: I am not sure the “what if” slant adds anything to this.
What if The Beatles had never met George Martin? All You Need Is Ears is George Martin’s 1979 attempt at autobiography, assisted by Jeremy Hornsby. The book offers a fascinating insight into the world of The Beatles where it is too easy to overlook George Martin’s astonishing contribution. And his first wife taught me music in Hatfield in the 1960s.
Sir Ernest Gowers’s The Complete Plain Words (written in 1948; I read the 1974 edition revised and updated by Sir Bruce Fraser) was perhaps the first major salvo in the battle for Plain English. Both authors write with knowledge, commonsense and a lot of gentle humour: when discussing a split infinitive used by some Welsh nationalists, Fraser (I think) observes, “if this is really what they meant, I suspect they will have split their supporters as well as their infinitive.”
Easily the cream of the crop of my recent reading is Peter Hunter Blair’s magisterial 1956 survey An Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England. The first half of this book is a chronological history from 400 to 1066, while the second half explores the themes of Church, Government, Letters, and the Economy. I am not sure how our knowledge and interpretation of the period will have changed since 1956, but good history never loses its lustre.
Tuesday, 31 March 2009
This morning I met with Caroline Tippen (Watford manager of HCC Youth Connexions) and with Roy Lee (a youth worker currently attached to the Holywell Centre) to talk about WCVS’s possible future move to the Holywell site and how this can best strengthen existing youth work there.
In the afternoon, I met with Angelo Gibertoni to review the development of mywatford.net and WCVS’s IT needs – we have more volunteers than ever and we urgently need more PCs so that they can more effectively contribute to our work.
In the afternoon, I met with Angelo Gibertoni to review the development of mywatford.net and WCVS’s IT needs – we have more volunteers than ever and we urgently need more PCs so that they can more effectively contribute to our work.
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