Jonny Harrison is sailing to Australia from the UK via the Panama Canal before he starts work in Sydney on a secondment at his firm PricewaterhouseCoopers »
Andrew Hebden is Assistant Editor (Business) of The Journal »
Katie Pringle has started her own business, Rock, Paper, Scissors »
Andrew Mernin is the Digital Journalist for nebusiness »
Matthew Rippon is an IP lawyer for BHP Law »
Formerly editor of a national business lifestyle magazine, Jez Davison is a business writer for the Evening Gazette in Teesside »
Ross Smith, Head of Policy and Research at the North-East Chamber of Commerce »
Julian Christopher from Footprint Public Relations, on media and marketing »
Norma Foster from the North East Regional Portal writes about e-business »
Ian Brown, Northumberland farmer and businessman writes about the agricultural industry »
Accessibilty Champion Steve Wilkinson on the importance of inclusion »
Andrea Wilkinson of Shared Interest is visiting Rwanda to deliver business training »
Jonathan Wheatley from Stokesley-based MC Ware writes about IT matters »
Paul Williamson from Deloitte »I'm lucky that Alnwick Gardens is literally 5 minutes away. This week the CRC Commission for Rural Communities) had an event to look at how we improve democracy!!
In rural areas it is very difficult to reach a polling station and yet turnout tends to be high, so having been an elected councillor at County Council level I know how the farming and landowning community lack the 'hand on the tiller' they once had. Lets work out how honest rural people can penetrate the unfathomable world of democratic structures...especially as we enter new unitary structures in 2009.
When I stepped down from local politics I became a mentor to other councillors as well as sitting on the Northumberland Democracy Commission I was shocked but not surprised by the lack of interest by most people in the structures that ran many aspects of their lives. A shift from citizenship to consumerism could be seen in all sections and parts of northumberland society.
This topic is so important and we must crack in the next twelve months. We must get the balance between localism and parocialism; the price for not engaging in this will be high if we fail. We live in an evidence based/treasury led and somewhat urban skewed public sector world but lets accept that and play by the rules in place to win our arguments.
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