Wear orange for the homeless (From Watford Observer)
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Wear orange wristband for Homelessness Day
12:19pm Thursday 29th January 2009 in News By Sean Marland
Staff at Marks & Spencer in Watford will wear orange wristbands to mark the start of Homelessness Week on Sunday.
Staff at Marks & Spencers will be doing their bit for the homeless by wearing orange wristbands this Sunday.
Workers at the store in the Harlequin centre are joining forces with the Watford New Hope Trust, to raise public awareness of the growing number of people sleeping rough in the area.
Sunday will see the start of Poverty and Homelessness Action Week, with people being encouraged to wear bright wristbands, which read Hope for the Homeless.
Fundraiser Nathan Ray said: “Being homeless is a big deal at this time of year, and we’re delighted that M&S have chosen to support us so visually for this national day.”
Watford New Hope Trust runs 11 projects across Watford, including the Haven Day Centre with its grass roof, and the largest charity shop in Hertfordshire on Queens Road.
In total, the charity provides accommodation for 49 homeless people every night.
After taking part in the first ever Poverty and Homelessness Action Week last year, charity organisers are delighted to secure a partnership with Marks & Spencers for 2009.
There are a range of events taking place across the country, including sleepouts and concerts.
Nathan added: “Poverty and homelessness isn’t just a problem affecting the poorer countries of the world. The current economic climate brings the whole issue right to our doorstep.”
Comments(14)
Roy Stockdill
says...
3:39pm Thu 29 Jan 09
It is simply yet more politically correct posturing and will do absolutely nothing whatsoever to help the homeless. If M&S really want to help the homeless, then why don't they open a section of their store for them at night when it's closed, let them lay out their sleeping bags and give them a bag of goodies from the food department.
EVERY week now there seems to be "awareness" of something or other, awareness-of-this and awareness-of-that. What will it be next week, I wonder? Can the organisers of these things really not see that people are so sick and tired of being constantly bombarded with PC propaganda that the vast majority of us totally ignore these "awareness" weeks and similar events? The sheer numbers of them now defeats the whole object.
Mike Ribble
says...
4:41pm Thu 29 Jan 09
We can expect that as such events become more commonplace that interest will wane and organisers will wrack their brains to come up with new ideas to capture the public's interest.
It's regretable that all this so irritates those who yearn for a return to the 1950s but things move on.
Roy Stockdill
says...
5:15pm Thu 29 Jan 09
We live in a society that wallows in an unhealthy obsession with publicly demonstrating emotion, especially grief for those we never knew, hence the regrettable trend for turning the site of every road accident, every murder, into a flower-bedecked shrine to the victim. Young people who think it trendy and "caring" to wear wrist bands for some cause or other should talk to their grandparents about what it was like to lose a son or be bombed out of their homes in the war...real tragedies, not the phoney ones we wallow in today!
Paradise Watford
says...
9:20am Fri 30 Jan 09
There is also nothing wrong with supporting and trying to highlight a particular issue by wearing these wristbands and they are proven to work both as a way to generate funds and a way to raise the profile of a particular cause.
Oh, and someone being murdered or killed in an accident isn't a real tragedy? I'm sure the family and friends of those killed would be happy to know that..... You probably think that the deaths in WW2 were only a tragedy if those killed were on the allied side too don't you? As a former fleet street employee you'd think that you would put a bit more thought into what you write. But then as you proved on another posting you look down your nose on the rest of us minions don't you, no wonder you're so out of touch and uncaring.
Roy Stockdill
says...
12:16pm Fri 30 Jan 09
And then we had the images of an alcoholic footballer, Paul Gascoigne, blubbing his eyes out on television because England lost a World Cup match! And Michael Vaughan, England's then cricket captain, deserting his team-mates in India to rush off home to be with his wife when she was doing something perfectly normal like having a baby. I cannot imagine what real men like Stanley Matthews and Fiery Fred Trueman would have made of it all!
I sometimes wonder whether we could ever again face a war at home against a foreign invader, as we stood up to Adolf Hitler. We have lost the backbone for it.
Mr.T
says...
12:52pm Fri 30 Jan 09
Roy Stockdill wrote:Its no good harking back to the "good old days". Times, unlike you, move on. Your endless whinging isn't going to change one little thing so perhaps its time to wise up and deal with it.
There is nothing wrong with grieving for someone with whom you were personally involved. What I totally fail to understand is the vicarious public grief exhibited for someone like Princess Diana, whom the vast majority of people never even knew. I found the scenes of people crying in the street and hurling flowers from motorway bridges onto her funeral cortege quite beyond belief. That was when the rot really set it. How undignified when compared with the funeral of someone like Winston Churchill, a far, far greater person whose death was received with dignity and solemnity. THAT is the British way of coping with death, or used to be before all this touchy-feely nonsense was introduced by the younger generation. I didn't shed a tear when I lost either of my parents - I coped with it, as people always used to. And then we had the images of an alcoholic footballer, Paul Gascoigne, blubbing his eyes out on television because England lost a World Cup match! And Michael Vaughan, England's then cricket captain, deserting his team-mates in India to rush off home to be with his wife when she was doing something perfectly normal like having a baby. I cannot imagine what real men like Stanley Matthews and Fiery Fred Trueman would have made of it all! I sometimes wonder whether we could ever again face a war at home against a foreign invader, as we stood up to Adolf Hitler. We have lost the backbone for it.
Paradise Watford
says...
1:53pm Fri 30 Jan 09
As to 'real' men not deserting their team, their mates, and therefore missing the birth of their children.... come on Roy, are you really that backwards? Far from being manly it shows a complete lack of care, emotional ability and an unwillingness to take responsibility for one of the most important events in anyones lives - bringing new life into the world.
No wonder so many of the last couple of generations lived with parents, especially fathers, who were unable to express their love for their own children but would instead drown their sorrows in a pint down the pub. That is very 1950's Roy and I really can't believe what you wrote!
SleepyStanley
says...
8:01pm Fri 30 Jan 09
Paradise Watford wrote:Unfortunately i can believe it i wonder what the weather is like on Roy's planet
I agree with you on the Princess Diana matter, oh my goodness will that never go away? As to 'real' men not deserting their team, their mates, and therefore missing the birth of their children.... come on Roy, are you really that backwards? Far from being manly it shows a complete lack of care, emotional ability and an unwillingness to take responsibility for one of the most important events in anyones lives - bringing new life into the world. No wonder so many of the last couple of generations lived with parents, especially fathers, who were unable to express their love for their own children but would instead drown their sorrows in a pint down the pub. That is very 1950's Roy and I really can't believe what you wrote!
gangerman
says...
8:13pm Fri 30 Jan 09
says it all really.
Roy Stockdill
says...
10:34am Sat 31 Jan 09
I live on the same planet as millions of people occupied by my generation. A world where people had backbone, courage, discipline, stern but fair attitudes to disciplining children, a moral code that put the family - not the state - at the heart of community life and an educational system that produced school-leavers who could actually write and speak decent English. A world in which bereaved people accepted the death of a loved one with simple and private dignity and coped with it, instead of turning it into a parade of vicarious public emotion. I can still remember as a child how folks reacted when King George VI and Winston Churchill died. Their funerals were affairs of enormous dignity and respect - not the hysterical weeping and wailing from people who never knew her that greeted the demise of a half-witted flibbertigibbet like Diana, who will be no more than a tiny footnote in the history books in 50 years' time.
Today's generation, with their fluffy-bunny, touchy-feely reactions to any crisis and situation, are simply wimps and weaklings. In pretending to show concern for someone they never knew, they are really attention-seeking inadequates saying "Look at me! Aren't I a caring person? Don't I deserve a reward?" It reeks of phoney emotion, not genuine caring, which is why we are awash in bogus therapists and other charlatans cashing in on the weaknesses of simpletons.
Paradise Watford
says...
9:29am Mon 2 Feb 09
However the majority of people in this country are not the gullible saddo's that you think they are. The majority of people still have the qualities you've mentioned (backbone, courage, moral, discipline etc.)but what they have realised (and you obviously have not) is that you can have those qualities and be able to show emotions too.
I do agree with you re Diana however again I would highlight that the whole 'show' has been pushed along by the press you worked for
Fagan O'Toole
says...
3:23pm Tue 3 Feb 09
Why not DRESS the homeless in bright orange boiler suits instead?
That way, we would be able to identify who NOT to sell alcohol to,Who to buy drugs from and we could train our dogs to attack them when they steal from us or try and break into our homes and cars!
Paradise Watford
says...
3:45pm Tue 3 Feb 09
Fagan O'Toole
says...
8:24pm Wed 4 Feb 09
I never knew you cared!
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