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I bought my first forced rhubarb of the year yesterday. For those of you not in the know forced rhubarb is a bit of a Yorkshire thing - it's either grown in mysterious candle lit sheds, or, on a smaller scale, under a terracotta cloche.
The darkness tricks the plant …
Posted on Wednesday, 21st January 2009 | This entry has 0 comment(s)
Barack Obama admitted at last year's Democratic Convention that he may not be the obvious choice to run for president. While he could have been referring to a number of things, in this instance he was talking about his career background. With only four years as a senator, some saw …
Posted on Tuesday, 20th January 2009 | This entry has 0 comment(s)
20 years of innovative casino capitalism has left us in a mess!
Coupled with the ongoing environmental problems, there are going to be hard times for our local communities and neighbourhoods.
However, let’s look to the future and start forging the upturn from the downturn.
The present situation offers us …
Posted on Monday, 19th January 2009 | This entry has 0 comment(s)
The Welfare Reform Bill has finally arrived with new promises of tailored support for claimants couched in the language of ‘rights and responsibilities’.
While we are used to public cynicism about whether politicians are as good as their word, we would all like to believe that the promises of high …
Posted on Monday, 19th January 2009 | This entry has 0 comment(s)
One of the big ideas in public services reform in recent years has been the need for greater personalisation.
A key driver for this was the sense that public services had to catch up with an increasingly demanding public that expects the same options, flexibility and targeted information from their …
Posted on Monday, 19th January 2009 | This entry has 0 comment(s)
I do quite a lot of work with third sector organisations which are exploring what they might call "becoming a social enterprise".
That tends to mean developing a new service, or selling an existing service to a new customer group.
One phrase I hear a lot is "We don't want …
Posted on Thursday, 15th January 2009 | This entry has 2 comment(s)
The ColaLife idea starts with two quite startling facts: 1) in developing countries, 1 in 5 children die before their fifth birthday from simple causes such as dehydration from diarrhoea, that's 4 a minute in Africa alone, or 5,500 a day and 2) you can buy a Coca-Cola virtually anywhere, …
Posted on Thursday, 8th January 2009 | This entry has 1 comment(s)
As I write, retailers around the world will be anxiously doing their sums, wondering whether they've got any chance of making it through until next Christmas, or maybe even next week. It's obvious that Woolies won't be the last retailer to go to the wall.
I believe that we'll see …
Posted on Monday, 5th January 2009 | This entry has 0 comment(s)
For 30 years I was a community worker mostly in the house estates of Scotland. Since the early 1990s, increasingly municipalist Labour administrations north of the border moved against independent communities to bring them back under council control. To its shame, the community development profession up here turned its back …
Posted on Monday, 5th January 2009 | This entry has 0 comment(s)
I'm writing this on officially the most stressful day of the year, Monday January 5 (a psychologist says so, so it must be true) but since it will be posted on Tuesday 6 all of the stress levels should already be reducing. That's the theory anyway. But it's clear that …
Posted on Monday, 5th January 2009 | This entry has 0 comment(s)
As the Chairman for the Anti Poverty Network Cymru, I would like to say how sad it is that the West Rhyl Community Company is closing its doors forever. WRCC have backed our organisation from day one and their help and support has been exceptional to the fight against poverty. …
Ian Mather on 10th March 2010:
Phoenix from the flames: the rebirth of Rhyl
Yes , it is extremely sad to see a hard working group such as WRCC close due to lack of funding. I just find it hard to understand that in an area that is crying out for support that a worthwhile organisation such as this is being allowed to shut …
John Watkin on 9th March 2010:
Phoenix from the flames: the rebirth of Rhyl
I agree… I wrote a piece on PB for The Guardian a few years ago… as you say, they are a good way of getting far greater involvement and support for local spending decisions, and that could be (and is) applied to wider areas such as Total Place.
What …
Robert Bullard on 9th March 2010:
Parish councils: an unlikely hothouse for community development?
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