Garden Fund Raiser! June 2013

The Branch held our annual tea in the garden event in Arnesby this year, at Elaine and Peters. Despite threats of heavy rain and strong winds, the storm held off for a couple of hours, and no-one got wet!

Over 30 members and friends braved the weather to come along, including old members who came all the way from Buxton and Market Harborough to visit, and Leicestershire members from over the borders in other Branches!

There were plenty of delicious cakes, as usual - yum!

It was hard work providing all those cups of tea.....

Excellent reading material was available at very competitive prices!

Peter Soulsby, Mayor of Leicester attended, and after talking about the positive results in the recent County elections; and his hopes for the Euro and 2015 elections, he stocked up on a wide range of reading material for his forth coming holiday!

Willy Bach also discussed current issues and our prospects in the Euro elections.

A happy raffle winner.....

 

The treasurer was happy that there are now funds in the Branch - we made £200!!

The next events are: Lutterworth Carnival, where our stall will be a Quiz, written by Willy B, and money raised will go to Lord Mayors Appeal; and BBQ at Mike Wailloos, (in the red jacket!)July 13th, 2pm. Tickets £10 from David Fish, Secretary. See you there!

If even people from the FT say austerity has failed...

There's an argument that the financial crisis was fuelled, if not started, by endless commentary in the news media.  Now Martin Wolf, chief economics commentator of the Financial Times, says this:

"Austerity has failed. It turned a nascent recovery into stagnation. That imposes huge and unnecessary costs, not just in the short run, but also in the long term: the costs of investments unmade, of businesses not started, of skills atrophied, and of hopes destroyed."

You can read the full article here, on The New York Review of Books site.  It's also apparently available on the FT site, but that of course is a pay site, which is anathema.

Saving the NHS

'Outgoing NHS England Chief Executive David Nicholson  launched a sustained attack of the political debate around the health service in his farewell speech to the NHS Confederation.

'Sir David argued for the need to get away from the "tyranny of the electoral cycle" and said
that the government 'wasted' two years restructuring the NHS  instead of addressing the need to  transform services.

'Worse, during the 2010 election campaign, politicians "went around the country making promises
of no change".  David Nicholson made explicit reference to moratoriums on hospital reconfigurations, which had been promised by former health secretary Andrew Lansley before he took office.

'"We said at the time it was not the right thing to do - so what happened when we got a new government in, we wasted those two years where can really make change happen."

'David Nicholson argued that the reason that NHS England was set up was to look ahead and think strategically about the future of the NHS.  This strategy would get the NHS "out of the tyranny of that electoral cycle, to think about the NHS over the medium to long term".'

[Health Service Journal 14 June 2013 Page 15]

Thanks to David Fish for submitting this item.

Alternative transport strategies

David Fish has sent this question from the Bite-Sized Masters of Business Administration Course delivered by Rupert Vernalls (below):

Question – what is the biggest airline in the World?

Answer – A regional airline!

Question – what airline

Answer – South West Airlines America

Question – How do they do it

Answer – effective (and alternative) strategies

e.g. Standardised Aircraft, technicians, pilots

e.g. Agreements with airports

e.g. Turnaround process

e.g. Frequent Flights

for example – South West Airlines only flies from secondary airports and turns round in 30 minutes

 

David  says, "Doesn’t this suggest that we could look deeper into alternatives to provide

High Speed 2 and  airport capacity in South East England?"

 

 

 

Very relevant, especially now that Birmingham is proposing to make its airport bigger than Heathrow, specifically tied-in to HS2.

June Branch meeting update, and forth coming Social events!!

The June meeting was even more lively than expected. It`s often the case that even the simplest agenda item or passing comment turns into a lively discussion and an impromptu debate on topical affairs! This was the case on Tuesday, when interesting conversations led to us needing to be thrown out by the caretaker as closing time approached!

An Arnesby Parish council decision prompted debate on the issue of windfarms. We are as a Branch very much in favour of clean energy, but are keen that energy initiatives and wind turbines are erected in a co-ordinated manner and in the most appropriate places to get the best wind. We decided to ask the GC to write to HDC and LCC to ask what their policy is on this.

David Fish, our Membeership secretary, brought a Branch membership record of the last 10 years. We notices a sad decline after the Iraq war, then a sudden increase after May 2010 - what could have caused that, we wondered??!!

Roger, our IT Wizard, has made further improvements to our Blog site and added a permanent email address for the Branch. He also proposed we get a phone, to further increase our availability to the public. We decided to do this as soon as we have more funds...(any funds, that is!) NB Pleasant, painless fund raising events will be taking place this Summer - see below.

Our official speaker for the evening was David Gair, Secretary of S Leics GC. He was talking about the environment, but because of previous discussions was allowed only 7 minutes to explain how humans have decimated the globe over the past 100000 years, but on a positive note have shown an ability to rectify their misdemeanors if they decide to do so, as in the case of CFCs, which was modified within 5 years. He did a masterly job in the 7 mins available, and we will continue this discussion at the next Branch meeting!

SOCIAL EVENTS THIS SUMMER
1.Tea in the garden, Sunday, 23rd June, 3 - 5, At Elaine and Peters in Arnesby, £3 entrance. Tea, cakes, book and plant stalls, raffle and a speaker.
2. Lutterworth Feast Day. Saturday, July 6th, 11 - 4. We will have a stall, with a Quiz written by Willy Bach, and any funds raised will be donated to the Lord Mayors Appeal.
3. BBQ Mikes garden. Delicious food, cooked by Mike. Saturday, 13th July, 2pm. £10 a head. Hamper to be raffled, organised by Sandra. Tickets from secretary, David Fish, davidfishcf@msn.com

See you all soon!