Wednesday 18 January 2012

Members, anniversaries and the BBC

How great to hear that the St Giles Trust is to have Prince William as its patron. The CEO is the dynamic reformed capitalist Rob Owen who has been an active member of ACEVO for years. He is a real pace setter for our sector; his work on impact assessment is a classic. More on the the taksforce Rob has been leading for us later today.




And they celebrate their 50 th anniversary. I'm into anniversaries this year as ACEVO celebrates 25! Mondy night Michael Burton was celebrating 25 years at the Municipal Journal. He reminded us this was the year ( 1987) of Duran Duran and Bon Jovi....now there's an idea for the ACEVO reception. After all, we have done the Beatles!






Lunch with Tom Flood at the British Museum. Here is Tom looking none of his 65 years! Rather trimmer than me I thought grumpily. What's he on I wonder?






Tom is stepping down from BTCV as CEO in July. He has worked there for 25 years. And they have also got their 50 th anniversary this year. They have a new Chair, Rita Clifton who is as charming and effective a Chair as one could hope for. An expert on branding, she, Tom and I are meeting to look at our very own ACEVO brand soon. A breakfast brainstorm.





Tom is another of our sector's trend setters. On our ACEVO Board , he will carry on supporting us by chairing ACEVO solutions, our very own social enterprise. Lunch was splendid. The BM has a great restaurant and eating there means you are supporting the third sector. And we did do some splendid gossip. Were your ears burning?





I had to scurry off to get to a Commons meeting with Chris Williamson MP one of Labours' shadow DCLG team. Wanted to know my take on local government : I said outsource more to the sector- that's the progressive agenda! Then a dash to the BBC for a pre record for " You and Yours" for Thursday on the subject du jour the health lottery.





Can the BBC cope with much more of Bubb? On Today on Wednesday. On the Big Society documentary on R4 on Sunday ( worth listening too incidentally; its a 3 parter with the last on this Sunday at 1.30pm) and now You and Yours. Can you ever have enough of a good thing!? Bit like a fine wine. Bring it on, as Ed Miliband is fond of saying.





And incidentally, it would be immodest to report on the comment of one Cabinet Minister I bumped into on Monday who said I had been " truly magnificent" on " Today". Yes, I know it's naughty to trumpet this but in difficult times we need a strong voice for the sector and if I , and others, can do what we can to put our case across effectively then I'm happy I'm doing my job.

1 comment:

Sir Robin Bogg said...

Speaking of the Beatles, do you have any pithy John Lennon quotes you'd like to share with us Sir S?

PS I think Duran Duran were well past their new romantic pomp by 1987 though the fact that both them and Bon Jovi are still eking out careers despite arguably limited talent is more a metaphor for stodgy stasis rather than change surely.