As anybody who reads my blogs knows, I think that that anniversaries are important. One piece of feedback I received was to stop ‘banging on about them’. I value feedback but I reject this suggestion because I have seen that recognising anniversaries can be a strong force for good. This is true emotionally, but also practically. They serve as landmarks in the temporal landscape. They are an aide memoire of the lessons from major events and a benchmark to mark our progress or decline. They also allow us to respectfully reflect on lives lost and loss endured. Of course for those with personal connections with disasters anniversaries have a deeper and rawer significance. From a professional point of view we do well to remember the contributions of our forebears. Their efforts are no less important than our own. Today my appointments took me through Moorgate station in the City of London and as always my thoughts turned to the horrors of 28th February 1975. Next year will see th
Welcome to my annual rant about Easter. It took a long time this year but the inevitable happened to me yesterday when somebody asked: ‘when is Easter this year’, this was followed by the question: ‘is it early or late? The answer to the latter question is always so unhelpful that I don’t know why it is asked. Look, it is quite simple. In the western Christian tradition Easter Sunday falls on the Sunday after the paschal full moon, which is the full moon that falls on or after the spring equinox meaning that Easter Sunday can fall between the 22 nd March and the 25 th April in the Gregorian calendar. Of course this has a knock on and back effect on other festivals such Ash Wednesday and Whitsun. For years I wondered what happened to the Whitsun half term, but having Easter on castors meant that it sometimes fell at times that were far from convenient for schools and their pupils. Easter has always been problematic. The current arrangements were worked out by the C
I have received quite a lot of interest in the discussion around using volunteers and recalling recently retired staff. In response I would make a couple of suggestions – largely aimed at the emergency services. There are distinct areas of need within an organisation and no way of knowing who will be available and who will be afflicted. For convenience I would suggest that organisations concentrate on the point of delivery and on the command tier. Increasing availability at the point of delivery is not easy but solutions need to be considered before the peak of the contagion is reached. It is hard because delivery requires the most up to date skills, certifications and fitness – the later not being the universal hallmark of the retired. Ex staff need to be approached, assessed and brought back into the organisation. They could be paid a retainer and left until they are needed but it would be better if they got used to the workplace and used the time for training and ref
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