Message to Staff – 26th June 2024 

The wow factor

General election

Congratulations to June Murray MBE

 

Dear Colleague

 

The wow factor

Last weekend was Portland at its finest. I wanted to put on record my massive appreciation and respect for the significant effort involved in shutting down the campus completely, moving 50 residents to weekend activities and getting everything back up and running seamlessly in time for Monday morning.

We have doubled our electric supply capacity and what is even better we will never have to do that again – though in the future we may be seeking to increase our electric supply capacity again as we move away from gas to electrical heating.

Many teams were involved and went the extra mile with detailed advance planning, working across the weekend, staying away from home and then putting it all back together for Monday morning. This was a huge logistical exercise.

Special mentions for Nathan Rawlings our Estates Manager and Trevor Edwards our IT Manager for their meticulous advance planning and hard work over the weekend with their teams to get everything shut down safely and then rebooted and tested. Huge appreciation too for the entire care team for decamping all residents, supporting them through a great weekend away and getting them all back and settled in time for Monday.

Dawn Green and the other Governors have asked me to convey their thanks and admiration too.

 

General Election

I guess it won’t have escaped your notice there is a general election a week on Thursday. For many of the young people we work with this will be the first time they can vote in a general election and I encourage you to actively support them to think about voting and consider the issues that are important for them.

I would say the same for all staff too. I know a lot of people feel very disconnected from national politics and voting democracies have plenty of issues to tackle – they are not perfect. But I would rather have our system than some of the alternatives around the world. It is less than 100 years since women fought and won the right for equal votes with men in this country – please make sure we protect those hard won rights by using them.

It is important in encouraging those conversations to avoid our own political preferences – this is about the importance of voting not who we should vote for. 

 

Congratulations to June Murray MBE

I would like to say many congratulations to June Murray who retired a couple of years ago as Principal of Sense College Loughborough and has been recognised in the recent King’s Birthday Honours for her lifetime of service to specialist education.

As soon as June retired we snapped her up for Portland’s Governing Body where she is an active trustee overseeing the quality of our education and care services.

 

Finally I hope you manage to stay reasonably cool in this hot weather.

Best wishes
Mark