On Wednesday this week we hosted the sector’s first ever Pan London Olympic strategy meeting.  It was our way of helping London’s childcare industry consider how it could respond proactively and in a grown up way to the inevitable disruption the Olympics will cause during the summer. The Olympics may officially begin in 100 days, but the torch bearers begin in 30 days and really the situation starts to kick off from then.  What is more, people think the Olympics runs for two weeks, when in reality it’s six weeks at best, and more realistically in fact the entire summer – beginning with the Queens Jubilee in June and concluding at the end of August.

Representatives came the summit from 42 nurseries in 22 boroughs across London and heard presentations from TfL and the City of London police, along with sensible advice from the contingency business planner for Westminster City Council.

The audience was a lively one, and it took very little time for us to realise the implications of the Olympics would be greater than we imagined and so needed careful thought if were to remain calm, positive and constructive advocates for UKPLC! A point emphasised by Tessa Jowell MP, Shadow Minister with responsibility for the Olympics, who popped in to congratulate us on having the foresight to organise such a meeting in the first place; and then marvelled at the numbers of children and parents we would be serving during that period.  (A guestimate of 50,000 was bandied about.)

Despite conflicting media information about tourist numbers, both the police and TfL agree we will have at least 2 million visitors to London, with many of them staying in the centre; and as we already find ourselves regularly squashed between rucksacks and map readers, this will only increase.  So the advice was clear: don’t take unnecessary journeys says TfL, plot out the road hotspots, examine the tube hotspots; spend time on their website.

The police had more advice, with the inspector asking what will people do when the event is over – go home for a rest? Of course not; they will go down to the local hostelry, restaurant, park or go sightseeing, typically adding to the summer’s usual crowd and travel problems. Pubs and other places will take advantage of this passing trade, and may have big screen events adding yet further to these numbers, spreading the possible chaos.  Each country also has something called the National Olympic Committee (NOC), essentially party organisers that will be arranging cultural events well into the evening. Many of these are sponsored by drinks companies, so they won’t be serving tea and cucumber sandwiches! (Sadly, the inspector was unable to tell me if there was an Irish NOC or where it might be, as I quite fancy a bit of Christy Moore, chocolate Kimberley biscuits and a pot of Barry’s tea – and maybe Gabriel Byrne might pop in and make my year!)

In any case, the police officer certainly had a sense of humour, and balanced his gloomy take on security with an introduction to those rather eccentric characters who want to make a point for peace or the greater good by disrupting events.  He reminded us that Fathers4Justice have promised an outing, whilst Jimmy Jump and Cornelius Horan both get their kicks out of disrupting sporting events by running into them or stripping naked and running off with the ball. (The sort of behaviour we expect with two year olds; only in this case, they get publicity, we get more disruption.)

However, what was soon apparent was how as Early Years providers we are a practical lot – and were soon taking the first steps in contingency planning. Later the Evening Standard asked me if we will cope. “Of course we will,” I said. “We are the childcare industry!” (For more reporting on the expected challenges during the Olympics and our event’s aim to come up with solutions, I’m told we should pick up a copy of said paper this coming Monday!)

In summary, the issues we need to cope with and options to consider include:

• Staff travelling to and from work – implications for ratios, overtime, emergency contact arrangement
• Deliveries of food – to stockpile or not to stockpile!
• Arrival and collection times of children – implications for ratios, fees and flexibility
• Camp beds – should we buy one or two for unexpected over-night stays?
• Outings – where do we go, and what about holiday clubs which organise lots of outings?
• Know thy neighbour – making contacts with local nurseries so we can support one another
• Hospitals – identifying which is the designated emergency hospital
• Communication – updating everyone’s contact details, since mobile phone networks often get overloaded, making it impossible to get through to anyone (so think of alternatives)

What we all agreed on at the meeting was that no one really quite understands the broader implications for this period, so this was just a start.

In terms of next steps, Kate Hawkins (from Nursery Management Today magazine, which worked with us on the event) left us with an action plan template. Meanwhile, Julian Gibbs (Regional Manager for the NDNA) has promised to put together a fact sheet and upload it on their website, so I encourage all providers to keep an eye out for that.  In fact, Julian concluded that the meeting had been an eye opener and flagged up many more issues than he had first imagined.

From our side, LEYF nurseries have already sent parents a postcard asking if they are on leave, changing their hours or could give us information about their plans during the period to help us ‘Get Ahead of the Games‘.

So like the Boy Scouts always say: ‘Be Prepared’.

Happy New Year and welcome back to my blog. (Thank you in advance!)

As I recover from cooking, eating, talking, reading and watching TV (little different there then, except this time a lot of it was done with my extended family, including the delights of my youngest brother and my nieces and nephews who are placed on this earth to remind us about our duty to listen to the young), I have checked out the predictions of Nostradamus, the Mayan calendar, the I Ching and various political pundits in order to sound informed. Ironically, the best advice came from RiRi, my favourite pop singer of the moment, who in Fading (Away) tells us that life is too short to worry. The only downside to the lovely RiRi is her acceptance of lyrics which lack any reference to women’s rights or suffrage! She is certainly no feminist.

Back to the gloomy predictions of 2012: deflation, interest rises to 8%, employment increasing to 4%, tougher economic year than 2011, crazy election results, Eurozone debacle, cyclones, volcanoes, storms… and frankly more of the same. Hey ho.

Of course, here at LEYF we work with children – preparing them for this very future – so let’s take RiRI’s more optimistic, pragmatic view and challenge this dire outlook with a positive attitude. (We know that optimism breeds positive attitudes and a better chance of successful outcomes; in my book that means balance risks but don’t ignore the opportunities.)

For us, irrespective of the bigger issues, this year I hope to do more around our core LEYF values: being child focused, collaborative, courageous, creative and constant.

First and most important of all, we will strive to be even more child focused than ever before, as we know children are the ones most hurt by poverty and stupid adults.

We will collaborate more, particularly with parents. I learned a lot from a meeting I had with parents at our Noah’s Ark community nursery recently, and it’s a lesson I won’t forget. Parental perspectives matter and need to be valued and understood.

Even greater courage is required as we discover how many more children are suffering economically and emotionally from some of our leaders’ dim-witted policies. We really must do things differently, and so I hope we get our LEYF research hubs motoring in 2012. I want to have Meet-ups with parents and all those who want to talk about new ideas or anything that will get our little grey cells operating. (Yes, you guessed it – I received a box set of Poirot for Christmas!)

Creativity is a fascinating value and one that is demonstrated in many ways. For example, I have just finished the biographies of Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton and his wife Isabel Burton, both great Victorian travellers. He was an irascible character with a fascination of the East and wrote prolifically, including a translation of Arabian Nights and Kama Sutra. He showed creativity in how he overcame the challenges of exploring and brokering relationships across unknown places; his grasp of languages and understanding of cultural behaviour was a clear means of ensuring that he could broker a mutual understanding. However, his creativity was less well received by the stuffy and hierarchical hide-bound Victorian society. When he died he was snubbed by the establishment and refused a burial place in Westminster Abbey, so his stalwart and loyal wife Isabel persuaded the British public to fund a mausoleum in a cemetery in Mortlake in the shape of a Bedouin tent, one that she designed. She was both constant and creative in her efforts to support her husband in a way that celebrates what we struggle with today; a genuine and honest appreciation of east and west.

So, whatever Nostradamus and his pals say, here at LEYF 2012 will be shaped by the 5 Cs from a positive, creative and optimistic outlook.

And if you don’t believe me, I completed the I Ching and asked what we might need to tackle. The answer came in the form of the hexagram KU. The translation is:

• Work on what has been spoiled
• Has supreme success
• It furthers one to cross the great water
• Afterwards there is order

Good Advice; let’s go forward. Happy 2012.

It’s always interesting to meet television journalists up close and personal – and that’s exactly what I did on Wednesday, when LEYF Chair of Trustees, Tim Willis and I went to an Acevo Leaders to Leaders lunch.  Robert Peston, Business Editor at BBC was the speaking guest, and I had booked the lunch some time ago, as I had got used to using the Peston daily bulletin to keep me appraised of the unfolding economic drama back in 2008, and I was keen to hear his latest economic analysis, along with his take on the way out of the mess.

Once there, it very quickly became clear how Peston lives and breathes business economics. It was like being locked in a room with an Early Years obsessive!  He pontificated on the 20 years of unprecedented recorded growth, the lending and borrowing boom and its abrupt end in 2007/08, the shrinking bank balance then replaced by a huge growth in the public sector balance sheet.  He described this as the biggest event in his career, one that catapulted him into the limelight; a place he seems eminently comfortable in.

I was very keen to hear his economic predictions.  He started by telling us a lot of what we all know too well: Economics is not a good science and we have to look to history for some guidance; and globalisation creates global problems, but we have national governments, so it is hard to find a balanced way to either respond or influence. In effect there is no quick way out of this.

He continued to predict a less optimistic growth rate than Mr Osborne‘s anticipated 2-3%, suggesting reality is more likely to be nearer 1%.  He reminded us that debt is still 180% ratio to disposable income, whilst the big cost of the bank bailout debt equated to £5000 for every person on the planet.  The most horrible fact was that despite all the cuts, repayment is making little more than a tiny chink in the debt. The reality of economics is that we won’t know if Osborne is doing the right thing until it’s too late.

So his survival tactics were:

The lunch concluded with Preston advising us to re-think our approach; getting smarter and more efficient, whilst supporting the private sector to develop more jobs.
So that means we continue pushing staff to grow occupancy and collect fees on time, we increase the introduction to finance that our CRLD team has introduced for our apprentices, and we take more apprentices to help them into work.  We will also push for a project with A4E to support parents in managing their money and limit the risk of debt.

It was a useful lunch and one which reaffirmed the need to develop, implement and insist on business practices designed to reduce reckless financial behaviour at every level; if left unchecked, this simply puts everything and everyone at risk of disaster.

At LEYF, our core business is delivering daycare for 1500 children each year in our 21 community nurseries; but our core business approach must be working to secure these; and financial rigour is right at the very heart of it.