I've just had the radio on and listening to a news story about clothing sizes, particularly female clothes sizes. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44367791 . It was whilst listening to this that I thought about a conversation I recently had with a fellow council who has successfully lost weight. His target is now to be of a certain chest and waist size rather than a particular weight. Combining the conversation I had and the news story I have to ask 'what is size all about ?
I have no idea what a size 12 is, or a 16, 20 etc and as clothing is often imported I wouldn't have a clue what a US size 0 is compared with Uk sizes, and then we get onto small, medium, large, xl, xxl, xxxl etc. what? no sorry not a clue.
What I do know is that my waist size is larger than is like it to be but its measured in inches as is the length of my leg so if i go out to buy a new pair of trousers I look for those measurements, and should they be labelled small large etc then they generally get ignored.
Maybe its a sign of the times, with less outfitters and more mass produced garments that we are always looking for an average fit, trying to put labels on clothing and apply those labels to ourselves.
The news story featured an interview with someone who had taken to social media to voice their concern at not fitting into a particular size they thought they were. This interviewee went on to say how devastated she felt that she could not get into the clothing that was labelled up in her size. In a world of fast passed social media and todays unreality Tv shows I can quite sympathise with the impact this would have had. Another tweeted "It's called UK size for a reason, it means all clothes UK stores should measure to that guide.". I think this however falls short of addressing the problem.
The problem is we ar all different in so many ways, and whilst i understand this creates a challenge for clothing manufacturers i still have to ask why do we not apply simple measures to clothing? In my halls at university there were a group of 6 of us in the same area, i recall one conversation whilst out shopping with one of them who had a slim waist and long legs with wide hips, he used to buy jeans that fit his waist and leg but went for an anti-cut to get a pair that fit him correctly.
Boom there's a solution - stop putting people into boxes and judging them accordingly and label clothing up based on actually measurements and different cuts from highwaisted to skinny, from anti-cut to boot cut. There's a reason bra sizes have more than one measurement why do we not apply some thought to clothing and scrap the meaningless sizes for actually measurements.
Tuesday, 5 June 2018
Wednesday, 13 December 2017
Baby born with heart on the outside !!!
https://news.sky.com/story/mum-of-baby-vanellope-born-with-heart-on-outside-ive-been-on-rollercoaster-11168888
The above link will take you to a news article from today where a baby has been born with her heart outside of her body and survived. This is fantastic news!!! a big well done to the teams involved in this and all the best wishes for the future of this little girl and her family. Miracles do happen.
I have written before about the stress and anxiety of expecting a baby, its a really worrying time for all involved and finding out at the 9 week scan means there's months and months or worry ahead before you can even see and hold the baby, then years of worry ahead. those who know me or have read my blog will be aware I have not experienced some of the worst case scenarios but I do try to empathise, and that's what I am trying to do here so please indulge me for the next paragraph as its all about me then I'll talk about others.
It was 2003 when my wife and I went for a scan at Good hope hospital, during this scan the mood changed a little as the scenographer spotted something. With the scan finished we met a consultant and had a very quick and blunt discussion about what was found, talk about worst case scenario, the scan had should some cysts on the baby's brain which can be associated with a number of syndromes including ultimately baby loss, of course the last part was the bit that we picked up on. every 2 weeks we were at Good Hope hospital for scans as our babies brain developed these cysts dissolved as part of normal development (I'm not a medic). The fear and stress at the time was horrendous but fortunately for us the baby was born healthy and well. So in trying to apply my experience in understanding the position of the family of the baby in the news all I can say is its incomprehensible and well done to them.
As time goes by we often lose contact with friends and relatives but every now an then paths will cross and it was only in the last 2 years that I was back in touch with someone who I had not spoken to for decades. I am only raising this because I'd like to use the above news story to raise a little awareness. This person has grown up (as we all have) and started a family, one of their children was also born with a heart problem, I understand part of the heart didn't develop and so its only partly working. I am not aware of all the details so please forgive my ignorance. Again I will say the stress and fears involved in this must be horrific and I admire their emotional resolve. Stories like this in the news and effecting people you know really brings it home and puts perspective on some of the issue we worry about daily. I'd never considered heart development in any of my children's development or any other part of my life before this, its just something that we all lock away and hope doesn't effect us.
So what can we do? Praise the teams who are making a difference and support them, families and charities who are involved in or affected by with this type of issue on a daily basis. one of which is www.chuf.org.uk who have raised tens of millions of pounds to support families and children affected by heart development issues.
The big thing is talking about these things and being aware. They a problem shared is a problem halved, emotionally it maybe or a conversation may just open a door to someone that they didn't know existed. I suppose what I'm saying is whilst this is a special case as the baby girl is the first in the UK to survive there are many others effected by embryonic development issues and we don't know or discuss them.
Once again Well done to the team involved in the case above and well done to the families staying strong facing life's challenges.
The above link will take you to a news article from today where a baby has been born with her heart outside of her body and survived. This is fantastic news!!! a big well done to the teams involved in this and all the best wishes for the future of this little girl and her family. Miracles do happen.
I have written before about the stress and anxiety of expecting a baby, its a really worrying time for all involved and finding out at the 9 week scan means there's months and months or worry ahead before you can even see and hold the baby, then years of worry ahead. those who know me or have read my blog will be aware I have not experienced some of the worst case scenarios but I do try to empathise, and that's what I am trying to do here so please indulge me for the next paragraph as its all about me then I'll talk about others.
It was 2003 when my wife and I went for a scan at Good hope hospital, during this scan the mood changed a little as the scenographer spotted something. With the scan finished we met a consultant and had a very quick and blunt discussion about what was found, talk about worst case scenario, the scan had should some cysts on the baby's brain which can be associated with a number of syndromes including ultimately baby loss, of course the last part was the bit that we picked up on. every 2 weeks we were at Good Hope hospital for scans as our babies brain developed these cysts dissolved as part of normal development (I'm not a medic). The fear and stress at the time was horrendous but fortunately for us the baby was born healthy and well. So in trying to apply my experience in understanding the position of the family of the baby in the news all I can say is its incomprehensible and well done to them.
As time goes by we often lose contact with friends and relatives but every now an then paths will cross and it was only in the last 2 years that I was back in touch with someone who I had not spoken to for decades. I am only raising this because I'd like to use the above news story to raise a little awareness. This person has grown up (as we all have) and started a family, one of their children was also born with a heart problem, I understand part of the heart didn't develop and so its only partly working. I am not aware of all the details so please forgive my ignorance. Again I will say the stress and fears involved in this must be horrific and I admire their emotional resolve. Stories like this in the news and effecting people you know really brings it home and puts perspective on some of the issue we worry about daily. I'd never considered heart development in any of my children's development or any other part of my life before this, its just something that we all lock away and hope doesn't effect us.
So what can we do? Praise the teams who are making a difference and support them, families and charities who are involved in or affected by with this type of issue on a daily basis. one of which is www.chuf.org.uk who have raised tens of millions of pounds to support families and children affected by heart development issues.
The big thing is talking about these things and being aware. They a problem shared is a problem halved, emotionally it maybe or a conversation may just open a door to someone that they didn't know existed. I suppose what I'm saying is whilst this is a special case as the baby girl is the first in the UK to survive there are many others effected by embryonic development issues and we don't know or discuss them.
Once again Well done to the team involved in the case above and well done to the families staying strong facing life's challenges.
Friday, 8 December 2017
Green Bin charges, how did we end up here ?
Like many people in Tamworth I am not happy with the implementation of charging for garden waste to be collected. Yes I did vote for this in full council only a few months ago but this wasn’t a “put your hand up when you’re told we need this” it was in fact the position I had come to after many hours of contemplation and thought right up until just before the council meeting began. I thought that now the charge is imminent I’d share my thought processes.
Before I do I will just list a couple of facts about the charge.
1, the fee is £36 and this covers the calendar year regardless of when you pay within the next twelve months the renewal/repayment date will be December 2018 for 2019. So if you pay in June you get 6 months not 12.
2, it’s an annual fee, £36 for the year (not per collection as some have thought)
3, no one has to pay, if you don’t use your green bin you don’t pay.
4, the green bin service will cost around £250kpa extra due to changes to credits, it’s expected council will collect around £500kpa from the charges and I’ll pick up on what happens to the excess later.
So as I said I thought about this a lot and where did we come from to get here.
When I grew up we had metal dustbin about 90l capacity and a separate lid, everything could go in here including ashes from the fire in the lounge ( I wonder how we didn’t lose the lids?), then a Councillor by the name of John Garner came along and we moved into a privatised system with big black wheely Bins, Eventthing went on but not got ashes, and these were emptied weekly,
Back in 2004 the then labour council introduced a recycling scheme where black bins were empties fortnightly, dry recyclate was sorted curbside (in blue boxes and we did lose lids) and in Tamworth the green bin was born for garden waste and emptied fortnightly. Contract was signed for a July implementation at the May election there was a change of political leadership and the Conservatives were left as my neighbour at the time put it “getting the blame for something that’s not your fault”. Gosh remember the litter from curbside when the wind blew. This was also the time that John Garner came back on charge of waste management in Tamworth.
John like many of he conservative group was not happy with the fortnightly food waste collection and the curbside recycling methods, with John’s passion we had all sorts of presentations for invessel composting and the like where the council would buy the machinery and then sell the compost product afterwards. The financial return simply didn’t add up to cover the investment in the machinery. Ooh looks like someone has now recycled this idea and is claiming it as their own!!!! It didn’t stack up back then.
Anyway John found a solution and we moved to foodwaste in Black Bins and green, at last weekly food waste collections, but it was costing a fortune. John also lead us in creating the joint service with our neighbours in Lichfield, this was a cheaper service than external providers could supply and saw the end of the blue boxes from pre conservative days, we now had three big wheels Bins green black and blue. I remember these negotiations and remember the fight to keep the lichfield approach of charging for a second garden waste bin out of Tamworth.
In the history I’ve explained above the council had managed to negotiate actual millions of pounds worth of savings in the service and maintained the costs within everyone’s council tax bill.
This brings us to where we are now.
The costs of running services continues to increase as demand for different types of service increase and with the backdrop of reducing government hand outs to councils some difficult decisions have to be made. When I talk about increased demand I wan things like homelessness prevention and adult social care.
As I mentioned above changes to recycling credits will increase costs of the green bin service by around £200-£250k a year and is currently paid for by council tax contributions. Whether you use the green bin or not whether you live in a house of a flat your council tax is paying for those who use the garden waste collection service.
The council is expecting to generate around £500kpa from the charges, so half the charge pays for the service and generates a ‘saving’ in council tax expenditure and a the rest of the income will be used to support other vital service that we need to grow to support the vulnerable. There’s also some complex stuff about recycling credits in the coatings and surplus but the headline figures are about there.
So as ever where does the council get cash from? £80m budget with council tax income of £3.5m, it’s got to come from somewhere so things like industrial unit rents, non domestic rates contribution (after all other agencies have their cuts) car parks and charging for services, and this is where the decision came from. The collection of garden waste is not a statutory service and is therefore optional, the council have a number of options with it including continue as we are, cease the service, charge for it etc etc, in the same way the council charges for other services.
Wow that’s made it sound simple :( I’m still not happy we’re going down this line but what are the other options? Savings into the hundreds of thousands have been built into the budget over the years and will be again this year, underspends will be made and rolled back into the next year, gone are the days of “have budget will spend before year end”. I don’t want to see any vital services reduced to support new pressures, so whilst I’m not happy with the green waste charges I realise something has to give somewhere.
So it’s a green bin and £36 bill for me, unless I share it with a neighbour and spend £18 each.
Written on my phone not spell or grammar checked yet
Before I do I will just list a couple of facts about the charge.
1, the fee is £36 and this covers the calendar year regardless of when you pay within the next twelve months the renewal/repayment date will be December 2018 for 2019. So if you pay in June you get 6 months not 12.
2, it’s an annual fee, £36 for the year (not per collection as some have thought)
3, no one has to pay, if you don’t use your green bin you don’t pay.
4, the green bin service will cost around £250kpa extra due to changes to credits, it’s expected council will collect around £500kpa from the charges and I’ll pick up on what happens to the excess later.
So as I said I thought about this a lot and where did we come from to get here.
When I grew up we had metal dustbin about 90l capacity and a separate lid, everything could go in here including ashes from the fire in the lounge ( I wonder how we didn’t lose the lids?), then a Councillor by the name of John Garner came along and we moved into a privatised system with big black wheely Bins, Eventthing went on but not got ashes, and these were emptied weekly,
Back in 2004 the then labour council introduced a recycling scheme where black bins were empties fortnightly, dry recyclate was sorted curbside (in blue boxes and we did lose lids) and in Tamworth the green bin was born for garden waste and emptied fortnightly. Contract was signed for a July implementation at the May election there was a change of political leadership and the Conservatives were left as my neighbour at the time put it “getting the blame for something that’s not your fault”. Gosh remember the litter from curbside when the wind blew. This was also the time that John Garner came back on charge of waste management in Tamworth.
John like many of he conservative group was not happy with the fortnightly food waste collection and the curbside recycling methods, with John’s passion we had all sorts of presentations for invessel composting and the like where the council would buy the machinery and then sell the compost product afterwards. The financial return simply didn’t add up to cover the investment in the machinery. Ooh looks like someone has now recycled this idea and is claiming it as their own!!!! It didn’t stack up back then.
Anyway John found a solution and we moved to foodwaste in Black Bins and green, at last weekly food waste collections, but it was costing a fortune. John also lead us in creating the joint service with our neighbours in Lichfield, this was a cheaper service than external providers could supply and saw the end of the blue boxes from pre conservative days, we now had three big wheels Bins green black and blue. I remember these negotiations and remember the fight to keep the lichfield approach of charging for a second garden waste bin out of Tamworth.
In the history I’ve explained above the council had managed to negotiate actual millions of pounds worth of savings in the service and maintained the costs within everyone’s council tax bill.
This brings us to where we are now.
The costs of running services continues to increase as demand for different types of service increase and with the backdrop of reducing government hand outs to councils some difficult decisions have to be made. When I talk about increased demand I wan things like homelessness prevention and adult social care.
As I mentioned above changes to recycling credits will increase costs of the green bin service by around £200-£250k a year and is currently paid for by council tax contributions. Whether you use the green bin or not whether you live in a house of a flat your council tax is paying for those who use the garden waste collection service.
The council is expecting to generate around £500kpa from the charges, so half the charge pays for the service and generates a ‘saving’ in council tax expenditure and a the rest of the income will be used to support other vital service that we need to grow to support the vulnerable. There’s also some complex stuff about recycling credits in the coatings and surplus but the headline figures are about there.
So as ever where does the council get cash from? £80m budget with council tax income of £3.5m, it’s got to come from somewhere so things like industrial unit rents, non domestic rates contribution (after all other agencies have their cuts) car parks and charging for services, and this is where the decision came from. The collection of garden waste is not a statutory service and is therefore optional, the council have a number of options with it including continue as we are, cease the service, charge for it etc etc, in the same way the council charges for other services.
Wow that’s made it sound simple :( I’m still not happy we’re going down this line but what are the other options? Savings into the hundreds of thousands have been built into the budget over the years and will be again this year, underspends will be made and rolled back into the next year, gone are the days of “have budget will spend before year end”. I don’t want to see any vital services reduced to support new pressures, so whilst I’m not happy with the green waste charges I realise something has to give somewhere.
So it’s a green bin and £36 bill for me, unless I share it with a neighbour and spend £18 each.
Written on my phone not spell or grammar checked yet
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