More detail on all the events noted below can be found on the relevant section of the webpage – and they are even in date sequence to make it that much easier!
We are keen to increase membership and would encourage you to “persuade” your friends to join – it is as simple as filling in the details on the registration page .
19th June 2012 ‘Wales & Team GB - Olympics 2012’ - the Olympics are coming and, with the kind support of the De Vere Village Hotels Group, we will have a ‘Wales at the Olympics’ themed evening at the Caledonian Club. Dan Langford of Acorn, who is one of our Board members has been working on the programme, and speakers will include Professor Laura McAllister, Chair of Sports Wales who will cover the role Sport Wales plays in creating a Nation of Champions in Wales, through supporting our sportspeople to achieve Olympic and Paralympics success; and presenting the Olympics experience direct from the athlete’s perspective will be Jamie Baulch, former Welsh athlete and Olympic gold medallist. We’re hopeful that a number of other former and current Welsh / GB athletes, will also be joining us, to share their hopes and expectations, just weeks from the start of the world’s greatest sporting event.
There are many, many events happening around St David’s Day. Many of these have already been posted on the webpage but to summarise:
• 11th February. The London Welsh Centre has a full programme of events (see http://www.londonwelsh.org ) and on 11th February they have a folk evening at the Centre. The highlight in their programme going forward is undoubtedly the St David’s Day concert on 3rd March.
• 14th February. It is no surprise that Bryn Williams is organising a “special” night to celebrate St David’s Day at Odettes and another special for Mothers Day..........
• 22nd February. The IWA (see www.iwa.org.uk) continues to impress with the range and variety of their programmes. On 22nd February they have a discussion on obesity. Further programmes – on 21st February (Enhancing Vocational Education for 14 – 16 year olds); 1st March (Increasing employment rates in Wales: the private sector perspective) and on 9th March (Getting Wales Moving).
• 23rd February the day after (our event) there is a testimonial dinner for Adam Jones (the Great Adam Jones) at London Welsh Rugby Football Club.
• 24th February. In London the Old Llandovians London Branch have their annual Dinner at East India Club where the guest speaker is Lt. Colonel Bill Carling (father of guess who). In Llanelli, on the same night, there is the tenth St David’s Day charity dinner at the Stradey Park Hotel to raise funds for a number of local charities
• 25th February. For those who haven’t managed to get a ticket (not me as I have to go to a wedding!) London Welsh Rugby Club have a fantastic range of opportunities to drink and watch the match or just use it as a staging post enroute to Twickenham See http://www.london-welsh.co.uk.
• 28th February Cardiff & Co have another of their Ambassador programmes in association with the London Welsh RFC Business Club at The Royal Society, 6- 9 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AG, on “Sports, People, Places, Prosperity” with a keynote address by John Inverdale.
• To 2nd March. Art Space Gallery in Peter’s Street, Islington has an exhibition “Transition” but the point of interest here is that it explores the radical interaction of art and education in the 1960s in two British cities: Leicester and Cardiff.
• To 4th March. Art of a different sort. There is a wonderful Welsh Quilt Exhibition at the Waterfront Museum in Swansea.
• 9th – 28th March. Sarah Ball and Mary Wells have an exhibition at the Oriel Tegfryn Gallery, Menai Bridge.
• 4th – 7th July. For those supporters of Bryn Terfel's Faenol Festival all is not lost. Two years after being suspended due to low ticket sales this pop / classical / opera cross over event is going to be part of the South Bank Centre’s Festival of the World at the Royal Festival Hall.
• Music Theatre Wales is one of our great artistic companies. I have recently had more information on the progress of their new Opera “In the Locked Room” by Huw Watkins. This will be one half of a double bill of new operas which have been commissioned and are being co-produced with Scottish Opera – the other piece being “Ghost Patrol” by Stuart MacRae. The plan is to open at the Edinburgh International Festival on 30th August 2012 and bring it to the Linbury in London in September. Something to look out for.
• Owen Sheers worked closely with the Theatre Royal Haymarket on the play “The Two Worlds of Charlie F” which is based on the experience of and performed by wounded and injured service personnel. The performances were earlier this month. A documentary by BBC1will be broadcast in June. However I have been contacted by Dan Llewellyn Hall who was commissioned by the Haymarket Theatre to produce a series of drawings from the production. A selection of these are now available to purchase with 50% of the proceeds going to the British Legion. See http://www.danllywelynhall.co.uk/charlief.htm.
• WNO. Sticking with the Music theme David Pountney has recently announced the WNO’s 2012-2014 programme which is both exciting and challenging. The WNO will be staging eight new productions over this period. www.wno.org.uk.
• “The Story of Wales” Another highlight will be this new six part BBC Cymru series made in partnership with the Open University. Huw Edwards will, during the course of the series, tell the story of Wales from 30,000 years ago through to the present day. It promises to be an “adventure through time”. The first episode will be shown on 27th February and the second on St David’s day at 9.00 pm on BBC1 Wales.
• Rhian Jones. I was particularly pleased to meet London Welsh Centre’s new Chief Executive, Rhian Jones, at our recent Nos Galan event at Coutts. It is clear that Rhian, together with their Chair, Alex Meredith, are determined to build on and extend the activities at the Centre. Just look at their website www.londonwelsh.org.
• Richard Thomas, CEO Cardiff and Co. Richard, who has done a wonderful job whilst in post, is moving to the BBC. I was delighted to see the announcement recently that Roger Pride has been appointed interim CEO. Roger was Director of Marketing at the Wales Tourist Board before being appointed as Director of Marketing for the Welsh Government.
• Peter Hain I attended the book launch of Peter Hain’s autobiography “Outside In” earlier this week. It is going to be part of my holiday reading in Africa next week. Available on Amazon.
• Cheryl Gillan To ensure political balance I was pleased to see that Cheryl Gillan won the ITV Wales MP of the Year Award and also Govnet Communications “the one to watch” award. I get the sense that Cheryl who worked tremendously hard for Wales perhaps doesn’t get the recognition she deserves for all that input.
• Tim Williams. A former colleague and Board member of Wales in London. For many years he was a special advisor to a plethora of Labour Government Ministers but the change in Government was too much for Tim so he set off for Sydney with his Australian wife Michelle. Was I surprised to be sent a cutting at Christmas headed “Men with Vision” being the Chairman Chris Jordan and Strategic Advisor, Tim Williams, of the Committee for Sydney. Sydney’s gain is Britain (and Wales’) loss. If he can do it for Australia surely he can do it for Wales............... • William McNamara Another friend in the news is William McNamara, Chief Executive of Bluestone National Park Resort in Pembrokeshire (one of our sponsors) who has just returned exhausted but triumphant from his trek to the South Pole raising money for Teenage Cancer Trust. I suspect that William will run a series of fund raising events for the charity based on his trip – more news later. Find out more at www.90degreessouth.co.uk. • Simon King. Had an engaging discussion with Simon (many of you will know him from his time as director of development at Hays Wales (and before that at Hugh James) about the challenges of marketing and “promotion” in these markets. The conversation reminded me of that old adage “that experience counts in difficult times”.
Peacocks I spent some time with Sion Barry and Robert Llewellyn Jones, of the Western Mail, last week and the topic of conversation was Peacocks – “why” was the underlying question. A quick review of their balance sheet gave the answer. There must have been some very foolish financiers out there some years back to believe that a retail business could live with such levels of debt. Who suffers? Certainly those who have been laid off at the Cardiff headquarters. It looks as though much of the group will be sold “to others” which at least is positive.
Unemployment Against that “sort of” news I was not surprised to look at the latest unemployment figures in Wales for the period to November – unemployment in Wales in now 8.9% (compared to 8.4% in the previous year) which covers male unemployment at 10.5% and female 7.2%. Sadly there is a 22.9% unemployment rate for those in 16-24 age group.
A Welsh Government presence in London. Last week there was (finally) an announcement that there is now a firm commitment to establish a Welsh Government presence in London. The challenge now will be the nature of the office since it must and should reflect Welsh ambition – a confident statement from a confident nation. The adage that “Wales ignores London at its peril” has had resonance, especially for the Welsh diaspora in London, who have argued for many years that Wales needed that serious presence in what is a critical market place. Let’s hope that it is seen as and is structured to be a single point of entry, in London, to outside stakeholders interested in Wales.
What does it mean to be Welsh? There was a debate (or should I say argument) at a recent Wales in London Board about the number of Welsh people living “outside Wales”. One statistics quoted was that 110,000 Welsh speakers (approximately one in six of all Welsh speakers) live outside Wales – is this true? If anyone knows the answer please let us know
On a similar theme I was sent a brilliant link which was of a project undertaken for the Welsh Assembly on the Welsh Diaspora – Analysis of the Geography of Welsh Names. The purpose of the project was to improve the ability of the Welsh Assembly to identify the location of the overseas Welsh community within the English speaking world. Underlying the analysis is the use of names to infer identity – it is based on the assumption that it is both possible and effective to use the elements of the person’s name as a proxy for their origin. This approach, will no doubt be open to challenge, produces some interesting outcomes with an “estimate” that the size of the Welsh Diaspora is in excess of 16 million of which, some 11 million or more, are in the United States.
So there are more of us than you ever thought............. Look at the webpage – if nothing else it will bring a smile to your face.
For those of you who want a more practical link with America you can obtain information of Welsh activity in America on Welsh Governments’ social media pages. Details Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/WalesInAmerica; Twitter: https://twitter.com/WalesInAmerica
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