What was I doing when....?

I feel fortunate and valued to have been nominated to provide my whereabouts at time of the following 5 historical days:

Princess Diana's death - 31 August 1997

I was in bed, when Liz woke me up to tell me the news. Shocked, I got up and watched the news unfold. I'm still in shock now!

Margaret Thatcher's resignation - 22 November 1990

Although I remember this happening, I've never really followed politics too closely, so cannot remember the events that led to the Iron Lady resigning.

Attack on the twin towers - 11 September 2001

I remember being at work, when somebody mentioned that plane had crashed into one of the twin towers. There were a couple of still pictures on the net, but I didn't get to know the full horror until I got home from work. Tragic!

England's World Cup semi final v Germany - 4 July 1990

(Quoted from Liz's blog as we share the memory) This was the Saturday that the Romford Youth were involved in the Territorial Congress doing Drama, under the tutilage of Stuart Grinstead. So, as we were still in The Youth then, we all piled round to Keith and Fiona's afterwards to watch it on their tele - wasn't it the one where Gazza cried and... we lost. I recall Liz being obsessed with seeing images of Lothar Matteus ( SP??)

President Kennedy's Assassination - 22 November 1963

I was only 1 and had no idea what a grassy knoll was, or book depository store for that matter!

I'm going to be boring and not nominate, as the only people I know have already been nominated. Sorry folks!

A55 or A5 that is the question

The website of the campsite where we are going on holiday suggest that SatNav will not direct you the best route – they kindly provided a map which still doesn’t give you the proper route, but suggests the A55 is better then the A5.

The problem is, to get onto the A55 we would have to stay on the M6 right up to, almost, Liverpool and then go across on the A55.

I couldn’t see where the gain was, so I emailed the campsite people for advice.

I received a response:

Hello,

Yes, the A55 is a much faster route than the A5.


I then received another response:

Hello again,

Have had a debate with my husband and he says that the A5 would be a more direct route. So, it is really a matter of preference I suppose. Good luck anyway

Question – can you have a preference if you don’t understand the difference between the 2 choices?

Culture Change

At work, I volunteered to be part of a focus group whose remit was to look at the Culture of our department (approx 150 people). Recent surveys suggested there might be some Cultural problems and our ‘Head of’ wants to get to bottom of the problems. (thump table with fist when you say ‘problems’ - Try this now.)

Over the past months we have undertaken some surveys, workshops etc. to establish where the biggest gaps (between where we are and where we should be) are. We’re currently asking people what’s causing the gaps, and what could be done about it? The information coming in has some common themes, which seem to underlie a feeling of ‘resentment’ ‘injustice’ ‘fear’ etc.

Here’s the thing.

Culture isn’t something you can apply a new process to to fix/change. You can apply processes differently/fairly which might make people feel better, over a period of time, but there aren’t many quick wins with this. However, the ‘Boss’ is getting restless, and is putting pressure on the group (who are doing this in ‘spare time’) to come up with the solutions and plans to deploy. He wants to see results, (thump) now! I think he’s missed the point.

A definition of Organisational Culture is:

Organisational culture refers to the patterns of beliefs, values and learned ways of coping with experience that have developed during the course of an organisation’s history, and which tend to be manifested in its material arrangements and in the behaviours of its members”.

We have our work cut out!

What about culture in our church?

Ditto – I think.

Reading this back I’ve realised that for church, I have the same attitude as ‘the Boss’ – but at work I see the need to tread carefully. A lesson in life for me.