Simon Jenkins brings people to my blog

I’m looking at my blogs stats, and seeing a small but healthy level of interest. What is interesting is that a number of people pitch up here after searching for “Simon Jenkins” I’ve just Googled it, and my blog doesn’t appear on the first page. I’m too lazy to look further, but I’m guessing any link to me is pages deep in Google, so those coming to me through that search must be determined researchers. I bet they’re disappointed, my only reference to Simon Jenkins thus far has been a poorly typed “live” blog from his speech at a conference.

I feel its my duty to offer something controversial, like “Why Simon Jenkins is Wrong”. But, Google that, and you get a parade of similarly titled blog posts. So I simply take this opportunity to say thank you to him for driving a little attention my way, my drivel isn’t worthy to be compared to his writing.

Our new chair has a vision for Trust, which he mentioned in that speech but also sets out in an article for the Times. There’s a lot in there I like: he talks of our house managers becoming impresarios, creating engaging atmospheres in our mansions. But there is something I take issue with. He talks of the National Trust being a victim of overbearing Health and Safety. And its not the first time that he’s said that.

This role I have sits me on the regional Health and Safety Committee and from my limited experience it isn’t legislation, or the HSE, that is the problem. The committee considers actual accidents that have happened, and tries to learn lessons from them that might prevent the same thing happening again. It involves a lot of people, but it doesn’t happen often, and I think my time is well spent. Broadly speaking, I see the HSE doing the same thing on a national scale.

It isn’t legislation or the HSE that decides whether “the manager of an adventure centre in the Lake District has to fill in a risk assesment for each party of schoolchildren.” (Which in fact they don’t. Its up to the leader of the school-party to make the risk assessment. What we do, to help them, is give them a pre-prepared form or “exchange of information” which lists the possible risks that we are aware of.) It is not “Overzealous health and safety regulations” which “are impeding more public participation in our properties.” It is greed. It is compensation lawyers, and the people who see the National Trust as wealthy well-insured organisation, that will more than likely pay out on a personal injury claim. The sort of people who jump from a tree and break their leg, then suggest we should compensate them because we hadn’t taken reasonable measures to ensure our trees where not easy to climb!

So there you have it. Simon Jenkins was wrong after all.

Another NT blogger

It’s Autumnwatch on the BBC again. And this time they’re concentrating on Brownsea Island. In anticipation of the event, a Brownsea blog has appeared. I rushed to it hoping to hear from my old mucker Justin, who is now Head Warden on Brownsea, sadly for me, it seems to be written by someone called Martha. With my NT head on, “go read the blog, it’ll be great and informative”, but with my blogger’s head on, I wonder will it be any more than a series of press releases? We’ll wait and see.

More NT blogs on their way?

First of all, apologies for not keeping up to my aim to post more regularly than this. It’s been a week since my last post! But here’s a thing: We’re updating our regional business plan, to meet newly set targets, which reflect better the desired end result, rather than focus on how we get there. So in the last region planning group we paired up function managers (thats me) with area managers (they manage the property managers – the operational line, as we call it) and divided up parts of the plan between the pairs.

My colleague and I got the Engaging Supporters section. One of the proposed new targets there is a measure of how close people feel to the Trust (See post passim). And my colleague (note: not me) suggested every property has its own blog! “I know nothing about blogs” says he, “That’s ok, I do” I reply. So its in our proposed plan. There’s a few months of navigating its way through the regional planning group and other approvals before its there to stay, but, fingers crossed!

Other blogs

Now that I’ve started this blog, I’ve been more interested in seeking out other blogs, and mentions of the National Trust in other peoples blogs. I’ve already left a comment or two where people have expressed frustration with the Trust’s processes behavior, and have offered an insight into what might be behind it. But I’ve also discovered Preservation Nation, from the US National Trust for Historic Preservation. It looks like an offshoot of their Preservavtion Magazine, and I wonder if we should be doing something similar.

That site’s own blogroll leads me to a blog recording the restoration of a building, which is something I feel we should have done as we opened up the new house at Scotney Castle. Another, on the management of President Lincoln’s cottage, talks about scholarly research and conservation techniques. 

There’s also a resource blog, for US National Trust sites, which offers an insight into how they are run (and in contrasts with the way we run the UK (except Scotland) NT. A link from that sites takes me to a specialist blog for Modernist sites. I got all excited about this one, wanting to post a comments directing interest to The Homewood, a modernist building in my region, but then I noticed the blog hadn’t been updated for almost a year.

There are also mentions of the National Trust in in blogs covering subjects as diverse as green issues, family finance (I’m glad to see this one concludes we are good value for money), politics, and sheds!

But the most interesting blog where we get a mention is Past Thinking, which I’m going to have to explore in more depth. The entry that dragged me to it was one about our planned investment in e-engagement, which is indeed very exciting news. We have one of the most visited websites in the charity sector, but in many ways one of the least successful. I heard that that study last year showed that of over seven thousands pages of information, six thousand hadn’t been looked at! The post ends with a plea for the Trust to make resources available via a Creative Commons license (more on this later), which reminds me that Creative Commons was cited in a criticism about the Trust’s last venture into blogging.

Of course, the Trust were the main mover behind the One Day in History Blog a couple of years back, but technically that wasn’t a blog, and is now stored at the British Library (which is my way of saying I can’t find a link to it). I say its not a blog, because surly a blog has to cover more than one day? If there’s any reason for one at all, it is so that ideas can develop over time, rather than being a snapshot. It’s a mighty fine archive I’m sure, but a blog? I don’t think so.

A Mighty Oak?

So, this is the plan.

I’ve got a new job. Just for six months, or more properly the end of November. It’s a promotion, a secondment, and this is how I’m going to learn from it.

I’m going to keep a journal. Here. This is it. And I’m going to update it every day, or whenever I’m thinking about something, learning. And I’m going to let the whole world (or rather that tiny subsection of the whole world that might be interested) see. I’m going to be able to review it. Maybe, if I’m lucky, learn from it. And I’m going to learn about blogs at the same time.