Other

JP Morgan has lost at least US$3billion in some dodgy trades. How? How, after the worst banking crisis for 75 years can there be such incompetence?? Of course, no heads will roll.  Time for there to be an Arab Spring for those who sit on the boards of our western banks.

I spent a couple of hours at Trinity Hospice this morning discussing first our Ambassadors project and secondly our outward facing strategy post 2013. 

On Friday, I attended our monthly Fund Raising committee meeting. We have started the new financial year well which is always encouraging given we have to find £9million to remain open and free to the communities we serve north and south of the Thames.

I went to a first meeting of a north London hospices group yesterday at St. Luke's Hospice in Harrow.

I spent a couple of hours this morning with Anne Hooper, CEO at Trinity, trying to think through the implications of what Paul Burstow MP, Hospice Minister, said to us earlier in the week. Trinity has over 20 runners in the Marathon on Sunday.

I chaired the Trustees quarterly Board meeting last night at Trinity Hospice. It was really encouraging to report above prediction earnings from our shops and our fund raising team for our financial year which is about to close.

The chairs of the all the London Hospices met yesterday at Trinity. It was a very constructive meeting and it was good to hear other chairs having similar problems to your own!

Parkgate House School have been the most amazing supporters of Trinity Hospice and have raised nearly £50k for us since they started their quiz evenings back in 1999. Last night a sell out crowd (over 200) came to Wandsworth Town Hall to have some fun and raise us even more funds - bless their cotton socks. I judged the best table decoration and spoke for a couple of minutes on Trinity; our table did quite well in the quiz but alas not enough to take the top prize!

On Friday morning, I had a meeting at Trinity Hospice with our fund-raising team who have surpassed themselves this year (to be fair they seem to do this every year) having already reached their overall targets. Later, I had a catch up with Anne Hooper, our CEO.

HRH The Duchess of Cornwall's visit to our two Trinity Hospice shops in Kensington: Web only Press Association: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ ALeqM5jKD73KrGgfMVTyu6_-j2M2SG9jrg?docId=N0278451328125039289A    Yahoo! News: http://news.yahoo.com/photos/world-events-1316137200-slideshow/ duchess-cornwall-visits-trinity-hospice-20120201-111629-649.html     Look to the Stars (celebrity giving):...

HRH The Duchess of Cornwall, Royal Patron to Trinity Hospice, visited our two shops - books and clothing - in Kensington on Wednesday evening and met our full time staff and volunteers. Later, she also attended a private party in Kensington for Trinity supporters. See: www.trinityhospice.org.uk 

Denis Campbell, The Guardian's Health Correspondent, visited Trinity yesterday and met our senior staff.

Trinity Hospice features in: DECEMBER_PRINT_EDITION__KENSINGTON_AND_CHELSEA_TODAY.pdf  

This was my first Light Up A Life service at Trinity Hospice and I found the whole evening very moving. We started at the Hospice with hot chocolate sponsored by our good friends from Starbucks and then we all lit our candles. Someone looking rather like me then welcomed everyone (there were about 400 of us) to the event which celebrates family and friends who have passed away this year. Maddie and Gracie turned on the lights to our enormous Christmas tree and then the...

We shall be celebrating the lives of those who passed away this year at our Light Up a Life service this evening at Trinity.

I chaired our quarterly Board meeting last night at Trinity Hospice (go check out our new web site: www.trinityhospice.org.uk).  We heard from our Bereavement team, saw some plans as to what we could do with our various buildings and discussed future funding. The good news was our Shops are ahead of target and our fund raising team have again excelled themselves.  

On Tuesday afternoon and evening, the Trinity Hospice Trustees held their annual "Away Day". It was very well attended by senior staff and trustees as we had a lot to discuss including: Patient Services GP practices The acute sector 2020 vision Fund raising Finance Communications I chaired the day.

Seven Hospice chairs from St Christopher's; Princess Alice, Esher; St Francis, Berkhamstead; North London; Greenwich & Bexley; St Luke's, Harrow & Brent and , of course, Trinity attended yesterday very constructive meeting. We discussed: The Hughes Hallett Report The Dilnot Commission on Care Help the Hospice's forthcoming Commission and much else besides. Trinity will host the next meeting in March.

I am just off to my first meeting of all of the London Hospices (Chairpersons anyway) at St Christopher's Hospice just at the back of Crystal Palace.

Earl of Wessex visits Trinity Hospice gardens   Patients and staff at Trinity Hospice in Clapham were delighted to receive a royal visit today (Thursday) when Prince Edward arrived on a London Gardens Society tour.   The Earl of Wessex, patron of the gardens society, was welcomed by Trinity’s Chairman, Derek Wyatt, hospice gardener Michael Halman and the Mayor of Lambeth, Councillor Christiana Valcarcel.   During a tour of the award-winning...

It looks as if the next steps will be to identify the five pilots suggested in the report.

When I took the job as chairman of Trinity Hospice (www.trinityhospice.org.uk) I was told it was six to eight meetings a year and a lot of fun. Ho hum. This week as an indication of how busy the senior management team and trustees are we have had a full agenda: Monday: Party to say thank you to our staff for having to put up with builders for the past four months, followed by a 2 hour Board meeting and a supper for Trustees Tuesday: Wandsworth Friends of TH held their annual fund...

Yesterday was my Hospice day and I spent most of the morning there talking to  Anne Hooper, our CEO & Caroline Clark, our wonderful chaplain, who will soon be retiring. In the afternoon, I met our new Trustee, Geraldine Walters, Director of Nursing at King's College Hospital. She also chairs the London Network for Nurses and Midwives, is Visiting Professor at Buckinghamshire New University and a member of the National Clinical Audit Advisory...

Trinity Hospice in Clapham, south west London, held its second Open Garden Day and welcomed over a thousand local families; they enjoyed the beautiful gardens whilst their children had their faces painted and bounced on castles or had books read to them. Patients also enjoyed their company.  

It's been a busy month - of sorts - I've been in Siena for a two week break, my first holiday for two years (I was too ill last year) and then I've just come back from five days in Qatar where I spoke at the Doha Forum. So, I've missed three Fridays at Trinity Hospice in Clapham where I am the relatively new chairman of the Trustees. Last Friday (6th), I popped in to chat to Anne Hooper, our chief executive, and yesterday, we met Nicholas Woolf, the Chairman of the Princess Alice...

I sat mostly in the beautiful gardens at Trinity Hospice today chatting to various groups of our wonderful staff who together make Trinity tick. First up was our laundry and catering group without which we couldn't function (i wonder how many times I will use that phrase over the next year?). Then it was a session with our porters and hardworking gardener followed by a meeting with our head of transport. I'm learning fast. Then, I met our Shops team and Volunteers and we

I was at Trinity Hospice this morning for a very well attended Business breakfast (supplied by Starbucks).

As per usual on Friday I was out and about as Chairman of Trinity Hospice. I started at Marie Curie with Thomas Hughes-Hallett, CEO and we discussed where the Government's current thinking is on Hospice care per se. I moved on to our two Kensington shops to meet Richard Walker-Arnott, Deputy Lieutenant of Kensington & Chelsea. Stefan, our overall Shops Manager, showed him round and then we had a coffee. I was back at the Hospice after lunch to meet Charlie Skinner, one of...

Being Friday, I spent most of my day at Trinity Hospice in Clapham. I went out with one of our Home Nurses (we do 2000 home visits a year - all free) for a second consecutive Friday...... We visited a Jewish Care Home in south London, a family where the patient had died early this morning and finally to a lovely art deco block of flats to see a former art teacher and painter. You couldn't have had three more different visits in any one day. Of course, the visit to the family where...

Margot Richardson worked for me for four years from 1984-88 when I was a publisher at Allen & Unwin and then William Heinemann. Most days she was a saint - anyone who'd worked for me for that long must have been......so I was saddened this morning to learn from Matthew Engel that she had died from cancer on Wednesday morning.  It seems only yesterday when we were having such fun together. 

I was at Trinity Hospice on Monday evening for the PSC Committee meeting and then back yesterday to meet Lynne Ager and then Tuvi Orbach.

Yesterday was my Trinity Hospice day. I spent it with one of our home visit nurses. We offer a free service to support people in their own homes who have cancer or an end of life illness. Trinity offers all its services for free. Just to stand still we need to raise £8 million a year.

Yesterday afternoon I was given a briefing on our Volunteering programme. We are so fortunate at Trinity to be so well supported in our community. We have over 500 volunteers either at the Hospice or helping in our Shops.

Yesterday was my Trinity Hospice Day - it has been a busy week for us at Trinity - and I went with Floyd and Stefan to visit some of our wonderful shops which contribute over £1m to our bottom line each year. We started out at Brooke Green, moved onto to Queensway, did both our book and clothes shop in Kensington, took in Fulham before checking out Putney and our soon-to-be-opened furniture shop also in Putney and finally our current furniture shop in Wandsworth which is terrific. We have

As Patron of the Trinity Hospice, HRH Duchess of Cornwall hosted a private supper last night. Earlier in the day, I spent 40 minutes with her at Clarence House.

If it's Friday then it's my Trinity Hospice day......and I spent yesterday meeting four Trustees to talk through our work for the year; I also attended a fund raising presentation (we had a very good month in January). We are all concerned at the sudden changes to the NHS and what this will do to our funding. www.trinityhospice.org.uk 

I popped into Trinity Hospice this morning (as I missed last Friday as I was in Mumbai); I spent time with various members of staff playing my usual catch up.

Being Friday, I spent the morning with Anne Hooper, our CEO. We went through the admin for the next Board meeting (my first), how the PCT map will be withdrawn in south London and how this will effect us and a TED video on a Dad who was terminally ill but who had the sense to appoint 6 "Dads" to care for his children once he was gone.

Help donate: http://www.trinityhospice.org.uk/film  ITV Local London News Launch of 120th Anniversary http://www.itv.com/london/hospice-anniversary34180/   

On Friday, I spend another full day at Trinity Hospice. We were launching our 120th Anniversary with Huw Edwards (BBC News), one of our Patrons and Jack Dee, the actor and comedian, one of our supporters. This was my first outing as the new Chairman of the Hospice and I had to introduce (and thank) both Huw and Jack. About Jack I said that he was depressed this morning because he felt he was the only person in London who hadn't had his phone hacked. Both of them spent time...

Friday was my "Trinity Hospice" day and it started with a meeting with a would-be trustee before going on site to spend time with the HR department and Anne Hooper, our CEO. I then sat in on a management meeting for our 22 shops. It is our 120th anniversary and we will be launching lots of initiatives next week.

Trinity Hospice Though I am not quite in situ (1st February 2011), as the new chairman of the Trustees, I have dedicated Fridays to give my time to the Hospice. I started with Paul Molloy, Managing Director, Compton Fundraising Consultants Ltd., and then moved onto meet Sophie Harwood, who runs one of our 22 Trinity Hospice shops at 85 Wilton Street, Victoria and some of the volunteers. For my first six months, I shall try and meet as many of the people as possible who make Trinity...

Trinity Hospice www.trinityhospice.org.uk I spent 90 minutes at the Hospice with Anne Hooper, CEO on Wednesday.

Trinity Hospice, Clapham www.trinityhospice.org.uk At the end of January, 2011, I will become the new chairman of the Trustees at Trinity Hospice in Clapham. My grandfather, father and brother (leaving three young sons) all died of various types of cancer. When I was an MP I donated £1000 from my fees from media and polling to Demelza House hospice in my constituency which helped young (sometimes very young) with cancer. I was also a very strong supporter of its work and...