Conversation killer Queen
August 1, 2011 | Posted by Shaun McCarthy
A couple of years ago I was invited to speak at a conference organised for university purchasing consortia (I get all the good gigs!) I was asked to give the opening keynote speech but I was told that I would be following a “motivational speaker”. I have done this before and was quite relaxed about it; these people usually get the audience in a good mood before I put them to sleep. I did not realise until the evening before the event that the motivational speaker was Lenny Henry! However, having experienced Lenny as my warm up act did not prepare me for the event in the Aquatic Centre where I had Queen as my backing band. I was doing an interview for BBC Radio London when the speakers started booming out a medley of Queen hits to accompany a synchronised swimming demonstration in the diving pool. That pretty much summed up the first part of the day, organised chaos with a huge scrum of media people all talking at once. The BBC people were great, ushering me from interview to interview. Part of our duty is to communicate and we did lots of that on the day. The early …
Comment
What a waste
April 5, 2010 | Posted by Shaun McCarthy
The Commission’s recent waste review highlighted some great practice but I can’t help feeling disappointed. Good practice is transitory and of little benefit if it does not inspire change. The ODA have performed in exemplary manner: 97% waste diverted from landfill during demolition and 90%+ during construction. The second edition of the London 2012 Sustainability Plan introduced a new target to use “reasonable endeavours” to achieve 90%+ reuse or recycling after the Games. This is a remarkable target for the event management industry, which is usually very wasteful, particularly after an event, the period known as “bump-out” by the industry may just as well be called “skip-fest”. For the Games themselves LOCOG has gone one better, promising zero waste to landfill at Games-time and at least 70% of this to be re-used, recycled or composted. The Commission’s waste review scrutinised these plans and we were very impressed. We are confident this ambitious target can be achieved. However, the Games promised more than this, it promised to “act as a catalyst for good waste management practice in East London”. This is simply not happening and in my opinion the waste industry and government organisations that support it have let the side …