Christmas In The Good Old Days
ChatterBank2 mins ago
The Times And The Nasty Paywall
Hello
I need to get a copy of an article in the Times that is hidden behind a paywall. Does anyone subscribe to this newspaper? Are you able to C&P this article for me? Is there another way of gaining access to the articles?
Thank you for any help that you can give.
https:/
I need to get a copy of an article in the Times that is hidden behind a paywall. Does anyone subscribe to this newspaper? Are you able to C&P this article for me? Is there another way of gaining access to the articles?
Thank you for any help that you can give.
https:/
Answers
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Can't help with the Times Wolf, but there's an article here too.
https:/
https:/
take out a free subscription? (Don't forget to cancel)
Can you get to your local library and read Saturday's Times there?
Welsh (but English-language) report here
https:/
Can you get to your local library and read Saturday's Times there?
Welsh (but English-language) report here
https:/
oh dear - you are a few says late
yes I get the Taymz
yes I scan various articles because like you - they disappear on its entirety
In case anyone is interested - I mean all sides should have behaved better
1. Hay on wye vols at OXfam speak Welsh
2. punter came in heard jibber jabber
3. said - rudely - speak ENglish will you
4. something happened
5. welsh speaker who was sworn at gets laid off - are they employed or are they volunteers ?
6 the others come out for him
7.Doors locked and llocks changed
8. Oxfam is owned by XYZ who say chrissakes we are here to sell
9 which is kinda odd as they have locked the staff out
Plus cute photo of phalanx of workers jaws jutting oustide
no pasaran written all over their faces but in WELSH !
and the reader thinks:
god this could really have been handled much better by a bilingual 12 y old ....or my cat
or the dog next door
yes I get the Taymz
yes I scan various articles because like you - they disappear on its entirety
In case anyone is interested - I mean all sides should have behaved better
1. Hay on wye vols at OXfam speak Welsh
2. punter came in heard jibber jabber
3. said - rudely - speak ENglish will you
4. something happened
5. welsh speaker who was sworn at gets laid off - are they employed or are they volunteers ?
6 the others come out for him
7.Doors locked and llocks changed
8. Oxfam is owned by XYZ who say chrissakes we are here to sell
9 which is kinda odd as they have locked the staff out
Plus cute photo of phalanx of workers jaws jutting oustide
no pasaran written all over their faces but in WELSH !
and the reader thinks:
god this could really have been handled much better by a bilingual 12 y old ....or my cat
or the dog next door
The volunteers who staffed the Oxfam shop in Hay on Wye were a close-knit bunch who put the skills they acquired in business, engineering and local politics to good use serving their community and the charity they believed in.
Some had worked in the shop for more than 30 years and were passionate about running it for the benefit of poorer people in their rural community as well as Oxfam’s fundraising efforts.
All that changed overnight in March 2019 when a tweet from an angry customer escalated into an acrimonious dispute and ended with Oxfam effectively sacking four volunteers while the others walked away in dismay, disgust and protest.
The volunteers accused Oxfam of bullying and intimidation; the charity’s senior management countered with claims that locals used threatening language and were unco-operative.
The tweet that lit the fuse for this unlikely conflict alleged that “the man behind the till” in the Oxfam shop had told a Welsh-speaking woman to “get out of the shop and stop speaking that bloody foreign language”.
Without investigating, Oxfam — then facing a statutory inquiry into the sexual misconduct scandal in Haiti — immediately suspended Vaughan Evans, a part-time manager, closed the shop, apologised for the alleged remark and declared: “This does not reflect Oxfam’s values.”
Evans strongly denied making the comments but was subjected to an investigation and disciplinary hearing, which later concluded that the alleged anti-Welsh conduct could not be substantiated. To the anger of volunteers, however, he was not reinstated and they were not allowed to step in and run the shop.
Instead the charity changed the locks and the shop, which cost £12,000 a year to rent and which had been making an annual profit of £40,000, remained closed.
The events in Hay are a far cry from the scandal in Haiti that rocked Oxfam to its core in 2018 but the case again raises the question of whether big charities are in touch with what happens at grassroots level.
The stand-off in the Welsh border town rumbled on interminably. The volunteers, who wanted to reinstate their manager and return to business as normal, had strong support and senior figures from the famous Hay book festival intervened, prompting Danny Sriskandarajah, Oxfam’s chief executive, to travel to Hay.
Sriskandrajah, 45, was warmly received and apologised for the “pain and hurt” the closure of the shop had caused the volunteers. He admitted that the suspension of the manager “should have been handled better”.
His visit did not, however, produce a solution. The volunteers were ordered to undertake training courses before they could return to the shop and Oxfam hired a mediation firm to conduct a conflict resolution process.
Juliet Lewis, 66, a volunteer for 15 years, recalled how she and her friends had to watch a video of cartoon bears hugging, which was supposed to instruct them in how to show empathy.
“I think I blotted it out,” said Lewis. “I’m pretty sure I had my head in my hands at that point.”
It was also suggested that although Hay was not a Welsh-speaking area, shop staff should greet all customers in Welsh.
Lewis was told to change the name of her “oxfambookshay” Instagram account and delete “all posts detrimental to Oxfam”. Those posts included criticism of Oxfam’s heavy use of plastic packaging and one featuring an illustration from a book (for sale in the shop) by Professor Dame Mary Beard, portraying an ancient Greek figure balancing a wine goblet on his erect penis.
In February 2020, as the shop prepared to reopen under a new manager, dozens of sacks of items donated by the public were thrown out. Volunteers had been promised, in the conflict resolution agreement, extensive consultation on how the shop would be laid out and run. Instead, they were told that the shop “must conform to a set plan-o-gram”.
Continued..
Continued.
Lewis and a friend protested against that and against being asked to sign up to Oxfam policies, which they say they had never been shown. Oxfam said that it had no choice but to withdraw their “invitation to volunteer”.
The final straw for the rebels came last month with the dismissals of Susan and Paul Baker, a retired couple who had volunteered for Oxfam for 30 years, after Sriskandarajah rejected their personal appeal to resolve outstanding issues.
The chief executive told them that he could not see “any alternative but to withdraw the offer to volunteer”. When the Bakers appealed, Lorna Fallon, the charity’s retail director, told them that their relationship with Oxfam had “broken down irretrievably”. She added: “I uphold Danny’s previous decision to withdraw your volunteering roles. This decision is final.”
Lewis said that the treatment of the Bakers shocked everyone: “They were the two most faithful volunteers — they would have done anything for Oxfam. They would open the shop on their own on every bank holiday. They knew how everything worked. They are very keen gardeners and every year held a plant sale which raised hundreds of pounds for Oxfam. They have been very upset at the way they were treated.”
The volunteers argue that their way of doing things — concentrating on the sale of donated items and secondhand books — did not fit with Oxfam’s retail strategy of marketing its “Sourced by Oxfam” range of ethically produced gifts and homeware.
Aileen Dixon, 83, a volunteer since the 1980s, said that the community of volunteers had provided a “second home” for her. “We had such a good business. The community valued it and every donation was treated with respect,” she said. “We worked really hard all those years and we didn’t understand why Oxfam treated us badly, extremely badly. I was always very committed to working for Oxfam, I was proud of it. This was all such a shock.”
Dixon is so disillusioned that she has stopped her monthly donation to Oxfam and now contributes to Christian Aid.
Anger also lingers that Oxfam has not publicly cleared up the matter of the original allegation of racism and discrimination against a Welsh speaker.
Lewis said: “As far as the world is concerned, we’re all still racists and that rankles — they didn’t stand up for us, they didn’t have our backs. It’s the unfairness that makes it all so much harder to come to terms with.”
Oxfam said: “We can confirm that we reluctantly took the decision to withdraw the right to volunteer from four people from the Hay-on-Wye shop. We were disappointed that, despite extensive efforts by both Oxfam and the volunteers, including undertaking mediation, it has proved impossible to resolve the situation in any other way. The four volunteers felt that they were unable to accept the ways of working which are standard across our shop network or commit to fully uphold our values.
“The shop reopened this year following lockdown, bringing in some new volunteers to work with the remaining dedicated and committed team.
“We acted swiftly to investigate allegations that a member of staff at the Hay-on-Wye shop had made unacceptable comments. Given the serious nature of the alleged comment we believed the right thing to do was to apologise immediately to anyone who may have been offended, pending a further investigation.”
Copied and pasted directly from The Times but spaces reduced to fit two posts on site.
Lewis and a friend protested against that and against being asked to sign up to Oxfam policies, which they say they had never been shown. Oxfam said that it had no choice but to withdraw their “invitation to volunteer”.
The final straw for the rebels came last month with the dismissals of Susan and Paul Baker, a retired couple who had volunteered for Oxfam for 30 years, after Sriskandarajah rejected their personal appeal to resolve outstanding issues.
The chief executive told them that he could not see “any alternative but to withdraw the offer to volunteer”. When the Bakers appealed, Lorna Fallon, the charity’s retail director, told them that their relationship with Oxfam had “broken down irretrievably”. She added: “I uphold Danny’s previous decision to withdraw your volunteering roles. This decision is final.”
Lewis said that the treatment of the Bakers shocked everyone: “They were the two most faithful volunteers — they would have done anything for Oxfam. They would open the shop on their own on every bank holiday. They knew how everything worked. They are very keen gardeners and every year held a plant sale which raised hundreds of pounds for Oxfam. They have been very upset at the way they were treated.”
The volunteers argue that their way of doing things — concentrating on the sale of donated items and secondhand books — did not fit with Oxfam’s retail strategy of marketing its “Sourced by Oxfam” range of ethically produced gifts and homeware.
Aileen Dixon, 83, a volunteer since the 1980s, said that the community of volunteers had provided a “second home” for her. “We had such a good business. The community valued it and every donation was treated with respect,” she said. “We worked really hard all those years and we didn’t understand why Oxfam treated us badly, extremely badly. I was always very committed to working for Oxfam, I was proud of it. This was all such a shock.”
Dixon is so disillusioned that she has stopped her monthly donation to Oxfam and now contributes to Christian Aid.
Anger also lingers that Oxfam has not publicly cleared up the matter of the original allegation of racism and discrimination against a Welsh speaker.
Lewis said: “As far as the world is concerned, we’re all still racists and that rankles — they didn’t stand up for us, they didn’t have our backs. It’s the unfairness that makes it all so much harder to come to terms with.”
Oxfam said: “We can confirm that we reluctantly took the decision to withdraw the right to volunteer from four people from the Hay-on-Wye shop. We were disappointed that, despite extensive efforts by both Oxfam and the volunteers, including undertaking mediation, it has proved impossible to resolve the situation in any other way. The four volunteers felt that they were unable to accept the ways of working which are standard across our shop network or commit to fully uphold our values.
“The shop reopened this year following lockdown, bringing in some new volunteers to work with the remaining dedicated and committed team.
“We acted swiftly to investigate allegations that a member of staff at the Hay-on-Wye shop had made unacceptable comments. Given the serious nature of the alleged comment we believed the right thing to do was to apologise immediately to anyone who may have been offended, pending a further investigation.”
Copied and pasted directly from The Times but spaces reduced to fit two posts on site.
Togo, thank you very much for your posts.
Our shop is a book and music shop and our manager is lovely, but we are lucky in that respect.
The whole story is a bit like a fight in a playground that got out of control.
In 2009 someone stole a customer's bag containing half a million pounds worth of jewellery when victim was browsing in our shop - that is our claim to fame.
Our shop is a book and music shop and our manager is lovely, but we are lucky in that respect.
The whole story is a bit like a fight in a playground that got out of control.
In 2009 someone stole a customer's bag containing half a million pounds worth of jewellery when victim was browsing in our shop - that is our claim to fame.
// Oxfam said: “We can confirm that we reluctantly took the decision to withdraw the right to volunteer from four people from the Hay-on-Wye shop//
no they still have a right to volunteer
Ocfam just said no thanks
I sort of lost concentration at that point. along with if you allow staff to plan what they want ( ie no central plan-o-gram by skool leavers in central office) then productiviy goes up
hence my view that this cd have been muuch better handled
but - - presumably - - head office said - we just dont need them so we can screw them
no they still have a right to volunteer
Ocfam just said no thanks
I sort of lost concentration at that point. along with if you allow staff to plan what they want ( ie no central plan-o-gram by skool leavers in central office) then productiviy goes up
hence my view that this cd have been muuch better handled
but - - presumably - - head office said - we just dont need them so we can screw them
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