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A campaigner's diary: Why do I do it?
Tuesday, 29th September 2009 - 08:46

Julia Salmon is an OU alumna and member of the Platform Community Group. She's also a campaigner and in a series of blog posts she explains why it can be a very frustrating and thankless pastime...

 

If a job were advertised along the following lines: ‘Full-time position, anti-social hours, no pay, no expenses, no promotions, no holidays, frequently soul destroying, excessive workloads, impossible deadlines, minimum project length is 20 years, completion not guaranteed’, it would seem fair to assume that very few applications would be received.

 

But then again, it’s not the sort of job that is ever advertised; it’s a job you find yourself falling into reluctantly, resentfully, angrily.  In conversation with a colleague the other day, he muttered: “No one ever asked me if I wanted this bloody job. I’d rather be enjoying my life.”  Indeed, on a number of occasions in the last few years, I have sat on our kitchen floor, sobbing with conviction that the whole thing is too difficult. Wisely, my husband nods with the look of a sympathetic priest, pats my hand and puts the kettle on.  It goes hand-in-hand with Victor Meldrew-style phraseology creeping into your sentences: “I don’t believe it...”, “Did you see that?” and the apoplectic “What the...?”: all are part of a panoply of indignation, the necessary fuel of which drives you forwards.

 

And the tune to which I bang my campaigning tambourine?  Well, the journey has become as much part of the experience as the end goal; but my road less travelled leads to the Data Protection Act (1998), specifically focussing on medical and social care personal data records.  (No, I don’t spend my free time unwrapping twisted telephone cables or de-fluffing my mouse roller-ball.)  In plain English, the DPA regulates against fraudulent alteration of your personal data. However, the Act only recognises fraud where the perpetrator personally financially gains: this condition excludes public servants from being recognised as committing potential fraud. The Freedom of Information Act (2000) attempts to open up the argument on public accountability, as recently demonstrated by the Parliamentary expenses scandal. A key principle of our campaign is to protect the veracity of medical and social care records, something intimately relevant to us all.

 

However, the technicalities of a cause can detract from the emotional reasons for undertaking the journey. The problem with campaigning is the myth, misconception and martyrdom (the the Ms of the third sector) to which you can become prey, which neither serves you well nor furthers your chosen cause. I thought it would be helpful to define these dreaded pitfalls, as some dispelling is in order:

 

The myth – That a person is driven to be altruistic as a spontaneous act
Decidedly false. At least, no one founds what is now called a ‘social venture’, charity or campaigning group through boredom or to make themselves feel better. It is one of the most ruthlessly overwhelming activities, which frequently feels like self-flagellation. “Why did I ever get involved in all this?” most often permeates your thoughts, often followed by “Sod it”.

 

The misconception – That if a cause is genuine, the truth will out
Just occasionally this is true and it is this very slim hope that keeps you going. However, there are so many motives to evade answering issues, whether they are political, financial or represented by social taboos, that the truth generally gets buried in bureaucratic processes, until everyone has forgotten what the question was in the first place.

The martyrdom – A charitable person must be approaching sainthood
This is the easiest myth to dispel and would make my children fall on the floor laughing.  People comment, “Where do you find the time?” implying that I must have discovered the 36 hour day. My family’s reply would be, “Sometimes she’s an utter rat bag and marches around the house like Mussolini, because something’s gone wrong. We know when to duck.” When things are a struggle, I don’t suffer in silence; fortunately, my family responds with plenty of tea and hugs – they are my back-up team.

 

So, why do it? I have encountered a lot of people in the last six years: some have wanted to help (MPs, legal professionals, advocates, charities) but, to date, all suggestions have failed.  What initially appeared to be a simple problem has revealed itself to be a very complex one.  Over time I have become a repository of these various ideas and outcomes, both from our own and other families’ experiences. By using this information, I still believe it is possible to improve our own society, even if in small part. That is why I do it.

 

Therefore, I invite you to join me on the campaigning trail, over the next few months. I will keep you posted on what it’s like to approach MPs, do the rounds of governmental departments, deal with real people and field the blows, from a lay-person’s perspective. It is a work in progress which will culminate in about 20 years or so, if I’m lucky.

 

 

I own Shane Meadows' scooter
Monday, 28th September 2009 - 08:22

Mike Mounfield, an OU alumnus and member of the Platform Community Group, blogs about his quest to ride a motorised scooter and his brush with a BAFTA-winning film director...

 

I recently took on a temporary job as motorcycle project officer in the West Midlands. Most of the people who are brave enough to take to two motorised wheels in the West Midlands use small machines to get about and to have fun on. The riders of these scooters and small motorbikes are generally young. We know this because 60 per cent of the people who get hurt on ‘powered two wheelers’, as they are known in the anodyne language of the statisticians, are under 25 and riding machines of 125cc or less. I am not under 25 and there’s not much I can do about that. But I can do my best to see what they see, feel the bumps they feel, and be as scared as they do (if not more so!) when they ride around Birmingham and environs. So I decided to get a scooter.

 

My time spent with the OU studying art and philosophy gave me an appetite for good design, the mellifluous blend of form and function, and I see that exemplified in the Vespa scooter. A visit to a specialist dealer in Birmingham had taught me that, unless I wanted to reacquaint myself with my spanners and screwdrivers on a regular basis, I needed to avoid the allure of the classic Vespas and Lambrettas of Roman Holiday fame, and settle for a modern, twist-and-go equivalent.

 

I couldn’t quite fall for the rather angular looks of the current series of Vespas, produced under the aegis of the Piaggio motorcycle behemoth, so I decided to look for an older ET4 model.  I’m an occasional eBay user, so it seemed the obvious place to look first. And soon I had something quite special in the cross-hairs: a very pretty 2001 model in silver, allegedly dent-free, and currently living near Nottingham, ironically my home until March this year. I knew from watching for a while that this little beauty should go for anything between £900 and £1,300 and decided to watch and wait, my usual eBay tactic. In the last couple of hours I leapt in with a bid, was out-bid, bid again, out-bid and so on, until I was faced with £1,220 with minutes to go. I jumped. And became the proud owner of my very first Vespa ET4. Then the fun began.

 

The seller got in touch with me and started to make excuses about not having the V5, what used to be called the ‘log book’. Now, a V5 isn’t proof of ownership, as any trader will tell you, but if you steal a car or motorcycle you don’t generally find it in the glove box or under the seat, so it’s reassuring that if someone sells you a machine with a V5, they probably haven’t nicked it. If they say they have a V5, and then after you’ve bought it start making excuses about not being able to find it, the alarm bells should be ringing, or you should get your hearing checked.

 

This is what ‘Shane’, my new friend from Nottingham, was now telling me via email. To be fair, he offered me the chance to pull out of the deal, and said he would re-list the bike. I nearly took his offer, until he said something intriguing: “It’s not really in my interest to sell you a nicked bike.” He was reluctant to elucidate, but eventually admitted to being a film director. Yeah, of course you are mate, and I’m Roman Polanski (though that would imply that I’m sitting in a Swiss jail as I write, awaiting extradition to the US for doing naughty things with young girls, so perhaps not). 

 

Then he admitted that ‘Meadows’ comes after ‘Shane’ in his particular case. I decided to trust him, but not before looking him up on imdb.com to make sure what he looked like. After a quick jaunt back up the M42 my girlfriend Millie and I found ourselves in a sweet little village on the outskirts of Nottingham (no, I can’t tell you) and knocking on the front door of a well-kept double-bay Edwardian house with the Vespa sitting outside. The man whose picture was on imdb.com answered the door.  “Yep.  You’re Shane Meadows.” I don’t meet Bafta winners every day; I wasn’t working to a script so give me a break.

 

He invited us in and was the most genial host. We were there an hour, mostly talking about him and his films.  Millie’s son is a major film fan, especially of the modern English genre, and she came away with a signed DVD copy of Once Upon a Time in the Midlands. He was most apologetic about the lost V5 and knocked £20 off the sale price for our petrol. It was fascinating to speak to a creative auteur; he freely talked about his next project, his favourite from his work to date and the background that pushed him toward making the early 21st century version of ‘kitchen sink’ drama. We parted with each other’s mobile numbers. He hasn’t rung yet.

 

So that’s how I came to be riding around Birmingham on Shane Meadow’s scooter. And a lovely scooter it is too.

 

 

Being a school governor
Wednesday, 16th September 2009 - 14:53

The Open University is supporting national charity School Governors’ One-Stop Shop to encourage more people to volunteer as school governors. Click here to find out more. Here, OU graduate Violet Rook gives us an insight into being a school governor...

 

The other morning I went to school early and stayed until lunchtime. When I was a child, I would have not welcomed  the idea of going back to school in the school holidays. Yet there I was! Why? I had come to a meeting for school governors.

 

I have been a Governor for more than five years now. It is not very usual to meet before term starts, but it was a special meeting to discuss some development plans. Being a School Governor, one sees the process of running a school from many angles.

 

A governor needs to understand the management of the staff, the administration processes, new legislation in regard to school life and how this can effect the pupils and the parents. It is a lot of responsibility that is rewarded via the knowledge that the future of the next generation will be helped by being a 'critical friend' to the school. One can attend conferences where local and national figures in education speak and debate and one can even network with these same people depending on one's level of  confidence.

 

Confidence

 

Confidence grows with experience and fosters knowledge. One might be nominated to be a member of a local 'Children and Young Peoples Scrutiny Panel' of the Local Authority. Such panels discuss the targets of Local Area Agreement regarding education and how local priorities are progressed.  Members include Counsellors and Officers of the Local Authority.

 

Walking through the corridors of the local civic centre one might meet the Mayor or the lead of the council. For example, the National Governors Association had a conference in Leeds this year where the leader of Leeds city council addressed the delegates. 

 

There are different types of School Governors. Parent Governors, Community Governors and Local Authority Governors.  All Governors attend at least one full Governing Body meeting a term. I got up to go with the close of the meeting at the primary school and  the 'Head' gave me a copy of the new school handbook, indicating the improvement since last year. Just knowing that one's efforts have helped a school keep going and resources have been found, used and brought benefit to at least the 200 pupils there, makes getting up early and attending school during the holidays really worthwhile.