A Merry "PC" Christmas to you ALL

Julemille
Originally uploaded by Ma1974

It's my last day in the office for 2007. I will be returning to work and to blogging in January 2008.

I'm really looking forward to the break and the festivities that surrounds Christmas. We do however, live in a society where the true meaning of Christmas can be lost. Christmas has not only become commercialised but traditions taken for granted and passed down from generation to generation are being replaced with a 'politically correct' version or stopped altogether.

Here are a few examples of Christmas Political Correctness gone mad: · In 2006 the Royal Mail removed any Christian references from it’s Christmas stamps

• · In 2005 some places banned children from sitting on Santa’s lap
• · The Red Cross banned Christmas nativity decorations from it’s UK charity shops in case they offended people of other religions
• · A church was told it could not advertise it’s Christmas services on a community notice board as it could offend other religions
• · In 2005 Lambeth in South London named it’s Christmas lights, Winter lights Simply "daft".

How much time and expense has been spent on becoming Politically Correct - and in some cases - is it worth it?

The Commission for Racial Equality, it seems, has a sense of humour when it comes to Christmas. Their card which was sent out in 2006 shows the usual nativity scene as a draft with a series of suggestions and notes—I wonder if they send a similar card for 2007?

If you wish to make a Politically Correct seasonal greeting, here's one I found earlier:

Best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral, winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most joyous traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, but with respect for the religious persuasion of others who choose to practice their own religion as well as those who choose not to practice a religion at all; (Disclaimer: This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others and no responsibility for any unintended emotional stress these greetings may bring to those not caught up in the holiday spirit)

Whatever your religion, have a good one!

Benefitting the Local Community

Here at Latimer Hinks we like to "do our bit" for the local community and in turn help to reduce our carbon footprint.

We've recently donated £1000 to The Tees Forest so that 2000 trees can be planted.

The Tees Forest is part of the North East Community Forests group that is working in a newly-created woodland area of Darlington - aimed at improving the environment and encouraging more people to use the outdoors for education and enjoyment. The wood will be called Scouts' Wood and will improve the local community for many years to come. Latimer Hinks Branches out with Charity Support

Latimer Hinks has undergone a computer makeover. Lovely, slim, aesthetic monitors have replaced the CRT dinosaurs (still in working order) and as part of our ongoing commitment to recycling we have donated the old computers to charity. You can read all about it - Latimer Hinks Encourages Recycling

Gone are the days of "make do and mend". Items become obselete in such a short space of time and can easily be replaced. It's well worth doing a little research to see if anyone, or any organisation can benefit from what you're throwing away.

Success Happens Here - Judith's Divorce Blog

Success Happens Here
Originally uploaded by *Fly*

For those of you who have read my blog Social Networking Guineapig from the start, you will know that the reason for blogging in the first place was to promote the family law department within Latimer Hinks Solicitors.

The department, headed by Judith Middleton was in need of a promotional "push". Family law is a difficult service to "sell" as most Clients prefer to have a divorce lawyer recommended, that way the service has been "tried and tested" by someone you trust.

I decided to implement Web 2 in the quest and introduced Judith (and myself) to the concept of blogging, bookmarking and RSS feeds. We had to learn from scratch!

I'm now going to report on the success of the blog via a method which we did not initially consider - online newspapers!

Judith's Blog appears on The Northern Echo Readers Blog page and The Journal Live Blogs (Judith's is listed in the right hand beige column) Readers of these newspapers are local to us.

• Through them:
  we reach a wider audience within our cachment area
  we are promoted to a wider age range
  we present and accessible, expert service/advice

Basically, blogs are GOOD! They are a great promotional tool which used correctly can generate online traffic as well as traffic through the front door.

You can read through our trial and error process on this blog.

Christmas Party Pitfalls

Around 80% of British bosses will not organise an office party this Christmas, in part due to legal hangovers from fighting and flirting at past events.

You could say Christmas is cancelled!

Nick Poole, a partner at Latimer Hinks has put together a guide to avoiding common legal pitfalls. Avoiding the Legal Hangover of the Office Party

As Nick mentions, new media and social networking sites such as Facebook and Myspace provide the opportunity for members to make comments/gossip/post pictures. Employees should be warned in advance that this type of networking with regard to the Christmas Party will be frowned upon.

So my additional advice is...

be on the watch for colleagues who take lots of pictures and encourage you to do silly things like pull faces, pose in awkward positions and dance with your arms wrapped around your boss’s neck. The subsequent circulation of such images via internet sites such as Flickr and Facebook might leave you extremely embarrassed.

Christmas, Divorce and Grandparents

divorced
Originally uploaded by p2a2

When it comes to divorce/separation it's often the extended family that lose out

With more and more parents working, grandparents have increasingly been pressed into service as childcarers. They play a substantial and vital role and according to a recent survey, 64% of families with working parents rely on grandparents for at least some of their childcare, of which for most there is no charge.

But what happens when their child faces divorce/separation?

A grandparent may have provided daycare for the children 5 days a week, but will have no right to apply for contact in the event parents separate. This will undoubtedly have an effect on their relationship with their Grandchildren.

Judith Middleton explains the available options - Keeping In Touch with Grandchildren After Divorce

Further information for Grandparents is listed below:

Grandparents Rights - To encourage the Government to grant legal rights to grandparents in family law to benefit child welfare.

Grandparents Apart - campaign for greater respect of Grandparents and older people in Scotland

Grandparents Association Website - resources and advice for Grandparents

"Fine"ding Your Way

IMG_2970[1]
Originally uploaded by dramaqueenz

I, along with four other friends have just returned from a wonderful weekend in Prague. Such a beautiful city with so much to see!

The downside to our foreign visit was lack of information regarding directions, where to go or what to do.

I have recently undertaken some research on our website (which if it is your first visit could be referred to as a "foreign site"). If you first enter a website and cannot find what you are looking for, it can be quite frustrating. Apparently our Partner profiles are difficult to find - we are looking at remedying this. At the moment there is no search feature so old press releases are left gathering virtual dust!

But back to our trip

The weekend didn't start off too well when our Easyjet plane developed an electrical fault while we were all seated, ready and waiting for take off. We eventually arrived in Prague one hour later than planned and found that all the restaurants closed at 11pm! - we knew this because there were signs in the windows indicating a closing time!

The second day we found misleading currency exchange rates and very nearly ended up with an extremely poor exchange.

On the evening we purchased travel tickets that can be used for tram, bus and train. We knew through sites such as Virtual Tourist that you needed to have these stamped. We expected conductors to stamp the tickets on the different modes of transport.

But no, that's not how it works. There were no signs to tell us how to do this. So, we rounded a corner to be stopped by guards/tram police - whatever you want to call them. They were not in uniform but did show a badge. One of the men (quite rough looking) demanded to see our tickets (at first we thought they were beggars). We showed our tickets which were not stamped. The man indicated that we all would have to pay a 500Kc fine (around £15). We explained it was a simple mistake. He exclaimed (in Czech accent) "not my problem - your problem". He was quite aggressive, threatened to call the police and take our passports - we paid up!

So, perhaps Prague tourist information should consider displaying relevant information/signposts etc on all modes of transport.

The up side to visiting the Latimer Hinks website is that we will not fine you or threaten you with the police, we will simply take any constructive comments on board and amend our site to suit!

Stilletto Boot Camp - Pure Technology, just for the ladies!

Yesterday I attended a presentation on Pure Technology, part of the Stilletto Boot camps for women. The group was quite small and the format for the presentation was forum/discussion style - which worked really well. Ideas/suggestions were bounced from the panel as well as the attendees.

I must admit that at first i felt like a "fish out of water". Most attendees worked with film/media so I imagined them to be quite savvy and up to date. There was also a lovely lady who owned a B&B by Hadrians Wall - Holme House. But as the afternoon wore on, we all found we had something to say.

The expert panel consisted of:

Judith Peacock - Further Consultancy (technology, marketing, databases etcetc)

Joscelyn Upendran - de Burca (e-learning and business)

Zahra Zomorrodian - FNA Films (video production/film makers)

Jo - Ki-media (emails marketing, website optimisation etc etc)

Some items discussed:

• How social networking is now taking over email as a marketing medium


• Keywords/keyphrases and placement. Top tip - don't use "click here", give the link a name (which will be picked up by search engines)
• What do you consider to be a good online experience
• Youtube, marketing videos
• Viral emails
• Emails and the legal issues (which Joscelyn will respond to)
• What is web2
• Is it worth having a business presence on Second Life?
• How to promote your blog
• Bookmarking
  

Judith is going to summarise the afternoon's discussions and forward the information along with links. I may be able to let you have a look!

The session drew to a close and as I was leaving Judith and Joscelyn asked if Latimer Hinks would be interested in publicity for our blogs/digital presence. Apparently for a law firm in the UK we are quite forward thinking and progressive! I said we would be VERY happy to... so watch this space!

I am now going to join the CopeBusiness Forum and use this to share knowledge and further our social networking!

Nothing to do with Social Networking - Christmas gone Mad!

Last night, 13th NOVEMBER, I was driving home from work. I turned the corner into a little village called Toft Hill and much to my absolute amazement drove past a house on the main street fully lit up with Christmas decorations! (photo to follow shortly) The garden was overgrown with strange illuminous flashing cabling winding it's way up the garden path to the front door and up onto the roof ... if there way a chimney i'm positive the cabling was such a length that it would reach and travel down it, much like Santa! It's NOVEMBER, not DECEMBER!! Far too early!

To top it all, on my walk into work this morning an absolutely gigantic chritmas tree has been deposited right in the middle of the main high street of Darlington - I have taken a photo so you can see the enormity of it - for scale, see the guy in the wheelchair to the right.

I realise that town and city centres decorate their streets slightly earlier than we at home would (apart from the odd eccentric few) to create the "mood" for christmas shoppers but I do wonder how online businesses cope with the Christmas trade? We see plenty of offers/discounts to purchase but where is the ambience. Although the biggest bonus for shopping online has simply GOT to be - no queues!

Blogging - the risks

Charley With iBook
Originally uploaded by Hackintosh

People are landing in hot water with employers over blogs about their work.

Recent figures show that 39 percent of ‘bloggers’ admit that they have posted sensitive or damaging accounts of their employer, workplace or colleagues on a weblog, or on-line diary.

Shocking, you better believe it!

• In 2005 bookseller Waterstone's was reported to have become the first employer in the UK to sack a member of staff because of comments he made about the company on his online diary, or blog. See here
• Catherine Sandersons's "La Petite Englaise" internet diary/blog made headline news when Catherine, who worked for accountancy firm Dixon Wilson, was sacked when her Paris-based employer objected to her blog. She was later awarded £30,000 for unfair dismissal - and was given a book deal in the process! - in the end it all worked out well for Catherine.
• A US airline attendant calling herself Queen of the Sky was fired over "inappropriate images" on her anonymous blog. She is currently filing a discrimination complaint with the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

A new term has emerged as a result of this new phenomenon. According to UrbanDictionary.com, to be "dooced" means "losing your job for something you wrote in your online blog, journal, website, etc."

So, please consider the following advice from Latimer Hinks Solicitors and ensure that you have policies in place to deal with blogging issues.

Be Aware of Staff Internet Blogging - Nick Poole, partner at Darlington law firm Latimer Hinks, is warning employers to update their policies to cover internet blogging following a judgement made in a Paris employment tribunal that could have repercussions in the UK.

Businesses to be Aware of the Bloggers -As weblogs, or ‘blogs’, become increasingly popular, Nick Poole, employment law solicitor at Darlington law firm Latimer Hinks is warning the region’s employers to beware of the risks represented by these sites.

Also thanks to the Electronic Frontier Foundation for - How to blog safely about work or anything else

Networking Socially - in the Flesh!!

I've had a busy few evenings networking in a social environment, not behind a computer screen but in the flesh, so to speak.
latimerhinks.gooruze.com

Firstly, I attended the County Durham and Tees Valley Charity Awards which Latimer Hinks along with accontants Horwath Clark Whitehill, were sponsoring. It was an emotional evening for some and I was so pleased to see recognition for down to earth people who virtually singlehandedly have improved lives of those around them.

I spoke with Dorothy Bowman of Newton Aycliffe Junior Neighbourhood Watch, a lady of "just over" 80. When Dorothy saw that the children of Newton Aycliffe, a deprived area where more and more houses were being built with no thought of the children's needs were going to lose their meeting place - the Dandy Kart she and her husband came up with the idea of using a bus which they purchased and renovated to provide "The Kool Red Bus". Dorothy was previously a lorry driver so driving a bus did not pose a problem - remember this lady is over 80 years old!

Dorothy is determined to fight for the Council to give her some land so that she can build a permanent meeting place for the youngsters. She is an amazing woman, full of energy - she deserves a million awards - as do all of the winners and nominees for the Durham and Tees Valley Charity Awards.

Details of the winners

Secondly I attended Darlington Civic Theatre Gala Evening - the 100th Anniversary.

Latimer Hinks are corporate sponsors of the theatre and we share a long well established history in Darlington. Latimer Hinks Solicitors was born in 1872 and the Civic Theatre in 1907.

The Gala event was a great success (a sell out!) and thoroughly enjoyable. With guests such as Brian Conley, The Krankies, Zoe Birkett, Jane Macdonald, Journey South etc. Brian Conely was excellent and SO versatile! I was extremely surprised at how much i enjoyed the "variety type" performance.