Week beginning
Monday 2nd May
I’m afraid it’s a very
short diary this week! General Election week and as well as every
spare minute going to helping campaigns over the last while, this week
there was time out from work for the last push, and of course no
Chamber at all on the actual day. I’m not going to talk about the
election though as I’m sure everyone is fed up hearing about it by
now!
So, straight to Tuesday
and a day in the office with Morag, sorting out all my visits and
commitments over the next while and trying to fit in visits from all
the local groups who want to visit us in the Parliament complex. There
are so many! It’s great though to walk through the Parliament and see
so many visitors, from primary school children to Seniors Groups.
Today we learned for example that the 300,000th visitor had
arrived – a lot of visitors since the opening back in Autumn last
year.
Took part in a panel
discussion/question time in the evening down in St. John’s
Episcopalian Church in Edinburgh’s Princes Street. A big panel of us,
from political parties and from the Make Poverty History Campaign.
Lesley Riddoch was in the Chair – always scary in itself, and the main
discussions/questions were about international development in general,
the Africa Commission and the United Nations. As always, never enough
time for everyone to get their points and questions in and the
discussion could have gone on a good while longer. Also, received an
invitation today to a debate in our own Chamber on Monday 16th
May which has been set up by the Presiding Officer’s office and is
specifically to discuss the Report of the Africa Commission and make
recommendations for action. So, looking forward to that.
And so to Wednesday
morning’s Communities Committee and the last day of scrutiny and
amendments to the Charities Bill. Again, the Executive didn’t get all
its own way with the Committee voting against some of their amendments
and recommendations, so it will be interesting to see how we proceed
from here! Certainly the Minister has agreed to meet with Committee
members to try to achieve common ground on the question of payment to
Trustees and the terms ‘misconduct’ and ‘mismanagement’, so we’ll see
how that goes before we end up debating it all again in the Chamber.
All we had on Wednesday
afternoon in the Chamber was Question Time, and again I wasn’t taken!
I’m beginning to take it personally you know.
In between times though
I managed to meet up with some Strathaven ladies from the Bethany
Group who were visiting Parliament for the day. Some of the group had
visited before and were here for another day out, but those who hadn’t
seen the Chamber or the Garden Lobby were fair taken – the sun was
shining through the glass that day and the flowers in the garden are
coming to bloom. It really is a beautiful place to work in, we’re very
fortunate.
Dashed back to
Strathaven late Wednesday to get an early start on Election Day. Well,
Thursday passed, the polls closed and stayed up nearly all night
watching the results come in. Slept most of the day on Friday, but
managed out on Friday night to East Kilbride to attend a Theatre Nemo
performance celebrating their fifth anniversary. I have spoken about
Theatre Nemo before in this diary – a group for which I have the
utmost respect.
Theatre Nemo is the
campaigning theatre company whose aims are to raise awareness of
social and mental health issues and give a voice to those who have
been touched by mental ill health. They’ve been going from strength to
strength and have just received funding to take their work into
hospital psychiatric wards and to hold community workshops in East
Kilbride and Hamilton. Over the time I’ve been visiting Nemo I have
seen participants really blossoming, achieving confidence and becoming
more talkative, more animated. There is also the feeling of being
important and part of a group. Family members who, although they are
not sufferers themselves, also take part and this helps understanding
and relationships. The members talk openly about all of this and how
drama, song and dance have opened up their lives. They performed a
really powerful piece on Friday night about how so often folk with
mental illness are shunted through the system and feel they have
no-one to really turn to who can help.
I hope I haven’t made
Theatre Nemo sound terribly serious and dull – let me tell you, their
evenings are full of fun! I had a chat with one of the young men there
on Friday who told me that. He had just performed in the play. This
was the same young man who I noticed a couple of months ago when I
went to one of Theatre Nemo’s Open Days – he had only at that time
attended a couple of events, was standing on the side-lines and
watching, not taking part at all. Now he’s a performer, with pals, and
in company that doesn’t stigmatise him in any way. It’s like Isabel,
the group founder says – pills aren’t the only answer.
Well, that was my
working week – not a lot, but no doubt the next couple of weeks will
well make up for that. Rounded off the week going to see Dick Gaughan
in Strathaven’s Town Mill Theatre – fantastic! Hadn’t seen him in
around 10 years, but he still has the power to stir the old blood! I
keep hearing on radio discussions etc. that the day of the protest
song has gone and that no-one writes or sings political stuff any
more. Nonsense – that tradition is alive and well here in Scotland,
you just have to make the effort to go and hear it. I really must do
that more often.
Linda Fabiani
9th May 2005
