This morning, the Steering Group of Cardiff's Business Crime Reduction Partnership reconvened, as a result of patient efforts of the part of its chair Rory Fleming to consider the re-written Constitution of the new BCRP Board of Management. This was the outcome of my calling to a halt the re-establishment of the Board at the end of October last year, due to deficiencies in the foundation documents that had been, in my view, disregarded under the pressure to achieve an outcome, on the part of busy public officials with an insufficient grounding in the legal history of Business Crime Reduction Partnerships. It was difficult and embarrassing at the time, but since then, some progress in revision has been made but needs putting to the test.
I'd never imagined I'd turn into a bullish legalistic pedant in my old age, but that's what has happened in the face of a continuing need to preserve the integrity of Cardiff Business Safe's trading position in running the RadioNet system. We've had to face pressures from bureaucrats compelled to deliver something that will do them credit in relation to the political agenda of the day, wanting to take us over - people with no expertise thinking they can acquire it at will. Then there are a few entrepreneurs scheming to avoid paying up what they owe for services provided them over years. Not a very large number of them maybe but there's such reluctance and difficulty entailed in bringing them to account.
Getting everyone with an interest in public security and safety to face facts and agree how to deal with such issues is difficult, and sticking to what you know is right and true can lead to discord and hostility. I don't like this, but in a way there could be no better day to be outside my usual peace and comfort zone.
Today is the Patronal Festival of the City Parish Church of St John the Baptist, my last church before retirement, which I now see from the office window, a hundred yards away, the chimes of its tower clock still punctuating my working days. I reckon I've preached on the ministry of John the Baptist at least a hundred times since I was ordained - not the same sermon, but a variety of them, which have evolved in the light of my life experience. It always comes down to following his forthright example, as the Collect for the day says : 'Constantly to speak the truth, boldly rebuke vice and patiently suffer for the truth's sake'. That's a tall order, and the toughest bit is working on oneself so that one doesn't betray the meaning of one's own words.
This evening at St John's Church held a celebration of the completion of the work done on glazing the tower porch, reported here earlier in the year. A pet project I started before retirement that took six years to come to fruit. Archbishop Barry came to preach about doors and the contemporary significance of transparent doors, and then to dedicate the new ones. There were about ninety present, lots of old friends, but equally delightful, the faces of some new congregation members who have found a home in St John's over the past four years. Numbers of people who have passed on to Glory are being replaced. 'Twas ever thus. A church at the heart of a now under-populated city is a place where certain people are inspired to make a spiritual home and build community. Irrespective of the efforts of the congregation and clergy, God provides!
Getting everyone with an interest in public security and safety to face facts and agree how to deal with such issues is difficult, and sticking to what you know is right and true can lead to discord and hostility. I don't like this, but in a way there could be no better day to be outside my usual peace and comfort zone.
Today is the Patronal Festival of the City Parish Church of St John the Baptist, my last church before retirement, which I now see from the office window, a hundred yards away, the chimes of its tower clock still punctuating my working days. I reckon I've preached on the ministry of John the Baptist at least a hundred times since I was ordained - not the same sermon, but a variety of them, which have evolved in the light of my life experience. It always comes down to following his forthright example, as the Collect for the day says : 'Constantly to speak the truth, boldly rebuke vice and patiently suffer for the truth's sake'. That's a tall order, and the toughest bit is working on oneself so that one doesn't betray the meaning of one's own words.
This evening at St John's Church held a celebration of the completion of the work done on glazing the tower porch, reported here earlier in the year. A pet project I started before retirement that took six years to come to fruit. Archbishop Barry came to preach about doors and the contemporary significance of transparent doors, and then to dedicate the new ones. There were about ninety present, lots of old friends, but equally delightful, the faces of some new congregation members who have found a home in St John's over the past four years. Numbers of people who have passed on to Glory are being replaced. 'Twas ever thus. A church at the heart of a now under-populated city is a place where certain people are inspired to make a spiritual home and build community. Irrespective of the efforts of the congregation and clergy, God provides!
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