THE Prepping thread - a new beginning :)

Jazee

Maybe the sugar lumps are to give the energy required to do the skipping.

mardatha

Nannywindow we all say things on here that when we read back, sound bad. But we know they weren't meant that way. And that sounds totally mad but you know what I mean I'm just up and brain is still through in bed.

ivyleaf

NewShadow wrote: »

'Hi'

Says Civil Servant who sat her GCSEs and went to Uni in Wales - while not speaking Welsh - and got a job for the Welsh Government - while not speaking Welsh...and most certainly didn't lie about any intention to learn.

This is interesting. I used to work at our local social security office, and after we'd had several holidays in Aberystwyth and loved the area and the different pace of life (yes, I do realise that living somewhere is very different from being on holiday!), I looked into the possibility of a transfer.
But it wasn't possible because I didn't speak Welsh. I'd have been happy to learn, but I'm sure it would have been a long time before I'd have been fluent enough for a customer-facing job.

NewShadow

nannywindow wrote: »

New Shadow Very sorry, my rant wasn't aimed at you. I hope I didn't offend because that was not my intention.

nan

Hi Nan - None taken - Sorry if I wasn't clear. 'no bother' meant 'feel free/I know where you're coming from'.

Lots of powerful people seem to think that because we've given them power a. they must use it and b. they're important because they've got power.

What I'd really love is for someone to get into power and turn around and say 'this isn't working/this won't get us what we want, so let's stop doing it' - but that's never going to happen.

Politicians want to show they're 'fixing things/doing things', so find things to do - and anyone that thinks it's a bad idea is naive/stupid/rasist/'poor' - or that the objection is on the grounds of politics rather than sanity.

Sometimes I think not much has changed in the 'upper echelons' since the victorians.

I shouldn't complain - navigating the resulting bureaucracy keeps me in a job



Thank you to those that have shared advice on coinage/bullion - and to GQ for the very long, very detailed advice shared by PM.

Some homework to do, but I think I may make a couple of small purchases at some point in the not too distant future.

It does slightly terrify me that you can buy a gold bar the weight of a bag of flour and lose it in a pencil case - and that the gold bar can cost more than some of the houses just outside Cardiff :eek:

Out of interest - why don't people like buying directly from the Mint (given it's just down the road from me)?

ivyleaf wrote: »

This is interesting. I used to work at our local social security office, and after we'd had several holidays in Aberystwyth and loved the area and the different pace of life (yes, I do realise that living somewhere is very different from being on holiday!), I looked into the possibility of a transfer.
But it wasn't possible because I didn't speak Welsh. I'd have been happy to learn, but I'm sure it would have been a long time before I'd have been fluent enough for a customer-facing job.

That's the thing - customer facing roles now, because of the welsh language standards, almost all have welsh as essential. There's also a need within (practically) every team for at least one welsh speaker for if correspondence arrives in Welsh.

It's a very valuable skill for employability. But, not every job needs welsh and they'd have a devil of a time with the unions if they insisted everyone had to learn welsh - if nothing else they'd probably get challenged on the equality act as age discrimination because it's harder to learn a language when you're older.

To respond to MTSTM's question that I didn't notice before - if you say you want to learn welsh, and if your manger agrees it as part of your learning and development, you can get lessons through work.

4 hours a week in one or two blocks, plus you're given a copy of the book for each level, and they pay for your exam at the end. You have to find the time around your day job, but most managers are supportive - not much different from anyone who's doing a qualification through work. I know people getting PhDs - as long as it's relevant to their job/professional development, work will pay and give you time, but you have to fit it around your day job.

[Deleted User]

Harking back to the posts, a few days ago, about Hurricane Lamps, I found this picture I took a while back, of my Supalite 10" Hurricane Storm Paraffin Fueled Lanterns / Lamps, in the bowls I use as bunds.

mardatha

These are lovely Bob!

monnagran

I agree New Shadow, no one seems to have the courage to say, "This doesn't seem to be working, let's stop doing it."
Neither have I ever heard of anyone saying, "This seems to be working perfectly well, let's leave it alone."

I suppose that if you are trying to advance your career you have to be noticed, and to be noticed you have to be seen to be doing something...anything!

The philosophy of common sense is very subjective.

x

eta. That looks very preppy and attractive Bob. Reminds me of childhood holidays in a beach hut with no gas, electricity or water.

maryb

there seems to have been a blizzard of legislation in recent years so that people could be seen to be doing something. Half the time it seemed to me we didn't need new laws, we just needed enforcement of the laws we have already got

moneyistooshorttomention

NewShadow wrote: »

Lots of powerful people seem to think that because we've given them power a. they must use it and b. they're important because they've got power.

What I'd really love is for someone to get into power and turn around and say 'this isn't working/this won't get us what we want, so let's stop doing it' - but that's never going to happen.

Politicians want to show they're 'fixing things/doing things', so find things to do - and anyone that thinks it's a bad idea is naive/stupid/rasist/'poor' - or that the objection is on the grounds of politics rather than sanity.

Sometimes I think not much has changed in the 'upper echelons' since the victorians.

I shouldn't complain - navigating the resulting bureaucracy keeps me in a job



That's the thing - customer facing roles now, because of the welsh language standards, almost all have welsh as essential. There's also a need within (practically) every team for at least one welsh speaker for if correspondence arrives in Welsh.

It's a very valuable skill for employability. But, not every job needs welsh and they'd have a devil of a time with the unions if they insisted everyone had to learn welsh - if nothing else they'd probably get challenged on the equality act as age discrimination because it's harder to learn a language when you're older.

.

I hadnt thought of the age discrimination angle. I dont know if it takes longer to learn something or no as one gets older.

But it is age discrimination clearly if demanding an "extra" (in the form of the Welsh language) to what the job actually genuinely needs of itself and that "extra" is something an older age group is much less likely to have.

As stated by a post earlier - it is the older generations that probably don't speak Welsh anyway. Therefore its the older generations that are experiencing discrimination that might result in not getting a job they are perfectly capable of/qualified for - but are being told they should have that "extra" too. Whereas a noticeable number of young people will have (more or less willingly) learnt it at school.

Am guessing the unions have either been scared into not saying anything or nationalists tend to run them?

The thing that always strikes me too is there isn't one single entity called "the Welsh language". There are umpteen variations on it - North Welsh, South Welsh, West Welsh, various dialects and they've often got completely different words for the same thing. Last time I counted I got a total (rightly or wrongly) of 16 different variants on Welsh!!!! When I started Welsh classes originally - the teacher was always saying "x is the word for y in this area - but Z is the word for it in another area". Complicated or what! Anyway - I looked/listened all round - and then decided to refuse to learn Welsh.

Now, as someone who speaks absolutely standard English anyway, there is a reasonable chance I'd be understood if I dropped back into my own dialect - but this isn't quite the same thing.

Mind you - no-one is in danger of me talking in my own dialect for more than about ten words in total anyway - as I don't know it anyway:rotfl:.

That's the thing - because I speak absolutely standard English - then absolutely everyone can understand me with no problem at all and that has got to be a good thing hasn't it? I'm being absolutely inclusive and not discriminating.

moneyistooshorttomention

...and I've just googled for how much that Welsh Language Commissioner is paid.

I found the figures for 2012/13 and it was £95,000 in that financial year.

So - yep around £100,000 of public money pa.