I’m knackered, smelly and very happy

June 3, 2009 by
Filed under: Politics, The RSA 

Today was the RSA civic day and fifty or so staff members trooped off to Hackney to paint over graffiti, pick up litter and drag stuff out of the canal.

I was on grappling duty and it was so much fun. I pulled out of the canal a wheelbarrow, a carpet and something that looked like a pigs’ trough. In fact, I became obsessed and the organisers had almost to pull me away as I shouted ‘wait wait I’m sure I’ve got something big I just can’t quite snag it’ (story of my life, to be honest). Partly, this was envy as our chief operating officer Steve King had found a moped and another team (of women!) got a bicycle.    

The day was made more memorable by the news of Hazel Blears’ departure and a series of rumours – all begun by Nina our head of external affairs - that other people ranging from Alistair Darling to the Archbishop of Canterbury and Alex Ferguson had also resigned in sympathy.

It was also fun to be able to deal with the predictable media calls: ‘would, you like to come on and pronounce Gordon ‘dead man walking’ ?’, answer, ‘er, no’). But not with usual excuse that RSA Fellows expect us to rise above politics but because I was currently using all my energy to pull a corrugated tin roof out of the canal. 

A great day was had by all. We are all deeply grateful to Louisa who organised it for us. And we will certainly do it again. Maybe next year we’ll get some Fellows along too.

And being an eternally optimistic person I will ignore the nagging thought that when we’ve gone the nice men from Tower Hamlets chuck all the big exciting stuff back in so the next lot of do-gooding office workers  have something to boast about.

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5 Comments on I’m knackered, smelly and very happy

  1. Joan Keating on Wed, 3rd Jun 2009 5:53 pm

    2. Today my eleven year old son was proudly telling me about his school monitor duties. Evidently at afternoon break he goes around the nursery ‘picking up stuff”. The suggestion that he do the same in his bedroom was greeted with incredulity. I’ve noticed a similar response when his dad is on one of these corporate team building days. I mean why is he clearing a garden for a mental health charity when my own mental health would be much improved by our own garden being cleared? I do know that’s not the point but really…..

  2. David Wilcox on Wed, 3rd Jun 2009 9:37 pm

    3. Hah! Volunteer recruitment added to your blogging bow. A photo set on Flickr would be good …

  3. Clodagh Miskelly on Thu, 4th Jun 2009 9:33 am

    4. I have mixed feelings about your canal clearance. This is not due to RSA events tweet yesterday that you were all going to “do good” in Hackney, (maybe not the best phrase?), or my disappointment that no one took me up on my invitation in reply to pop round and do my ironing while you were in the area. No I have to admit that one of my pleasures walking home is spotting interesting murky shapes at the bottom of the canal and imagining what they are and how they got there. On the other hand I’ll be slightly less worried about falling in….

    The french speakers in your clean up team might enjoy this article
    http://www.telerama.fr/livre/maitres-de-balais-ou-le-paris-de-robert-mcliam-wilson,43274.php

  4. mike chitty on Thu, 4th Jun 2009 1:22 pm

    5. Reminds me of the time 150 lawyers painted an underpass in Leeds. Quickly got vandalised again. Now if 150 lawyers gave 3 hours free legal advice each….

    Ok this might not be as much fun, but is this about ‘teambuilding’ for you or providing valuable community service?

  5. Laura Billings on Thu, 4th Jun 2009 5:32 pm

    6. @mike chitty – I guess it’s a bit of both, but surely there’s no harm in that?
    We were doing tasks decided upon by Thames 21 “the environmental charity working with communities to bring London’s waterways to life”

    I agree that the newly white walls are a tempting blank canvas, but the rationale we were told in the morning was that it sent a message that graffitti wasn’t tolerated on this stretch of the canal, which signalled it was being used and cared for in a broader sense, and hopefully contributed to the area being safer and used more by the local community. I live in Tower Hamlets and walk the canals myself and I much prefer them to be safe and clean, and appreciate the work done by volunteers to keep them this way.

    I also give my more ‘corporate’ skills voluntarily as an ex-trustee and advisor to another charity so I see no harm in pitching in on the canal cleaning as well.

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