Category Archives: Equality, Diversity And Inclusion
A Tribute To Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
The black British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875 – 1912) is known almost exclusively for his large-scale work, ‘Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast’. There is however much more to this fascinating man than just one work, including the story behind his very early chamber music works such as the Opus 1 Piano Quintet of 1893.
Confident, Competent, Considered? Recruiting The Lay Board Member
Person specifications for ‘Lay’ Public Appointments often require Board candidates to demonstrate ‘confidence’. Increasingly I wonder whether this quality by itself enhances board members’ contribution to the common good. Any confident Lay person might have a clear line and stick to it; but does this benefit the public? Or is it an obstacle to diversity in selection, continuing business as usual?
Perhaps Lay board members, even after they have a competent grasp of ‘the facts’, serve the public interest better when they as people are ‘considered’, rather than just ‘confident’. Involvement in decision-making by Lay board members is about being there in the public interest, not initially about being sure of one’s opinions.
There are people in history who have demonstrated supreme but arrogantly misplaced confidence in themselves; and even now this applies to some of those with the most power. Perhaps that doesn’t matter – it may even be an asset – in the private sector, where the sole aim is often the pursuance of profit. Profit is rarely however the single objective in matters of public interest.
Determination is better
Confidence in my book is an over-rated characteristic. Give me rather a person who can get to the bottom of things and then find a sensible way forward. Someone with determination and an open mind, until the time comes to make that mind up, see things through and deliver.
Certainty is rarely the order of the day in matters which require complex resolution. Underlying principles and leadership, of course; deep conviction that one is always right, no.
Listening is a seriously under-rated skill. Skills in seeking out the factors which drive a situation, and then resolving and moving forward, are also not dramatic front-page stuff; but in our complicated, always evolving world, these are the skills which matter.
Challenging, not confrontational
Perhaps the conviction that confidence is needed for a Lay person on a board is because that’s easy for selectors to deal with.
You can ascertain quickly that someone appears confident.
Ensuring however that potential appointees will, politely but determinedly, seek always to understand where the Board is coming from is a different matter. Your Lay member doesn’t need to be especially confident to do this; s/he just needs to be focused on the job in hand, and to believe it matters enough to persevere and do the task well.
Resolution and progress
That’s a more complicated scenario for others to deal with. I’d suggest however that it’s also the basis for a genuine eventual meeting of minds – which is one hopes what the whole ‘public involvement in policy’ thing is about.
The real requirement of Lay board members must be that they have core and determination, guided by a real intent to deliver
the best. Whether this is exactly the same as being ‘confident’ is another matter, as of course a good Chair – and there are many – understands.
An obstacle to diversity?
Whisper it to the HR people who routinely demand ‘confidence’ in job specs; the considered approach is quite often adopted by competent women. But could this also be said about the super-confident approach? How many women believe they’d fulfil a formal requirement to be ‘confident’?
Given concerns about obstacles to diversity in recruitment, are we on to something here?
What do you think?
Elected Mayors, Democracy And The Regional Agenda
The campaign for a debate about elected Mayors promotes ideas of democratic involvement and public accountability. It is for these reasons, not as a short-hand way to achieve city-regions, that this campaign should be encouraged. Even if elected Mayors become the norm, towns and cities will still need major regional input if they are to be effective players within Britain.
It’s not reallly news that some major cities have problems pulling things together to achieve progress; and nor, to be frank, is it news that Liverpool often seems to be amongst that number.
This is why I believe people should support the campaign for a referendum on a Mayor for Liverpool. For the referendum to happen would require 5% of those elegible to vote in the city to support it… not many one may think, but actually quite a proportion to raise in Liverpool, the city with the lowest election turn-out in the country. In my view, almost anything which encourages people in places like Liverpool to think positively about voting is a good thing.
Elected Mayors as housekeepers
It doesn’t however follow that, because moves to consider elected mayors are supported, that wide-ranging powers for such persons should necessarily be the order of the day. Cities like Liverpool need a named ‘responsible person’, who can bang heads together to get things done, and who must be prepared to take the flack if things don’t work. This person could be seen as taking the role of housekeeper, ensuring that things happen as they should, and that, for instance, streets and parks are clean and safe, events occur to schedule and budget, bids and proposals are submitted on time and well prepared etc.
It would be important for an elected Mayor to have defined, and achieved a consensus on, for instance, what is his / her role, and what is that of the City Chief Executive / Directorates, and of elected Councillors.
Not city-regions
Nor should it be assumed that an elected Mayor would take the lead role in the mooted city-regions. There may well be a role for city-regions as sub-regions, but that debate is still emerging and it is not for me convincing. In the end an excessive emphasis on city-regions not only loses the ‘hinterland’ of any metropoils, but also ignores the reality of regional infrastructure.
No toen or city in the UK outside London is on its own large enough to plan major transport, business development, or scientific investment. The things can only properly be addressed at regional level; as indeed they are in most parts of Europe.
Accountability
City regions and their merits or otherwise are a different debate from the current discussion about elected Mayors. If there’s now a decent debate about elected Mayors, that will be a good start. Maybe it will strengthen interest in the democratic process. And if it also encourages the idea that those who claim to give the lead require support, but must also be prepared to account very openly for their performance, that will be an excellent bonus.
Dreamspace – A Wonderful Idea And A Tragic Event
The Dreamspace concept has become a nightmare for those involved in the tragedy today, which is so far from the intended outcome of the people who created it and sought to bring us happiness and enlightenment.
The news earlier today that two people have died whilst visiting the Dreamspace installation is almost unbearable for anyone who experienced it as intended. For those who grieve it will be far beyond that sentiment – as, in a different way, it will be for those who created the idea and brought it to fruition.
Here was a wonderful idea, intended to bring happiness and a sense of well-being to those who came to experience it. I saw it whilst it was installed in Liverpool, right on the first day, before the deep unpleasantness of the incident with the young men who sought to damage it. Dreamspace is a huge concept, intended to mix beautiful light with music in an ever-changing interconnection with visitors who enter it, robed and shoe-less to increase the sense of unity with the idea itself. It is horrific to think that such a gentle sculpture could become so easily and mistakenly a place of disaster.
Art can never take priority over health and safety. It can never have priority over basic requirements for well-being. And nothing can be said to relieve the heartbreak and nightmare that for some Dreamspace has so unintentionally become. Perhaps however in the midst of this tragedy we will still know that there are artists, those who created Dreamspace amongst them, who seek sincerely to bring happiness and enlightment in their various ways to as many people as possible.
Mark Simpson – A Young Musician Beyond The Stereotype
Mark Simpson, BBC Young Musician of the Year, may be only seventeen but his musical achievements are breathtaking. Performer, composer and general enthusiast for all things musical, Mark demonstrates yet again that musical talent cannot be stereotyped. As ever, it will find its own way forward.
Robyn Archer Departs Liverpool’s Culture Company
Robyn Archer’s resignation, announced today, as artistic director of Liverpool’s Culture Company leaves many questions about what the 2007 and 2008 celebrations are actually intended to achieve. Acknowledging this simple reality would help a great deal in making progress.
So the first question everyone’s asking is, Why? Why has Robyn Archer, after in reality such a brief sojourn in Liverpool, decided that Liverpool’s 2007 & 2008 events are not for her?
Only Ms Archer can answer that, of course, and she is unlikely to add much to her media statement that it’s for ‘personal reasons’. (Well, yes, but that could mean many things to many people.)
In the meantime, the question I would still really like to see a proper response to – and which I asked Robyn Archer directly on one of the very few occasions when I actually encountered her – is this:
By what criteria will we know that Liverpool’s 2007 and 2008 celebrations have been a success?
The fundamental question for Capital of Culture
There may well be more than one sensible response, but perhaps – who knows? – it was partly a lack of clarity in various quarters about this fundamental question which provoked the latest departure. (Some of us recall that the very first 2008 lead director also departed Liverpool, almost before he’d unpacked his bags.) Perhaps there are multiple possible answers – to renew and regenerate our city, to promote and celebrate communities, even, just maybe, to bolster ‘cultural’ activities as such – but no-one seems able to offer a definitive and widely agreed response.
Whether or not it bothered Robyn Archer, this question continues very much to worry me. There still seems to be a confusion in the minds of some local people about the difference between Excellence and Elitism, between the absolutely correct requirement that Liverpool’s cultural celebrations include as many local citizens from as many different communities as possible, and the frankly silly idea that anything which is, as they say, ‘artistically challenging’ is also somehow inappropriate in this city.
The real cultural challenge
How are we as citizens together to grow in our understanding of art, music, dance, drama, or anything else, if we are afraid to take it to people who haven’t encountered it much as yet?
Of course people should be offered and involved in artistic activities which engage them directly – ‘community education’ projects and so forth – but somehow we also have to encourage them to see that there is much more than that too.
The courage to offer leadership
At present, it feels as though those – and there certainly are several, on the Culture Company Board amongst other places – who are willing and able to promote the idea that we gain more from cultural experience when we permit it to challenge us – are being outnumbered by those who, to use the old metaphor, play to the gallery of small town politics.
The real issue is cultural and civic leadership. Liverpool will be a city fit for the 21st century when the local powers-that-be are ready to acknowledge not only how far we have already travelled, but also how much further there is to go before we can really call ourselves a Capital of Culture in the sense that most other European cities understand that term.
Then, perhaps, we won’t have to rely on the wonderful goodwill of just those seasoned artistic directors who show a commitment to Liverpool well beyond the call of professional duty. Only then will the lure of Liverpool to the international cultural community be irresistible.
Liverpool’s Sefton Park, Swans, Herons And Grebes
Sefton Park is as inner-city as it gets, but it’s large enough to be home to an amazing range of birdlife – swans, herons and grebes amongst them. So are we doing enough to ensure that these treasures are appreciated by the human beings who co-exist with them in this fascinating super-urban environment?
Once again Liverpool’s Sefton Park has come into its own.
This is an inner-city green space, with all the usual problems and challenges, but it’s nonetheless a wonderful place to be [*]. Even we, old hands at taking a stroll in our local oasis of calm, were thrilled by what we saw today.
The heron
First, in the early morning light, we again encountered the young heron which we first spotted in the rushes last week and which we think has just returned to its childhood haunts. On the previous occasion this bird had been close to invisible, silent and almost eerily still on the shaded bank of the island in the top lake. Now, just a few yards across the water from our path, it perched loftily, white feathers dramatically eye-catching in the sunlight, on the branch protruding from the middle lake which the terrapins usually claim as their own.
A family of grebes
Later in the day, as afternoon turned to evening, we returned to see a small group of quietly excited people with binoculars and cameras focused on the island at the top of the big lake – giving confirmation, by a nest with three very new babies (two of them actually sitting on their mother’s back) that we had indeed caught a glimpse of a grebe earlier in the week. This time there were two adult birds. One was sitting on the nest with the babies. The other was diving for fish before returning, his captive minnow held high, and trying (with only limited sucess – the babies were oh-so-tiny) to get his new family to feed from his beak.
Swans and cygnets
Adding to this our delight that the pair of nesting swans still have their seven cygnets several weeks after hatching – one mode of feeding in the initial weeks being the parents grasping upwards with their long necks literally to tear leaves from the central island’s bushes, before thrusting the mulched veggie delight (perhaps with attendant gnawed insects?) into their juniors’ open beaks – and it made for a pasturally perfect day.
One swallow does not a summer make; and nor does sighting one heron, two grebes and a family of swans consitute a full visit to countryside and woodland. But I can get to my local park any time, and it never ceases to fascinate, engage and refresh.
I just wish that others (in my more selfish moments, not too many others) would value it as do those of us ‘in the know’. Perhaps we could start by more (there is some) active involvement with local schools. If you don’t know that swans, herons and grebes are special, you can’t be excited by seeing them, can you?
[* For a detailed City of Liverpool colour leaflet click here.]
See also:
Sefton Park, Liverpool (collection of web postings)
Sefton Park’s Grebes And Swans
Sefton Park, Liverpool: Winter Solstice 2006
Cherry Blossom For May Day In Sefton Park, Liverpool
Friends Of Sefton Park
What Now For Liverpool’s Sefton Park?
Cherry Picking Liverpool’s Sefton Park Agenda
Liverpool’s Sefton Park Trees Under Threat – Unnecessarily?
Solar Lighting Could Solve The Parks Problem
Friends Of Sefton Park
A Wedding And A Coming of Age, Japanese-style
All societies celebrate marriage and acknowledge it officially in one way or another. But how many acknowledge equally officially the coming of age of their young people? Conversation with young Japanese guests at a wedding today has set me thinking….
We had a very happy time today. A lovely friend from Japan, Minako (who is our HOPES volunteer) married her art-enthusiast Ian right here in Liverpool. Rarely have I seen a more cosmpolitan and relaxed gathering, as we all celebrated with the beaming couple. There were friends and family from Japan, Hong Kong, Spain, Italy, Canada, Romania, Turkey, Malaysia, Germany and many other places, alongside an impressive diversity of home-grown Scousers and other Brits.
It was a great day for us all to share – the sort of occasion where one makes new friends with amazing ease – and, as always at such celebrations, there were plenty of nice surprises as well as the treats we had hoped for and looked forward to.
Chatting with young visitors
For me one of these treats was the opportunity to talk with young guests from several corners of the globe, amongst them a Japanese student who told me about the ceremony she next hoped to be part of – the Seijin Shiki or Japanese Coming of Age ceremony.
This was a surprise, the first I’d ever heard of such an event. I gather it is eagerly anticipated by the participants, all young people in each town who will reach the age of twenty in the current school year (April – March). The date used always to be 15 January, but since 1999 it has been on the second Monday of January. Twenty was set as the age of adulthood in 1948; before that age young people may not now smoke, drink or vote.
A civic event
Seijin Shiki is an event organised by the officials of each town. All eligible young people are invited to a morning ceremony where they are welcomed to adulthood and reminded of their new rights and responsibilities.
Many young men I gather now wear ‘normal’ day suits, but the women still often choose traditional dress for the occasion, the furisode, which is a style of kimono, sometimes passed from mother to daughter and often worn only for this event and on their wedding day (as Minako did today, looking wonderful).
Siejin Shiki is a special day and is marked by most young people as just that, before finishing in celebrations of a less civic sort, in the style of young people at a party the world over.
Different meanings for different people
Like every other formally marked celebration anywhere, I gather this event has different meanings for different people. For some it is simply a way to have a good chat, all dressed up, with old school friends; for others it apparently sometimes offers an opportunity to make a point about how they think the new voters should position themselves politically; and no doubt for another group it’s just an excuse for a party, regardless.
Whatever, and of course with safeguards, it’s in principle a very positive idea.
Perhaps few of us in Britain do enough to make young people feel they are partners in our social fabric, people with an entitlement and an obligation to take a stakehold in society. We criticise and carp, but do we welcome young people as they enter adulthood? I think we could, and very probably should, do better.
Celebrating people
The way I found out about this was that I went to a lovely wedding and thoroughly enjoyed myself. It was really nice to share the celebration with so many and varied friends old and new, and we all wish Minako and Ian the very best for their future together in Liverpool.
In Britain we do seem to know how to acknowledge and celebrate marriage, and I hope that our visitors from Japan and elsewhere would agree about that, though our style may be very different from how it’s done in their own countries.
But what I’m far less sure about is that we know as a society how to celebrate young people and the meanings attached to their coming of age. As families and friends of course we do it well; as a civic and democratic society we perhaps have a lot we could learn from our friends in Japan.
Magna Carta Day (15 June)
The Magna Carta story of 1215 is dramatic, with its dissenting Barons, overbearing Pope, double-dealing King and, finally, wise boy Monarch. Good really does win out in this one. So why not indeed have June 15, the actual date of the signing of the Charter, as a Bank Holiday to celebrate ‘Britishness’? Inviting everyone to remember how their liberty was first won – whilst also enjoying a ‘free’ day – could do a lot for democratic involvement in these apparently non-political times.
Today is Magna Carta Day. On June 15th 1215, the Magna Carta was signed by King John as a way of resolving a dispute between his Barons and himself.
I’m no historian, but I think we can all grasp the essentials of this occasion, why it was so momentous. For the first time ever (in English history at least?) a limit was put on the power of the King. At that time, when the authority of the Monarch was perceived as absolute and God-given, this must have seemed an outrageously daring, if not downright dangerous, thing to do. (What if God had objected?)
Indeed, the Pope (Innocent III) – who had actually also been in dispute with John about who could tell whom what to do – was deeply affronted by the idea of regal power being limited (except by the Pope himself as God’s representative on earth) and immediately ‘released’ John from his agreement with the Barons, saying that the deal was ‘shaming and demeaning’. This suited John very well, as he had had no intention of observing the agreement, especially as it had been forced upon him by the Barons – who, as relative moderates not wishing to embark on civil war, had taken London by force on June 10th in order to ensure that John had no option but to sign.
Clause 61
Like some public documents in our much more immediate past, the real devil was in the detail of particular clauses of the Magna Carta. One really big issue was Clause 61, in which the concept of distraint was for the first time applied to the King.
The ‘agreement’ was that if 25 Barons, having renewed their oath of fealty, later decided it was imperative to overrule the King, they could do so if necessary by force, seizing his castles and possessions if need be. Distraint was not a new idea, but applying it to the King certainly was!
Clause 39
Another Clause, 39, was also a breakthrough for the idea that the law stood above anyone’s individual authority, even the King’s. It required that No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgement of his equals or by the law of the land.
With rules like this, it was little wonder that John felt no compunction about renouncing the Magna Carta as soon as his Barons had left London. And thus commenced the First Barons’ War. But for once in those troubled times things worked out for the better. Just a year later John was unfortunate enough to die, on 18 October 1216, in the middle of his war, simply from dysentery.
Henry III takes over at age nine
Thus it came about that John’s son Henry was crowned King, aged just nine. The royalists believed correctly that Henry, still a child, would be a more acceptable as Monarch than had his father, and that the war would then cease.
Once Henry had been crowned a weakened version of the Magna Carta was re-issued by his regent, minus Clause 61 and some others; and in 1225, as soon as he came of age, Henry himself reissued it in a generally similar abbreviated form.
And finally, in another stroke of good fortune for those who followed, Henry was the longest-serving English Monarch of the Mediaeval period, so that by the time he died, in 1272, the Magna Carta had become firmly established in legal precedent.
A great story
Here is by any standards a dramatic tale – a staged challenge to the highest authority in the land, and indeed to that of the Pope himself; a kidnapping and enforced treaty; immediate reneging on the deal; and salvation through the crowning of a boy king, who in his adulthood shows himself to be fair and strategically wise in his judgement. All with a bit, but not by the standards of the day really an excess, of swashbuckling action and contest.
What more could any History, Politics or Civics teacher ask for?
A Bank Holiday on 15 June?
A recent survey showed that large numbers of people think we in Britain should have an extra Bank Holiday – and that the best day to have it would be Magna Carta Day, 15 June. This perhaps indicates a greater degree of political consciousness than some give us all credit for, and it would, it has been suggested, provide us an excellent opportunity to celebrate ‘Britishness’.
That date’s pretty close to our last Bank Holiday, at the end of May (and it still leaves a yawning gap in the grim stretch between September and Christmas), but this suggestion has a point. The story of King John the Bad, the Good Barons and the Wise Boy Monarch is stirring stuff, and if it could capture the imagination of British citizens of all ages and beliefs, that’s a big plus.
The more we can celebrate sound politics, democracy and fairness as the overt hallmarks of our nation, the better.
Early Intervention In The Early Years
Critics of Sure Start, the U.K. government’s early years programme, have been vocal of late. Yes, there is evidence that benefit has not always as yet reached those small children and families who need it most. But this is work in progress, and it must be continued.
Sure Start, the huge government-led programme for 0 – 4 year olds, has been subject to quite a lot of criticism of late. It’s understandable that senior polticians, the Prime Minister himself amongst them, should want to see progress before the next general election. The problem however is that small children don’t become achieving teenagers in the same time-span.
This was never going to be easy. Sure Start is at present specifically focused on the least advantaged families, where take-up, especially for those parents who find themselves most challenged, is variable. But it’s essential that those with the governmental cheque book hold their nerve.
Evidence that it works
One thing which stands out in the Sure Start programme is its emphasis on activities such as reading aloud for parents (and that includes fathers) and children to share. There is a dedicated theme in all this about bedtime stories, and indeed about just simple conversation between little ones and their carers. This is a difficult activity to measure with any degree of accuracy, but we know from longitudinal studies that, over years rather than just months, it works.
Sure Start is not the first programme of this sort. There’s plenty of evidence from previous programmes here and in the U.S.A. that early intervention is really beneficial for those who become involved. But we’re still learning how to reach the least advantaged and those who feel most marginalised.
Adapt, perhaps; abandon? No
Workers in Sure Start have had to find the way forward for themselves. Inevitably in such a situation some have had more success than others – not least because some local contexts provide greater challenges or fewer already established resources than do areas elsewhere.
The move towards Children’s Centres, whilst unsettling for many of the professionals concerned, is if handled sensitively probably the right way to go. It would be a tragedy if critics determinedly take a short-term view which makes it difficult for the Government to continue with this work.
Dismissing the idea behind the initiative would result in damage to the futures of many thousands of children who deserve the better start in life.
Dreaming Realist 