Category Archives: The Journal
Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral Of Christ The King
Sometimes the sun seems to beam right along Liverpool’s Hope Street as though it had a special route to the heart of the city. When dark clouds lie behind the Cathedral, the effect of this noonday shaft of light is dazzling.
See more photos of Liverpool’s Cathedrals and celebrating communities on Hope Street href=”http://www.hilaryburrage.com/hope_street_liverpools_cultural_knowledge_quarter/liverpools_two_cathedrals/”>here [Liverpool’s Two Cathedrals] and below….
Read more about Hope Street Quarter.
Information on Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral is available here.
See also photgraphs at Calendar & Camera and Liverpool (Anglican) Cathedral.
John Belchem’s ‘Liverpool 800: Culture, Character & History’ (1207-2007)
For three years Professor John Belchem and his University of Liverpool colleagues worked on a scholarly publication to record Liverpool’s eight hundred years as a city (1207 – 2007). Academically impressive, the book offers vibrant testimony to the human actions and achievements behind the dry facts – just as those attending made the official launch of this publication, in the setting of Liverpool’s splendid Town Hall, such a warm and memorable occasion.
Liverpool Town Hall is always a spectacular venue in which to celebrate a special occasion. It reminds us vividly of what the City of Liverpool must have been like in its prime, and what indeed it could still be again.
Nowhere, then, could have been more appropriate as a location for the formal launch on 18th October 2006 of Liverpool 800: Culture, Character & History, the University of Liverpool Press book edited by Professor John Belchem about the first eight hundred years of this sometimes infuriating and always fascinating city. Liverpool is on the verge of another momentous era in its long history, as 2007 and 2008 approach. (You can see just some of the many special aspects of Liverpool life and legacy in the books listed immediately below this article.)
Liverpool 800 is an impressive publication which charts as honestly and openly as it can the ways in which Liverpool has progressed over the past eight centuries, from its ‘small beginnings’ in 1207. As the book’s back cover reminds us, Liverpool rose, not always by admirable means, to become one of the world’s greatest seaports, so that by 1907 it was the second city of the empire. But what happened thereafter resulted in a vastly different prospect for this enigmatic city. John Belchem’s book, in charting the rise, fall and we trust rise again of Liverpool, will I know be a big hit; and I hope it will also offer a focus for just how we can now move forward to a second period of success and (this time, benign) global influence.
New friends and old
<img alt="Peter Brown Img0151.JPG" src="http://www.dreamingrealist.co.uk/Peter%20Brown%20Img0151.JPG" width="104" height="120" /
Not withstanding the importance of the occasion, one of the nicest things about the Liverpool 800 launch was much simpler than all this. It was, as on other similar occasions, an excellent opportunity to catch up with friends old and new.
In the course of the evening I chatted with many people, including the Lord Mayor, Councillor Joan Lang, with whom years ago I sat on the City Arts Festival Committee, as well as those stalwarts of Liverpool’s civic history, such as John Vaughan, a local historian, now retired from the University of Liverpool Libraries, Christina Clarke JP, a ceaseless advocate for the preservation of our built heritage, Dr Peter Brown, chairman of the Merseyside Civic Society, and Andrew Pearce, at one time an MEP for Merseyside and now chairman of the Liverpool Heritage Forum. Others with an impressive knowledge of our civic heritage whom I know from the Liverpool Echo Stop the Rot campaign were there too.
In the same room, also chatting happily with everyone assembled, were people such as Rodney Holmes of Grosvenor,
who is in charge of our huge new Paradise Project ‘Liverpool One’ commercial development, and others from the University of Liverpool, the Liverpool Culture Company and the City Council, all in their day jobs busily engaged in promoting our future prospects as a city.
And then there were folk ‘from the community’ such as Tom Calderbank and his wife, who have worked so hard to raise the profile of places like Toxteth Town Hall and The Belvedere.
In all, a richly diverse assembly of people, with their varied focuses on the past and the future, to celebrate the richly diverse history of our city.
A history which brings us together
I could go on, but lists are never complete and after a while inadvertent omissions start to become obvious. However one looks at it, this book launch was an event which brought together people from many parts of Liverpool.
But of course the main person on this occasion was the man who with his co-authors has seen it through from beginning to end, linking all these varied threads into one cohesive whole. John Belchem spoke to us about his book without notes and with much passion. It was good to see him so delighted with the interest in, and support for, his finally completed project.
A welcome message
John’s theme when he addressed us was one to which we can all subscribe: History tells us, he said, that Liverpool has always thrived on celebration. The city’s fortunes prosper when, whatever the reason, there are parties and festivities to be had! The launch of Liverpool 800: Culture, Character & History, in our fabulous Town Hall, was an excellent practice run for what we all hope will also be an outstandingly excellent couple of years for Liverpool, in 2007 and 2008.
Hope Street Farmers’ Market Is Deferred – But Why?
The Farmers’ Market scheduled for Liverpool’s Hope Street today has been cancelled because of pressures on officialdom. This is not a new scenario when it comes to efforts to enhance the local community’s engagement and enterprise. What could those ‘in charge of granting permissions’ do to prove themselves, rather, as partners and enablers?
The Daily Post this morning reports that the intended monthly Farmers’ Markets in Hope Street (third Saturday of the month) willl now begin in November, not today. After two very successful test runs (last October and during this year’s Hope Street Festival – though why not as we suggested before then, I don’t know) there was a real head of steam for the event today. People just love markets, with all their variety and colour!
But it seems the authorities can’t cope… not enough time for the policing (in Hope Street? – probably Liverpool’s most sedate throughfare till now at least), not enough notice, and so forth…. and the Farmers’ Market organisers, Geraud Markets, are upset.
Not a new problem
Sadly, this ‘not enough notice’ and / or ‘can’t be done without big payments’ scenario is not new. It caused the delay of this year’s Hope Street Festival, originally planned for June, and it has been the undoing of several other events along Hope Street (as well, I suspect, as elsewhere).
It is fair to say that perhaps Geraud Markets, who have a joint venture arrangement with the City Council, might well have made appropriate contact with the authorities earlier – they are a big organisation – but that doesn’t really explain the history of City Council ‘can’t do’ which seems to overarch so many attempts to engage and involve people in our local community. The thwarted efforts are too many to list here.
Basic objectives put aside
Whether you look at the very worthy stated objectives of the Farmers’ Markets joint venture with Liverpool City Council, or at those of much smaller organisations such as HOPES: The Hope Street Association, you will find a serious intent to improve the health, environment, general quality of life and enterprise climate of our Quarter.
The City Council may well claim to endorse these fine words – and individually some of its officers certainly go the extra mile in doing that – but overall their actions speak don’t do much to demonstrate the commitment when it matters.
Supporting local communities – or not?
The question that perhaps those in charge at Council HQ have to ask is, ‘What are we actively doing to help? And is it actually enough?’ No private organisation or individual is obliged to support the enterprise and engagement of Liverpool communities, and some of us feel sorely tested. But it seems the message still isn’t getting through.
This Website Is One Year Old Today!
This website went live exactly one year ago. Its owner has learnt a lot about ‘web-based journals’ and ‘blogging’ in the 365 days since then.
11 Octcber last year was a scary day for me. It was the day I finally took the plunge and ‘went live’ with postings for my pre-prepared website.
Technical ‘challenges’
Over the last twelve months I have learnt to write in several different styles and a new ‘voice’ (generally less academic and more direct), I have touched on many topics which take my interest, I have learnt to manipulate Moveable Type and to insert weblinks and photographs (you too can do it, if you try…), and I have had many and long discussions with my admirably ever-patient web designer, Nick Prior, over matters large and small (most of which started by my asking, ‘How do you ….?’).
I like to think Nick has been on a (gentler) learning curve too – mostly about how little some of his clients (specifically, me) know of things web-based. Perhaps it has offered him a view of the process through the eyes of an enthusiastic, enquiring and reasonably articulate weblogger who would like to make as much contact as possible with her readers, but knows nothing about the technical side of things. In my imagination I am not constrained by the technically conventional, because it’s all new to me!
Friends and ideas old and new
I have ‘met’ many new friends over the internet, and have talked about my weblog postings with many ‘old’ friends over coffee. This in itself has offered me a lot.
I have also discovered something of what I think about issues and areas of experience which I did not expect to pop up from my mind, but which have somehow become little contributions to this website. It’s illuminating to me as an individual to see where my thoughts take me, and perhaps it’s sometimes also engaging for others. A weblog is far less constraining than an academic paper or a one-off article, more like a conversation between the different parts of my experience. I personally would miss my weblog now, if I didn’t have it.
Categorising thoughts
As Nick Prior said recently, the opportunity to map out one’s thoughts in such a categorised way (computers are very unforgiving, though fortunately my web designer isn’t) is both interesting to the writer and difficult to achieve. I hope as the reader that you sense more of the former (‘interesting’) than the latter (‘difficult’).
Nonetheless, categorising my ideas has proved to be one of the most tricky tasks. How does one bring together connected individual postings as ‘topics’ without huge numbers of categories and sub-categories to guide the reader? My aim is to give this weblog some coherence and integrity, so we have general headings to provide an indication of where one might find the articles of most interest; but even that seems to leave things a bit too wide and woolly.
I plan therefore to introduce a category of postings entitled Resource List (or similar), where I will offer a brief guide to what’s been posted so far on particular recurring themes, with a note on why I believe the theme is of interest. It has been fascinating to see which topics have been most selected and pursued by my readers!
Becoming business-like
I am now trying to make the whole arrangement a bit more business-like; just in the past day or so I have signed up with Amazon and Google for ‘appropriate’ referrals through my website, and we shall all be watching to ensure that’s what we get. If it works, this should help to defray the costs of running the site and it may even open our minds to (new?) publications and other items of interest about which some of us, on occasion including me, were previously unaware. We shall see.
Sharing ideas
But most importantly, ithis website has given me the opportunity to share thoughts and observations far more widely than before, with all the challenges and benefits which derive from this. There are now almost two hundred postings on the site, which has had hits from seventy seven countries across every continent. As Nick Prior predicted, the rate of increase in the past three months has been striking – he told me that without external promotion it would take eight or nine months to get going – and now we have some one hundred unique visits a day (often many more page views) and rising.
For me this is encouraging indeed; obviously people like to visit my site; sometimes they even post comments as well. And that’s just great.
What next?
So what should I be concentrating on for the next year? Is the coverage of topics a good balance? Do you like the photos? Are the weblinks useful? Your comments and ideas are, as ever, really welcome.
Thank you for visiting, and please come again!
London’s Theatre Museum Is Closing – So Why Not Bring It To Liverpool?
The national collection of performing arts memorabilia, at the Theatre Museum in London, is to be dispersed when the Museum is closed in January 2007. So why not send it instead to Liverpool, as a ‘V&A Liverpool’, and let us up here have it as a very special part of our 2008 European Capital of Culture celebrations?
The sad news this week is that London’s Theatre Museum is to close. Its home in Covent Garden near the Royal Opera House is to be no more, and its exhibits will be dispersed by its parent body, the Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum.
A loss for the arts world, and everyone else
I’m sure there will be knowledgable people who will conclude that the merits or otherwise of the Theatre’s exhibits justify this decision, but to me it seems shocking. I visited it quite recently for the ‘Unleashing Britain – Ten years that shaped the nation: 1955-1964’ exhibition and, as I reported on this weblog, I found the whole place fascinating.
Perhaps the Theatre could be said to have been its own worst enemy, insofar as it always look closed even when it’s actually open – the doors seem blank and much of the exhibiiton is ‘below stairs’, in a wonderful but not-visible-from-the street warren of tunnels and small rooms; but the external visibility problems could easily have been resolved.
A bright idea?
However, if people in London don’t want the Theatre Museum collection as an identity, I have an idea…. Why not bring it to Liverpool for us to enjoy, and to develop as a very special national element of our celebrations in 2007 and 2008? We have a great tradition of theatre (and opera) in this city, and the V&A could open the revived exhibition as a ‘V&A in the North’, as the Tate has done with Tate Liverpool.
And to the national exhibition we could of course add the archives of our own theatres, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic’s archive and the history of Hope Street, Liverpool’s performing arts quarter.
There’s just about time to get the ball rolling, if we all started to work on this now. It would be a superb asset for Liverpool, and would keep the national exhibition in the public eye, when all our vitiors arrive for Liverpool’s 2008 European Capital of Culture Year. We have plenty of large buildings which could be put to good use in this way, and surely the maintenance costs could be found from somewhere, just as they will have to be if the artifacts stay in London anyway?
Benefits all round
If London really doesn’t want to keep the Theatre Museum as an identity, here’s an opportunity for them to do something really good as partners to help us ‘up North’ to gain even more value from our special years in 2007 and 2008, and beyond.
Read more articles on the National Theatre Museum.
Penny Lane, Not Any Lane (Liverpool)
Penny Lane in Liverpool is one of Liverpool’s most famous streets. How sad then that the high hopes of this community have been dashed so many times, as they try to secure their dream of a Millennium Green and a Centre for visitors and locals alike. A decade waiting is quite long enough. Now there must be some action.
Ten years is not a long time in the life of a city, but it can be in the life of a community. In that time people can arrive and depart, have families or see their youngsters leave. Many things determine the likelihood of any of these events, not least changes in the tone and appearance of that community’s actual location.
These thoughts came to mind as I recently made a visit to Penny Lane, that part of Liverpool’s inner suburbs, not far from my own home, which has been immortalised by our most famous sons, the Beatles.
Does it have to take a decade?
Ten years ago local residents decided they would like a Millennium Green and a Centre for locals and the many visitors, on the Grove Mount site of fairly undeveloped land along Penny Lane. After much hard work they secured a promise of such an amenity as long as they were able to secure the land and produce a sensible business plan. As part of the celebratory activity following this promise, I took ‘before’ photographs of the area – which I had hoped would swiftly be superseded by the ‘after’ photos.
Three cameras and thousands of photographs later, I’m still waiting.
The City Council has made various vaguely encouraging noises over the years, but nothing of substance seems to be happening. The field still hosts very occasional children’s football matches, but is if anything is more derelict than before. It is strewn with litter and worse; and the building in the corner is in a serious state of collapse.
Community impact
Unfortunately, much the same can be said of some people in the local community. Local youngsters (by no means a majority of them, but enough) use the field to hang out, disturbing and worrying other residents, whilst those who campaigned for the Millennium Green hand on grimly to their dream, never having imagined when they began that so much later still there would be no evidence of success.
Is this the way to treat people who give whatever they can of their time, imagination and enthusiasm in trying to improve their community?
People Power
Someone once said that a theme to which I consistently return is People Power. Too right, if what is meant by that is respecting and helping decent folk to maintain the areas in which they live. This, in my books, is a requirement on us all.
For now, the only satisfied ‘resident’ of the proposed Penny Lane Millennium Green is the cat who suns himself on the entrance pillars to this sorry, derelict site. I really hope that before long the powers that be will get a grip, and that, before the humans decide to give up completely, this happy little felix will have to relocate.
Learning From BURA
Membership of the British Urban Regeneration Association has helped me to see a wider picture of renaissance and renewal in the U.K. Lessons learned include: 1. Wider stakeholder engagement is vital right from the start of a proposed regeneration programme. 2. Environmental sustainability also needs to be built in from the start. 3. There is a need, increasingly recognised, to ‘translate’ the perspectives and understandings of different players at all levels in the process of renewal.
I’ve been a member of the British Urban Regeneration Association (BURA) almost since its beginnings. They held an early event in an enormous marquee on the brownfield site of the old Liverpool Speke Airport, now home to the Liverpool South Marriott Hotel; and somehow HOPES, the community-led charity which I chair, was invited to send a representative.
Now, a decade or so later, I am delighted just to have been elected to the BURA Board of Directors.
So the past few weeks have been a steep learning curve for me.
Engaging in the business
Firstly there was a visit to the BURA offices in Hatton Garden, London, where I met the very busy and welcoming officers and staff. There’s nothing like seeing people actually at their workstations for perceiving how involved and interconnected their business is.
Then I found myself in Manchester, chairing a BURA Forum of practitioners from all sorts of backgrounds who are connected with that city. And again, a few weeks later, I attended a dinner in that same location where we discussed the issues currently facing the construction industry, as it moves towards a more coherent and cohesive identity.
And finally this week I went to my first full Board meeting, in London – an event where, new girl as I am, I felt immediate resonance with many of my own concerns and interests, but in the course of which I also discovered a great deal more about the wide and fascinating remit of BURA overall.
An emerging consensus
Three things have struck me particularly about everything I’ve seen and experienced over the past couple of months.
Firstly, there is a rapidly emerging new core emphasis on what it means to talk about stakeholding in regeneration and renewal. At last it seems to be understood (a) that the engagement of wider stakeholders (for which read, ‘the community’ and others who have no direct commercial or public service interest) is not a desirable add-on to be pursued once the main objectives of a programme have been determined; but, rather (b) that without the insights and active consent of at least the majority of those unto whom a programme will be ‘done’, there is little point in the programme anyway. And this applies whether one considers the proposals from a straight business or from a wider social perspective….. Look no further than this week’s High Court judgement on proposed Edge Lane (Eastern Approach) developments in Liverpool, for evidence of the impact an individual – the doughty Elizabeth Pascoe in this case – can have on a situation where, in some people’s view, more emphasis should have been given early on to stakeholder issues.
Secondly, the consensus now developing offers a much more integral position on environmental sustainability. Again, those involved in regeneration now concur that this needs to be built into their plans right from the beginning, especially since energy will often be produced much more locally to its destination in the future.
And the third lesson so far? It’s that the sort of tasks I tend to find myself undertaking these days will become even more an aspect of professional activity in the future. There is sometimes a real need, now much more commonly acknowledged than previously, to ‘translate’ the work and understandings of given parts of a professional team to people in other parts of it; and often on top of this there is also a requirement to translate the perceptions of wider stakeholders to the professionals (and vice versa). Sometimes this has to be done on a ‘salvage’ basis, to re-stabilise a programme already under way, and other times it can be undertaken, more comfortably, far earlier in proceedings.
The humble joined-up approach
I suspect we are seeing the establishment of a new phase in now-maturing regeneration good practice.
For some while there has been considerable consensus about the core skills and activities which comprise most of the professions relating to regeneration. There are now established paradigms around particular professional contributions to regeneration, with all the power and conviction which arises from clearly defined and accredited expertise.
Alongside this however I detect a growing realisation that with acknowledged power and expertise must come a new humility, a genuine desire to learn from other stakeholders of all sorts (and as early on as possible) if regeneration programmes are to achieve their objectives. Whether it’s renewable energy specialists talking with construction engineers and planners, or developers and local residents trying to communicate with each other, everyone is having to articulate their positions very clearly, whilst they also try to perceive how other people see things.
It’s these wider perceptions about how we can learn from each other which BURA’s developing agenda will help to bring about.
In Praise Of Politics
The benefits of modern democracy which we in the U.K. enjoy are diminished by the media when they invite us to confuse the real thing with synthetic ‘political entertainment’ concocted by those who then ‘report’ it. At a time when cyncism about politics is rife, people need to know about the realities of political involvement, so they can make informed judgements about whom they wish to support.
I’ve just returned from the Labour Party conference in Manchester. Personally, I was impressed. The Prime Minister and Chancellor each spoke with great authority and conviction about what politics means to and for them, and I think it would be fair to say their orations resonated clearly with what the large majority of those attending believe and were looking to be affirmed.
My belief is that the Labour Party, whatever its blips and foibles, stands for a way of life which is fair, progressive and ambitious for everyone’s future. Other major parties in the U.K. can make their own case, but there is no doubt that those who seriously subscribe to these alternative credos also believe that their politic represents a way of life which makes sense to some people. I am content to acknowledge this – and where necessary to ‘take them on’, as Tony Blair urged in his speech. No doubt willingness to contest the political territory would apply in reverse for other parties, too.
Political debate about the future
The Labour Party national conference is one of the largest and without a doubt one of the most inclusive conferences in Europe. Women and men, first-time attenders and cabinet ministers, delegates of all ages, ethnicities, faiths and walks of life, meet in the course of that event as equals to bring their richly diverse experience and expertise to the issues of the day.
And the same applies to the democratic political process in the U.K. on a wider scale.
The critical point is this. Where citizens are prepared to give their time and other personal resources to engaging in debate about the future of our country (and that of the globe), they should be respected for having the courage and conviction to do so.
Of course there are caveats to this general position. When opposing parties permit the debate to become unpleasantly personal, or when they step outside the boundaries of decency (as for instance the British National Party does frequently) they diminish fundamentally the democratic process and thereby lose the right to respect and engagement in that process.
Synthetic ‘news’
So what do we make of the media coverage this week?
Frankly, it has not so far been consistently of the best. I have no problem about considered critiques, or even criticism, of the political offer – that’s what politics is about – but I have plenty of reservations about lead stories concerning what Cherie might or might not have muttered to herself, or about the future prospects of John Reid and Gordon Brown, following the synthetic televised gruelling of a supposedly ‘representative’ (and, for its purpose, woefully small) focus group.
This is the media making the news, not reporting it…. Not an unusual occurrence, but one which does not deserve the headline reporting these matters were given. There are serious issues at stake, and the wider public needs to know about them. Such trivial issues are entertaining, but they don’t take us very far in understanding what the underlying politics is all about.
Politics as commitment
Perhaps this needs to be said loud and clear: Many people are involved in politics with no expectation of personal reward. Most professional politicians go the extra mile and more (if they don’t, they deserve the abrupt termination of their political careers which is likely to follow).
Politics on the ground comprises hours of envelope stuffing and telephone calls; it requires rainy Saturday mornings in surgeries in what are now called challenging contexts; it involves knocking on the doors of not-always-appreciative strangers; it requires digging into one’s own pocket far more than filling it. And, critically, it demands the courage and conviction to stand up and say what one believes, and to take the reputational consequences.
And, most of all, decent politics at every level is underpinned by hope for the future – the belief that people can be persuaded to one’s view of what could be.
Politics as entitlement
I disagree fundamentally with the politics of the right, but I agree that sometimes the questions posed by right-wing politicians are valuable pointers to important issues which require resolution. I also accept that, within the bounds of decency and respect for other decent people (a requirement of us all), those who promote such right-wing positions have an entitlement to do so.
Political debate from the beginning of time has been the fairest way to decide who has the best ideas about what should happen, and who should be given the power to make that come about.
News, Politics or Entertainment?
If the media want to tell stories about what Cherie might have said to herself, or about a synthetic, manufactured event around the future of Gordon and John, no-one should stop them, self-serving of media pundits and distracting from serious debate though these stories are. Indeed, perhaps we are all complicit in this, at least insofar as the media would say we read this stuff and don’t challenge it.
But let’s at least ask that spurious ‘political’ stories be reported under the heading of Entertainment, not News; and let’s try to ensure that proper political reporting is delivered in ways which mark it out as Politics properly defined.
Politics is a difficult and sometimes even dangerous game; it needs, and democracy itself needs, the best people and the best efforts we can muster – and this in turn requires a modicum of underlying respect for those who still choose to make the effort.
Hope not cynicism
![Election Night (Lpool MPs) [smaller] 05.4.26 051.jpg](https://i0.wp.com/www.dreamingrealist.co.uk/Election%20Night%20%28Lpool%20MPs%29%20%5Bsmaller%5D%2005.4.26%20051.jpg)
If there were a better way to run modern societies than democratic politics, someone would have invented it by now. At a time when the victory of cynicism over respect for engagement in the political process has probably never been greater, we, the public, damage ourselves as well as the politicians if we don’t insist at some level that politics is fundamentally about hope for the future; and that political media-created ‘entertainment’ and democratic politics are different things.
The Conference Diversity Index
Conferences involving public funds and public policy are still too often devised and conducted as though the vast majority of the population were white, male, able-bodied and middle class. The time has come to start measuring in some way the extent to which this limited approach offers the general public value for money.
This is the twenty first century. We in Britain live in a democratic and accountable society run, on the whole, by people who are serious about ‘getting it right’.
How come, then, that I find myself so frequently incensed by the line-up and arrangements for public conferences on critical matters? The answer is simple: conferences about pressing civic matters are still very largely (not exclusively) organised and presented as if the entire planet were inhabited by able-bodied white, middle class, men.
Democratic underpinnings?
There are of course many excellent conference speakers and delegates who happen to be able-bodied, white and middle class; but theirs is not the only perspective or understanding which matters. It therefore follows that policy developed largely on the basis of this perspective will probably be weak or even downright unhelpful (and the evidence of this abounds…. just choose your own example.) So check out the next conference on any matter of general public concern:
Does it have significant diversity in its speakers and and their positions? For gender? For age? For ethnicity? For influence?
Is the agenda helpful in terms of recognising and giving weight to the diverse perspectives within its given community of interest? Do the topics listed for discussion demonstrate this clearly? Do they include specific consideration of possible future action on diversity within the theme being considered?
Is it accessible to everyone? Does it offer a significant number of places for sensible prices (say, the cost of two meals, perhaps £20)? Is it near a train station on a main line (especially if it’s more than local in its remit)? Is the venue easy to navigate for those with mobility and related problems? Assuming the issues under consideration are not privileged in some specific way, will the end-point papers be published on a free, publicly accessible and openly advertised website?
Where’s the action towards inclusion?
The Fawcett Society recently calculated that, at the present rate, it will still be four hundred years before men and women are equal in terms of their influence in the corridors of power.
This is simply not good enough. Not at all. Not now, let alone in several hundred years.
I have decided therefore to take one small step for diverse-person-kind, and begin work on a Conference Diversity Index, which will be developed to indicate, however, impressionistically, just how much value and weight might be placed on various publicly funded events about matters of public concern. More diversity of involvement and experience, more value…..
I know a few conferences coming up on Merseyside which may prove to be of interest; and no doubt you know of others.
This is my website version of the article ‘Can I have a speaker that reflects the community? Too white, too male and too posh. It’s time conferences had an injection of diversity’, published in New Start magazine, 27 October 2006, p.11
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?
Dreaming Realist 
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