Two-time Paralympic champion Danielle Brown won her first able-bodied British title with victory at the Archery GB National Series finals in Nottingham.
The 25-year-old London 2012 gold medallist beat Lucy O’Sullivan 142-141 in a tense compound final.
“It’s a pretty phenomenal standard and the fact I’m up there with these archers is a great confidence boost,” Brown told BBC Sport. More …http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/archery/23922642
This month see’s the launch of the university’s LGBT network and with this in mind we have chosen Clare Balding as our Inspirational Diversity Champion of the Month.
Clare is a television presenter and journalist who from 1988 to 1993, was a leading amateur flat jockey and Champion Lady Rider in 1990 and was one of the first women elected to membership of the Jockey Club. In December 1997 she became the BBC’s lead horse racing presenter and now fronts the horse racing for Channel 4.
She has reported from five Olympic Games, Sydney, Athens, Beijing and London. She has presented two Paralympic Games, the Winter Olympics from Turin and Vancouver as well as the Commonwealth Games from Melbourne and Delhi, and is the face of the BBC’s rugby league coverage.
In October 2012, she appeared before an All Party Parliamentary Group on Women’s Sport, with Katherine Grainger, Hope Powell and Tanni Grey-Thompson. “Women having freedom to play sport leads directly to women having political freedom,” said Balding.
In 2013 Clare was awarded an OBE for services to broadcasting and journalism.
She has written regular columns for The Observer, the Evening Standard and The Sporting Life. Her autobiography entitled My Animals and Other Family, published on September 2012 won the ‘Biography\Autobiography of the Year’ Award at the National Book Awards.
In February 2013 she was assessed as being one of the 100 most powerful women in the UK by Woman’s Hour on BBC Radio 4 and also won the award for Sports Presenter at the Television and Radio Industries Club Awards
She formalised her relationship with the BBC Radio 4 continuity announcer and newsreader Alice Arnold in September 2006 by entering into a civil partnership. In July 2010, she made a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission over an article by writer A. A Gill in The Sunday Times that she felt had mocked her sexuality and appearance and for which the newspaper refused to apologise. The PCC found in her favour, judging that A. A Gill had “refer[red] to the complainant’s sexuality in a demeaning and gratuitous way”.
As part of the Fifth Edition of the Caravan Festival for Visual Arts that took place earlier this year, 25 works by various inter-generational artists in London will be exhibited in a London cathedral between 30 August and 20 September.
One of London’s oldest and most iconic cathedrals, Saint Paul, will exhibit a selection of 25 of the Caravan Festival’s donkeys out of the original 90 that were displayed in Cairo in May.
The donkeys are meant to symbolise peace and love and promote a culture of dialogue against violence and sectarianism. The project is supported by the Swiss Embassy in Cairo and the British Council. More …http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/5/25/79358/Arts–Culture/Visual-Art/St-Pauls-Cathedral-in-London-to-host-peaceful-donk.aspx
One year on from the Paralympics, the event’s legacy “hangs in the balance” as attitudes towards disabled people fail to improve, charities have warned.
Disability charity Scope called the Games’ success a “breakthrough moment”.
But 81% of disabled people questioned in a new poll say attitudes have not improved. More … http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23860821
To mark the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech, BBC Radio 4 asked notable figures to record a recital of the celebrated text.
Click on the link below, listen to it in full and see striking images from a period of American history which became a tipping point for social change.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23853578
DIANE ABBOTT – MOTHER AND POLITICIAN
World Breastfeeding Week takes place between 1 – 7 August and as such, we have chosen someone who has combined their role as a mother with a successful working life as our Diversity Champion for August.
Diane Abbott is a mother and politician. She has been the MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington since 1987, when she was elected to the House of Commons and became part of the first Black and Asian intake in Parliament for almost 100 years. She was the first black woman to be elected to the House of Commons. In 2010, she became Shadow Public Health Minister after unsuccessfully standing for election as leader of the Labour Party.
She has a record of differing from some party policies; voting against the Iraq War, opposing ID cards and campaigning against the renewal of Britain’s Trident nuclear weapons. She has been seen as a “maverick, a free-thinker, willing to rebel against the party machine”.
More … http://www.gre.ac.uk/offices/hr/ere/e-and-d/our-inspirational-diversity-champion-of-the-month
Improvements to disabled facilities at Charlton Athletic’s stadium are among the ideas pitched to the club by students from the University of Greenwich.
The students, who have all just graduated from the university’s School of Architecture & Construction, met with representatives from the Championship club and its Community Trust to discuss their ideas to improve The Valley’s away section in the South Stand.
Christine Gausden, Senior Lecturer at the university, says: “The students were set a brief which required them to come up with proposals to improve the seating arrangements for disabled supporters in the south stand at The Valley. They were also asked for ways to maximise the benefit on non match days from the strip of land in Valley Grove, which is currently leased by the club from the Thames Water Authority, for use as a match day car park. More … http://www2.gre.ac.uk/about/news/articles/2013/a2700-greenwich-students-offer-big-plans-to-charlton
Russia’s lower house of parliament, the Duma, has passed a law imposing heavy fines for providing information about homosexuality to people under 18.
The measure was passed unanimously and will become law when approved by the upper house and President Vladimir Putin, a virtual formality.
Gay rights campaigners clashed with anti-gay activists outside the Duma. More …http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22862210
The annual BME into Leadership conference examines how BME leaders, at whatever grade, can utilise their strengths and become the leader they aspire to be.
This conference involves hands-on advice and coaching, featuring contributions by inspirational speakers from all levels of the civil service and beyond. The event will also provide an opportunity to network with colleagues and counterparts across Government, many of whom are working to tackle the challenges facing BME Public Servants and looking for opportunities to further their own careers in the public sector.
Attending this conference allows delegates to:
To book and for more information see: http://www.bmeintoleadership.co.uk/about-the-event
Pope Francis comments on homosexualityPope Francis responded to questions about a “gay lobby” in the Vatican by saying “gay people should not be marginalised” and that he was in no position to judge any gay people seeking God.
His comments are being examined to see if they might signal any shift in the Vatican’s stand on homosexuality
His comments are being examined to see if they might signal any shift in the Vatican’s stand on homosexuality. More … http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23489702