Visit us this Saturday, 6th October between 10 am and 3pm, and make one of the one hundred ceramic lanterns that line the path through the woods at Gill Banks on October 31st.
Join us doing the rediculous. Here we were singing carols last year:
Rain?
What Rain?
Thursday, 4 October 2012
Wednesday, 3 October 2012
West Coast Rail Bid- scrapped
Sanity at last.
First Group are not going to be allowed to pull a fast one.
Quote from the BBC web site:
"The decision to award the West Coast Main Line rail franchise to FirstGroup has been scrapped and the government says the bidding process must be rerun."
However still silence from our MP John Woodcock, the Labour Shadow Secretary for Transport. When is he going to get involved? Do we need a more competent person to represent us?
First Group are not going to be allowed to pull a fast one.
Quote from the BBC web site:
"The decision to award the West Coast Main Line rail franchise to FirstGroup has been scrapped and the government says the bidding process must be rerun."
However still silence from our MP John Woodcock, the Labour Shadow Secretary for Transport. When is he going to get involved? Do we need a more competent person to represent us?
Sunday, 30 September 2012
This is British Humour at it's best
Tuesday, 25 September 2012
A petition to bring the picnic tables back
This video, made in June 2012 , illustrates the use of these picnic tables before they were removed.
Please sign this petition to bring back these picnic tables, that were removed by the Town Council a year ago.
Let's learn together how to campaign effectively
It strikes me that
we could work together
as a group in this Furness area to encourage each other to take on local issues.
Avaaz is one of the organisations that offer's help to do this. Here's an email I've just received from them.
What do you think?
Let's not argue but get off our backsides and
Let's not argue but get off our backsides and
actually do something!
Think of a petition you'd like to start on any issue – it takes just a few minutes to create your own campaign! If your petition takes off, it may become an Avaaz campaign – either to members in your area, or even to the whole world.
When I started Avaaz, it was just a crazy idea. But I loved the idea, and shared it, and now it's an idea that 16,000,000 people share! I've been blown away by the passion, creativity, smarts and commitment of everyone in this community. Every day Avaaz members send in brilliant and important ideas for new campaigns to create the world we all want – more than our small staff could ever carry out alone.
So, to unlock all the incredible potential of our community to change the world, we've developed our website tools to allow any Avaazer to instantly start their *own* online petitions, tell friends, and win campaigns.
The site just went live – will you give it a try? Think of a petition you'd like to start on any issue – something impacting your local community, some bad behaviour by a distant corporation, or a global cause that you think other Avaaz members would care about. If your petition takes off, it may become an Avaaz campaign – either to members in your area, or even to the whole world! Click here to get started – it takes just a few minutes to create your own campaign!
http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/start_a_petition/?vl
I'm so excited about this. In just five years, Avaaz has run an incredible number of hard-hitting campaigns and grown to be the largest-ever global movement for change, all with just a tiny staff – imagine what's possible with all of us starting and winning amazing campaigns! I can't wait.
With much respect and hope,
Ricken
P.S. If you're not yet ready to start your own campaign, consider forwarding this email to a friend. We all know someone who's itching to change the world or some piece of it - and this new tool is a powerful way to do it: http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/start_a_petition/?vl
Avaaz.org is a 15-million-person global campaign network that works to ensure that the views and values of the world's people shape global decision-making. ("Avaaz" means "voice" or "song" in many languages.) Avaaz members live in every nation of the world; our team is spread across 19 countries on 6 continents and operates in 14 languages. Learn about some of Avaaz's biggest campaigns here, or follow us on Facebook or Twitter.
Monday, 24 September 2012
The NHS in this area - action needed
Just received from Becky of the 38 degrees campaigning group.
The government’s plans to privatise and fragment our NHS are taking shape in Barrow and Furness.
Local doctors are forming a Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) for the area. They’re going to get new powers to decide what health services you and your neighbours are able to access and who provides them.
Whether it’s treatment for diabetes, skin conditions, a broken arm or depression, profit-hungry companies like Virgin Care and Serco are circling, ready to bid for contracts by promising to slash costs. [2]
The doctors on your local CCG will be under pressure from the government to hand out contracts to private companies. That could put vital services at risk. [3] But the last thing most doctors want is to carve up our NHS for private profit. Plus, the new CCG has a legal duty to listen to local people. [4]
So right now, we’ve got a big chance to ask local doctors to use their new powers to protect our NHS, not privatise it. Together, we can make sure they hear from hundreds of local people as they make these crucial decisions.
Can you add your name to the petition to your local CCG now?
https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/CCG-petition
Donations from 38 Degrees members have funded lawyers to prepare robust wording for CCGs to write into their constitutions - protecting our NHS from the worst risks of the government's plans. [5]
If we can get in early, while CCGs are still being formed, we can give doctors a better choice - one based on sound legal advice and the interests of patients, not private companies.
38 Degrees members will be able to work together to persuade their local CCG to write these safeguards into their constitutions. The government and the private health industry probably won’t like it at all, but there’s little they can do to stop people power.
First things first. Can you add your name to the petition in Barrow and Furness?
https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/CCG-petition
Thanks for being involved,
Becky, Marie, Robin, Ian and the 38 Degrees team
PS: The website tool that links you up with your local CCG is new - you’re one of the first to test it. If you have any problems or questions, please let us know by emailing: emailtheteam@38degrees.org.uk
NOTES
[1] GP Online: GP and CCG relations: what are the challenges? http://insidecommissioning.gponline.com/2012/08/02/gp-and-ccg-relations-what-are-the-challenges/
[2] "Virgin Care...will take over integrated children's services in the south-west in March 2013 and will run frontline services for three years. Critics have warned that such deals herald the breakup of the NHS, with private firms cherrypicking services." Guardian: Virgin Care to take over children's health services in Devon http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jul/12/virgin-care-children-nhs-devon
GP Online: Services open to “any qualified provider” revealed by DH http://www.gponline.com/channel/news/article/1149786/services-open-any-qualified-provider-revealed-dh/
[3] “...plans for a radical restructuring of the health service in England, which will give GPs control of much of the NHS's £106bn annual budget, cut the number of health bodies, and introduce more competition into services” Guardian: NHS Reform Health bill passes vote
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/mar/20/nhs-reform-health-bill-passes-vote
BBC: NHS - The shape of things to come http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17457102
[4] Telegraph: Scrap NHS Bill, say doctors who will run reforms http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9112448/Scrap-NHS-Bill-say-doctors-who-will-run-reforms.html
Pulse: More GP commissioners withdraw support from health bill http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/newsarticle-content/-/article_display_list/13604675/more-gp-commissioners-withdraw-support-from-health-bill
[5] 38 Degrees blog: Top legal advice to save our NHS http://blog.38degrees.org.uk/2012/09/21/top-legal-advice-to-save-our-nhs/
Sunday, 23 September 2012
Alzheimer’s
Have you come across George Morbiot?
Now you can follow his articles on his blog. (I've put a link to his blog on the right).
I have immense respect for this man as what he does he does extremely well.
He has just completed a very thorough survey of the literature on the above subject and his conclusion is that the dreadful disease that robs people of their ability to think, Alzheimer’s, is most likely comes from what we eat.
In this particular article he concludes:
"We cannot yet state unequivocally that poor diet is a leading cause of Alzheimer’s disease, though we can say that the evidence is strong and growing. But if ever there was a case for the precautionary principle, here it is. It’s not as if we lose anything by eating less rubbish. Averting a possible epidemic of this devastating disease means taking on the bullies: those who mock people for their pathologies and those who spread the pathologies by peddling a lethal diet"
"A scarcely-regulated food industry can engineer its products – loading them with fat, salt, sugar and high fructose corn syrup – to bypass the neurological signals which would otherwise prompt people to stop eating. It can bombard both adults and children with advertising. It can (as we discovered yesterday) use the freedoms granted to academy schools to sell the chocolate, sweets and fizzy drinks now banned from sale in maintained schools. It can kill the only effective system (the traffic light label) for informing people how much fat, sugar and salt their food contains. Then it can turn to the government and blame consumers for eating the products it sells. This is class war: a war against the poor fought by the executive class in government and industry."
For more it is well worth reading the whole article which is thoroughly researched. We owe a real debt of gratitude to people like George Monbiot for the thoroughness with which he does his work.
Now you can follow his articles on his blog. (I've put a link to his blog on the right).
I have immense respect for this man as what he does he does extremely well.
He has just completed a very thorough survey of the literature on the above subject and his conclusion is that the dreadful disease that robs people of their ability to think, Alzheimer’s, is most likely comes from what we eat.
In this particular article he concludes:
"We cannot yet state unequivocally that poor diet is a leading cause of Alzheimer’s disease, though we can say that the evidence is strong and growing. But if ever there was a case for the precautionary principle, here it is. It’s not as if we lose anything by eating less rubbish. Averting a possible epidemic of this devastating disease means taking on the bullies: those who mock people for their pathologies and those who spread the pathologies by peddling a lethal diet"
"A scarcely-regulated food industry can engineer its products – loading them with fat, salt, sugar and high fructose corn syrup – to bypass the neurological signals which would otherwise prompt people to stop eating. It can bombard both adults and children with advertising. It can (as we discovered yesterday) use the freedoms granted to academy schools to sell the chocolate, sweets and fizzy drinks now banned from sale in maintained schools. It can kill the only effective system (the traffic light label) for informing people how much fat, sugar and salt their food contains. Then it can turn to the government and blame consumers for eating the products it sells. This is class war: a war against the poor fought by the executive class in government and industry."
For more it is well worth reading the whole article which is thoroughly researched. We owe a real debt of gratitude to people like George Monbiot for the thoroughness with which he does his work.
Saturday, 22 September 2012
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