Author Archives: Hilary
The Monday Women (Liverpool) Christmas Party
The Monday Women Christmas Party on 6 December 2010 lived up to expectations! Meeting early evening as usual in the Liverpool Everyman Bistro’s Third Room, old and new friends shared an inexpensive meal, ideas and news. Monday Women is open to all women, with no cost to ‘join’, and no obligation.
Enlightening Research For Saving Lives, Jobs And The Environment – All Together
Legislation about multiple low-cost benefits to the environment, economy and health: What’s there not to like? Friday 3 December 2010 offers MPs the opportunity to move forward on a UK Parliamentary Bill to agree that proper research be conducted into the advantages or otherwise of keeping some form of ‘Daylight Saving’ year-round. But why even bother with the Bill? Why not just research these very positive proposals fully anyway?
Big Society Voluntarism Harms The Knowledge Base
Summary: The Big Society so far is no fun at all. I seem to be spending my time (voluntarily) offering www-style tea and sympathy all round. Almost daily emails arrive from hard-working and committed contacts, saying that their job is coming to an end and they have no clear idea what will happen next. Grim policies mean unemployment stats will get worse still, but much more is being lost than is measured. There’s no provision to retain core knowledge or maintain legacy.
For The Truth About British Society, Follow The (Housing) Money
Summary: The Chartered Institute of Housing, Shelter, Rowan Williams and Boris Johnson all seem to agree; whether social housing can continue to exist in the wealthier parts of the UK – mostly the south of England – is doubtful, following the autumn 2010 spending review. We focus mostly on people at risk of homelessness, but that is only half the picture…. How many people from southern England travel to work for a while in the north, but still own property in the south?
Talking Is Key To Engagement, But Do We Know How?
Summary: Why do most of us spend such little time communication in communities? Support for bonding between parents and dependent children is surely a critical element in community life. When it comes to effective communication, early years practitioners and researchers can tell us much. Their programmes benefit whole communities, not ‘just’ infants and their carers.
Daylight Saving Gives Up The Ghost (For Now…)
It’s Hallowe’en weekend and that precious hour of afternoon light is set to go till next Spring; but perhaps at long last common sense will prevail. With luck and one more push (believe me, over the years there have been many) the spectre of Winter nights starting sometime after lunch will be gone, and the many advantages of keeping British Summer Time (one hour ahead of GMT) will become reality. Research is clear on benefits to energy, health and even lives. Now we need to banish ghosts of mistaken mythology about the disbenefits of ‘daylight saving’…..
Liverpool’s Everyman Bistro Is 40!
The Liverpool Everyman Bistro on Hope Street is amazing – a hub of the Hope Street community, that exotic collection of performing actors and artists, students and academics, musicians, hospitality professionals, faith leaders and more. The Bistro has stayed true to its intention (initially thought very bohemian) to offer wholesome local food. And today sees its 40th birthday….
The Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Foundation CIC
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (15 August 1875 – 1 September 1912) is acknowledged as the greatest Black British composer of ‘classical’ music, his best-known work being Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast. Today, 21 September 2010, the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Foundation gained formal company registration, so we can celebrate his work and legacy.
Does Old Age Have To Mean Life On The Sidelines?
Summary: What happens to people as they get older? What should be the starting points for more consideration of this vexed question? With post-war babies currently reaching retirement and many of their parents still alive, the number of elderly people in the UK is increasing dramatically. But socio-economic infrastructure still often lags behind.
Whilst never unimportant, advanced old age was until quite recently not a widespread issue. There is now a pressing need to understand better how to accommodate and respond to this shift in the UK’s demographic.
Communities Are Much More Than Localities
Summary: The new agenda in regeneration is beginning to emerge, and with it will emerge also a new lexicon. Each of us will have their own priorities for terminological redefinition. Mine is to re-examine the meaning/s of ‘community’. Communities are not just localities; they are as many and various as the individuals who describe them, but this is rarely reflected in thinking on regeneration or social policy.
Visit Hilary’s professional website here to read more and post your comments on this article.
Dreaming Realist 