Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Hotel prices - UK v the Others

I have just taken part in a radio discussion on 'Why hotels here are so expensive''. I wonder if, underlying everything else, there is a new(ish) culture of greed in this country. We are obsessed by the cost, and value, of our houses; we rush to snap up houses wherever they are cheap (France, Spain and now Bulgaria), largely just to avoid missing the bandwagon. We pay our fat-cat CEOs over 200 times more than their employees - and accept it as normal. We are all part of a hectic rat-race to the bottom. Our European cousins may well copy us one day, but meanwhile there remains a gentler attitude to money and success, especially in the south. No wonder that hotel prices are lower there.

Having said all that, our books DO succeed in tracking down the hotel-owners who sing from a different score. They are by no means all part of the grim, bigger picture.

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Sawday's on Tour

Just back from three days in Wales, much of the time spent with the whole company on a mass bonding exercise. We swam, walked, talked, ate as if starving and danced the last night away in wild ceilidh excesses. The venue was the Druidstone Hotel, a triumph of laid-back professionalism. It is rarely empty, breaks most of the rules on 'how to run a hotel', fills itself with fun, music and people wanting to be unpretentiously human. When we arrived there was a 20-piece jazz band filling the space with an exultant clamour. But back to our own gathering: the best bit, in my view, was the ceildih. It put a grin on every face and held it there for hours. How else can one achieve that? In fact, I wonder if ceildihs might take the place of the corporate consultants who change the ways companies work?

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Please read and sign!

After a long absence from blog-writing I hope that this is a positive way to re-start. The following letter is well worth a read, and I urge you to do what it asks:

Dear friend,

This Thursday, the environment ministers from the G8, the world's biggest contributors to climate change, will be meeting in Germany. The outcome of this meeting is crucial to world's response to global warming.

Avaaz.org has been invited to attend this meeting to present our climate change petition. A strong voice for action could help set the agenda for the G8. To help seize this opportunity, click this.

The G8 is a summit of world leaders from the "Group of 8" largest economies. Together, these countries account for 50% of global greenhouse gas emissions--the gasses that cause climate change. The full G8 summit is coming in June, but the agenda and outcome of this type of high-profile event is usually set far in advance--at meetings like the one this Thursday.

This year, the president of the G8 is German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Her environment minister, Sigmar Gabriel, is in charge of the ministers meeting Thursday. And at 4 pm on March 15th, we have a personal meeting with Mr. Gabriel to present our petition for binding emissions targets to stop catastrophic climate change.

Merkel has indicated an interest in making climate change a top priority. With a significant global petition, we can make the case that the world is ready for aggressive leadership on climate change--and pave the way for truly historic commitments at the G8 summit this June.

It's a rare opportunity to have a global impact. Add your voice to the petition here.


50,000 people from 131 countries have already demanded action. Our goal is to reach 100,000. Please sign the petition, forward this email to friends and family, and post the link on your blog--we only have a few days to make this statement count.

If we add our voices together, now, 2007 can become the year we took the first step to save the world.

With hope,

Ricken, David, Iain, Lee-Sean, Galit, Graziela, and the rest of the Avaaz.org team