Still no letters (apart from this one)
Sir, I refer to the letter in your April 2024 issue from my old (in all senses of the word) friend John Bacon. I do share his sadness at the paucity of letters to the editor and have had similar thoughts myself for some time. I have in fact published two such letters in the relatively recent past, neither of which prompted any sort of response from other members. I shall comment on John’s three points in the order that he has raised them:
- First, I have no idea why members don’t seem to write these days. For the whole fifty years that I have been a member, I have always had the urge to write with comments on at least one, and often several, of the items in every issue. Because of my other CICES activities during that time, perhaps too few of those urges have materialised into correspondence.
- Second, I agree that the variety and content of CES continues to be to a very high standard. Far higher, for example, than the journal of a certain other institution which often reads like the programme for the BAFTA Awards or the Oscars. I actually understand less and less of the content of CES as the years go by, not just the geospatial stuff but also the commercial stuff. It’s not that it goes over my head (although I stand a few inches shorter than Mr Bacon) it’s more that it finds its way around the sides of me despite the fact that those sides are several inches further away from each other than they once were.
- Third, I too was a member of the Publicity and Publications Committee back in the day and I beg to suggest a few reasons why we didn’t sponsor a girls’ football team. (a) we didn’t think of it. (b) we didn’t sponsor a boys’ football team either. (c) it was the 1980s and Lionesses were very much a thing of the future. (d) I doubt if we had enough female members to make up a football team in those days, never mind scrape the money together to pay for an external one.
Graham Woodall FCInstCES, Past President