Crises and Committees

As we all know, it’s always a case of all or nothing!  This past couple of weeks have been full-on in many ways, but perhaps the backdrop of Covid19 has made it feel somewhat out of kilter too.  Certainly, at work the imminent threat has afforded daily 8.00am COBRA-like meetings, and there is an underlying feeling of unrest throughout the school sites.  Outside of work a few upcoming events such as AGMs and exercise classes have been postponed.

You may know this but I didn’t (not exactly surprising) but COBR refers to the Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms which are meeting rooms in Whitehall, London.  The meetings held here are usually in response to instances of national or regional crisis, or during events abroad with major implications for the UK.

On the other side of the coin, but linked to a similar degree of high anxiety that I experience with regard to running Winchcombe’s Open Gardens, these meetings are held in The White Hart pub in the centre of town!  I am very pleased that the ‘burden’ of responsibility is now being shared with a few other volunteers, and we are slowly but surely making progress.  I have designed a new website for the Open Gardens (OG) event and published it today – after getting very confused about the domain name status – I thought I’d purchased the latter a few weeks ago, but apparently that wasn’t the case, I had actually bought the hosting plan and that explained why the web registrations and SEOs were proving difficult!  And that stands for ‘search engine optimisation’.  Believe me, you don’t want to get wrapped up in this tech-world if a novice like me, as it’s like unravelling a knotty ball of string… very frustrating!

It was almost a waste of my time too, as I had to convince the various committee members linked to OG, and generally affiliated to the church, that nowadays a website is really expected by the general public.  This is because the average of the committee members must be 75+years-old and the majority do not appear to ‘engage’ with this type of media - I don’t dare mention the Facebook page….!?

See:  https://www.opengardens-winchcombe.com/
See:  https://www.facebook.com/winchcombegardens/

Cartoon by Mitch Teemley

We also held a Winchcombe Together Association [WTA] AGM recently (again in the White Hart) and that was a queer kettle of fish!  It was an ‘open’ meeting and one member of the public was in attendance… and what a rude, ignorant and unpleasant person she appears to be!  wrote up the minutes (which will be approved at the next meeting so are not yet available) but suffice to say this woman’s reaction to the fact that the WTA’s remit was not to necessarily represent her business concerns with the local council / police / highways agency was rather obnoxious,  In actual fact at the end of the meeting she swore colourfully at us – so much so that all six volunteer members were stunned into silence!  Considering that we are all volunteers and our hard work for the Christmas Festival alone generates a lot of attraction and visitors to the town, as well as raising a lot of money for local charitable cause, I was a tad incensed to say the least!

Needless to say, the committee has pretty much decided that, as the constitution allows it, the next WTA AGM will be held in private.  Hey ho.

See:  https://www.winchcombe.co.uk/winchcombe-together/  ​