February 2009 Archives

A cheque for £11,000 has just dropped on my desk from a dedicated reader who remembered the Birmingham Mail in her will.

She wanted us to distribute the money to needy causes across the city.

It's related to one of the more pleasurable jobs as editor of this historic paper... the honorary chairmanship of the Birmingham Mail Charity Trust.

The Trust - originally the Birmingham Mail Christmas Tree Fund - was first established at the end of the 19th century to provide toys for deprived children.

In the early to mid 20th century, the charity changed it's attention to the shoeless youngsters of the city, giving out tens of thousands of boots.

In more recent years, the Trust continues to help deserving community groups who have nowhere else to go for funds. Everything from new playground equipment for inner city suburbs to motorised wheelchairs for shopping centres caring for elderly access.

They are usually small grants, anything from £100 to £2,000, providing instant relief or funds to do good to small, voluntary groups in the Mail's circulation area.

All funds for the Trust come from readers and businesses who know that it is a sure way of giving something back to the community.

The £11,000 windfall for the Trust came from the will of a lady who obviously had some link with or benefit from the Trust in her earlier years (we're getting in touch with her estate to find out if we can publish a story about her generosity).

It's a much-needed sum as, with the oncome of the National Lottery and dozens of charities employing powerful teams of fund-raisers, donations have declined in recent years.

For that reason, the Trust has now modernised its structure, employing a part-time fund-raiser to raise its profile and using the good offices of the Birmingham Foundation to look after back-office administration and banking.

The good news is that this new direction has already doubled donations in its first year, leading to grants of £20,000 in the last six month.

The £11,000 cheque is very much an extra to this revenue, and it will be quickly distributed to needy causes by Trustees who carefully assess applications every two months.

If any reader or business would like more details about the charity and how to donate, they can contact the Trust's fund-raising manager Gordon Creese on 0121 234 5639 or at gordon.creese@birminghammail.net

I love it when a real theme starts in readers' letters.

The latest is snorts of disgust from those aged around 70 at our reaction to recent snow.

And after the first letter published 10 days ago, a trickle of the same theme turned into a glut of folk who all started remembering the year 1947 in detail.

Anyone out there with parents/grandparents old enough, just ask them about that year's snowfall.

According to more than a dozen letter writers so far, we've had nothing but flurries in the UK this month compared to way back then.

Several feet of snow for several days; kids trudging to school throughout; warmed up with cocoa and wearing coats, scarves and hats all day; clearing the shopfronts for a tanner; all hands on deck for field-shovelling to aid local farmers.

None of those writing with memories can understand why a little snow paralyses Britain today.

Not a day's education or work missed by anyone (though surely there's a few rose-tinted glasses here...)

Although there's been snow letters every day since, I think the repetition of memories from this day deserves another wipe out letters section later this week.

REMINDER TO SELF: get the library to find classic 1947 Brum snow pic for above.

A laugh-out-loud chuckle this morning.

Steve Murphy had filled in his 'Personal Development Review' form on screen, and it seems that the computer's 'spell guess' system had clicked into action.

Job title: Regional Imagine Editor (!)

His new title in the restructure is, of course, Regional Images Editor.

Wish him luck in his 1-1 later today...

A few blogs ago, I did tell of the Birmingham Mail's forthcoming Recession Buster campaign. It's in various places on this website now, and daily in the paper. But for a good summary of what it's all about, here's how an industry website reported it.

An interesting email request arrived this week.

We've always had newspaper cuttings and archive files in libraries. But what should we do with when the accessibility of our stories online are claimed to cause a story for wrongdoers of the past?

Here's the request (with the ID and a couple of facts removed):

Dear Editor. I am writing to you concerning a story about me by your paper from *********. My name is **** ****** and over 4 years ago I was accused of swearing at a group of young people during the ******* ** * ******* I used to manage. The following story is still on your database and comes up whenever my name is googled. '******* ******** teacher struck off'. I simply ask how long you are going to keep this story on the internet as it still has a very negative impact on my life in the hope that you will decide to remove it from your files. I look forward to hearing from you soon. Yours sincerely, etc

My reply...
Dear Mr *************. Thank you for your recent email concerning a report about you published in the Birmingham Mail in *****, which is accessible via the internet. We have considered your request carefully, but it appears to us that our report was and remains true and accurate. You were struck off the teaching register by the General Teaching Council; and, as we correctly reported, you did not attend the hearing at which your case was decided upon. Had you done so, of course, you could have put forward your defence and that would have been reported by us. In the circumstances we do not believe that there are any grounds for us to take the unusual step of deleting the story from our website. Yours sincerely, etc

What do Editor's Chair watchers reckon on the rights and wrongs of this case?

The debate re. Fort Dunlop goes on after a response to Roy Greenslade's piece. For those who don't regularly read him but want to it's here.

Both the response and further comments are interesting.

But that's enough of Fort Dunlop for this blog for a while!

When I get the chance later this week we'll take a peak at a number of issues, including the disgraced teacher who wants us to remove his story from our archive...

Coming soon.