H is for Hodnet Hall Gardens

Hodnet Hall Garden is set in a 60 acre woodland. It has many floral collections including Camellias, Azaleas, Rhododendrons and magnolias. In late spring there is an amazing display of bluebells underneath the woodland trees. Close to the house there are formal gardens and the grounds have several ornamental pools.

The hall itself is a red brick mansion which was designed by Anthony Salvin in the 19th century. It is the home of the Heber-Percy family and is not open to the public.

I love the garden so much it is difficult to know which pictures to choose to show you. If you want to see more you could look at the 'Virtual Shropshire' gallery or you could check out my slideshow of the Gardens.

This map gives you an impression of how extensive the gardens are.

For more ABC pictures check out Mr Linky.

Jobs for the Boys

Adam is the man mid pic.

The following letter regarding the former Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram, has just been sent to PCS members:

Colleagues,

I thought you might be interested in the well being of our old friend Mr. Ingram.

As you know the architect of Collocation, FDSCi, 13,000 job cuts, mass privatisation and pay cuts was the man who did not “give a shit” about Civil Servants. Sadly he stepped down from Ministerial duties last year. He is much missed by PCS members.

Fortunately, our loss has been others gain.

As well as being appointed Chair of the Prospect Parliamentary Group (lucky Prospect members), the Guardian reports today “Congratulations to Adam Ingram, who stepped down after six selfless years as Defence minister, for he has received the green light to become a consultant to EDS, one of the MoD’s largest and most controversial suppliers”.

The article goes on to say that “The advisory committee on business appointments, which regulates these things, said Ingram “should not become personally involved in lobbying UK ministers or crown officials,including special advisers, on behalf of his new employer for a year”.

Incidentally - and completely coincidentally - I stumbled across the following press cutting from 2006 whilst looking at this story:

The details of a financial sett lement given to EDS by the Ministry of Defence have been withheld from British taxpayers because corporate America likes to keep its cards close to its chest.

EDS said in March it was seeking “adjustments” to compensate for the “financial impact” of changes made by the Ministry of Defence to its requirements for its £2.3bn Defence Information Infrastructure (DII) project.

Neither EDS nor the MOD would provide details after they reached an agreement over the contract change in May. But EDS said its second quarter results, released this month, would.

However, when the results were published on 1 August, they failed to mention how much the MOD had paid EDS.

The matter has been raised in Parliament by Mike Hancock, Liberal Democrat MP for Portsmouth South, last month. He wanted to know precisely how much more had been paid to EDS.

The £2.3bn contract, according to analysts at Ovum, was expected to deliver the MOD £170m of savings in its first three years, with £43m of this expected to be gleaned in the first year.

MOD Minister of State for Armed Forces Adam Ingram refused to answer Hancock’s Parliamentary question, saying the details were “commercially sensitive”.

Neither EDS nor the MOD would elaborate on why the payment was confidential.

A source close to the deal said EDS would be upset if it were to reveal the payment details. EDS has already attracted flak ov er compensation payments and confidentiality arrangements with the British government.

In April, MPs on the Treasury Committee said a £71.25m payment EDS was ordered to make in compensation for its delivery of a shoddy tax credits computer system had the “appearance of impropriety”.

Their problem was that £26.5m of EDS’ payment was contingent on the firm winning more government business. This detail had been hidden by a confidentiality clause. The National Audit Office cited it as a reason why confidentiality clauses should be banned from government contracts.

I am sure members will be delighted to learn that Mr Ingram will no doubt be back at MoD lobbying for EDS in 12 months time. I am also sure our members who were privatised under DII and are now threatened with compulsory redundancy will wish to welcome the new employee in an appropriate manner.

Regards,

Paul

National Officer
PCS CSG

I am never too sure about this sort of thing at the best of times. It doesn't seem right that people who have worked in Government or the public sector should then be able to move on almost immediately and work with the very same private companies that they had had official dealings with. In fact I thought there were quite rigid guidelines about this sort of thing, because it could be against public interest!

I investigated a bit further and found even more information on the PCS website. One particular bit of the article caught my eye, especially as everyone else seems to be struggling with the credit crunch:

Members will also want to note that Mr Ingram according to the ‘Register of Members Interests’ is the “Non-executive Chairman of SignPoint Secure Ltd; emergency communications. (£45,001-£50,000), Non-executive Chairman of Argus Scotland Ltd; design and construction services in the urban environment. (£20,001-£25,000) and Consultant to Argus Libya; design and construction services in the urban environment. (£20,001-£25,000)”

This means that before Mr Ingram has been rewarded for his upcoming work for EDS, he will be receiving between £85,003-£100,000 for his work with these three companies. This is on top of his basic MP salary of £61,820.

The Warp & Weft of Life

What affects one thing affects in some way all things:
All is interwoven into the continuous fabric of being. It's warp and weft are energy, which is the essence of magic.

Starhawk

PhotoHunt - Strings

If you are passing anywhere near Bristol I would recommend a visit to the SS Great Britain. The ship was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and was first launched in 1843 and continued sailing until 1886. The ship was a first and brought together new technologies such as an iron hull and screw propeller along with a 1000-horsepower steam engine. On her maiden voyage she broke the previous speed record.

When she was finally abandoned in the Falkland Islands in 1937 she had clocked up almost one million miles at sea and had traveled thirty two times around the world. Before her abandonment she had spent more than 40 years as a floating warehouse.

In 1970 a salvage operation took place in order to bring the ship back home to Bristol where she now resides in the dry dock where she was originally built.

For more PhotoHunt pictures check out tnchick.

Last Minute Tasks

There is an organising conference on 16th September for PCS branch organisers based in the Midlands. This has been on the cards since May. I stated at the time that if I was required to do another slide show I would need more notice than I was given last time! I was told that only 6 PowerPoint photographs would be needed to accompany a 5 minute talk. I mentioned on Wednesday that I thought I was going to end up being asked to do a slide show at the last minute again!

I am sure you can guess...

A five minute talk followed by a five minute slide show is required. My other two colleauges kept rolling their eyes at me as the project manager told us how easy and quick it would be to do! We came up with the content of the talk and then I was rushed through my hundreds of PCS photos. Yes I had been instructed to take my lap top along to the meeting. Mr Project manager said "There, see I told you it wouldn't take very long!"

Fast forward to today...

I sat and prepared a show template, then myself and another colleague sat together and fitted the photos around the content of the talk. There was a a bit of a shortfall, so we had to search for some additional photos.

A bit later on I had to adjust the movement, timing and transitions for the show. All in all today I spent around 4 hours 40 minutes on it. My colleague spent an hour and a half and has to go away and write the speech. Oh yes don't forget the couple of hours we spent planning on Wednesday....

There is still more work to be done including syncing the show to the music!

I wonder if I should show the project manager this blog post ;-)

G is for Glasshouse

A couple of weeks ago I asked you how I was going to turn Birmingham Botanical Gardens into G...

Well now you have the answer :-)

I am off out soon for another Trade Union meeting where they will be discussing one of those thankless last minute tasks where I will be expected to produce some slide show or other! Whatever it is it will be something that can't be done on my computer at work.

But I shall leave you with something much more pleasant. Photographs from the glasshouses at Birmingham Botanical Gardens.

For more ABC pictures check out Mr Linky.

Vesting Day

I bet you are all wondering what I mean by vesting day? It means that our jobs have now officially changed over to a new organisation. To mark the occasion we had outgoing and incoming speeches followed by a barbecue plus a pig and turkey roast. Lunch was accompanied by a brass quintet from the Blues & Royals and I feel quite privileged to have enjoyed a private performance from them. It started off so lovely and sunny then the wind got up and yes you have guessed, it turned quite chilly and started to rain. Well it wouldn't be an English barbecue without rain would it?

The organisational structure is now sorted and people matched to posts. It just remains for the space planning to be done so that people can move to their teams! I am now part of 3 merged teams and will be doing the work of 3 people.

But for now until all this is sorted it is business as usual.

Meanwhile my friends at Cosford have just found out (amongst other things) that they now have to wait until next year to find out what is happening with their jobs...