G20 magic: Norma Garcia of Consumers Union campaigns with CI London

Norma Garcia (Consumers Union of US Inc) reveals what it feels like to achieve success as part of the G20 Campaign for fair financial services.



Norma Garcia, second from left, in London with CI staff and members



After working on financial services issues for Consumers Union for over 18 years, I was delighted to accept the special assignment of a lifetime to join CI’s team in London to lend a hand to the G20 Campaign on Financial Services. With passport in hand and an open mind, I traveled from San Francisco to London for the first time ever. When I arrived in Paddington Station from Heathrow Airport, I was struck by the incredibly familiar Gothic architecture of the station which made me believe that this was the place from which Harry Potter and friends departed to the legendary Hogwarts. I searched in vain for the sign that read, 'Platform 9- ¾', looking for that gateway to the magical. Though it was nowhere to be found, I do believe the experience I had at CI in London was charmed nonetheless.

First, the staff at CI London was very warm and welcoming and the Campaign team is second to none. Added to this, the CI members were very excited about the campaign and were ready to use their energy to get the G20 to incorporate consumers into their agenda. In some ways, it was incomprehensible that the G20 had not already done this, yet this void created a huge opportunity for CI members to lobby the G20 on this very important issue.

Reaching out to CI members around the globe on multiple time zones was exciting and a bit surreal. From my communications with CI members involved in the Campaign, it was both exciting and impressive to see them fully engaged in their activities to promote the Campaign. It was also very clear that this process was ongoing -24/7 - around the globe, and that the momentum being created was unstoppable.

And then, after several weeks of heavy campaigning, there was the result. I remember walking into the CI building that Friday morning, when Joost (Director General at CI) approached me with a big smile saying, 'Did you hear the news? We got it! The G20 Communiqué includes much of our ask!' Of course, there is nothing better than spreading good news so we got right on it and started sending out communiqués to the members and the media regarding the great results.

Now, back at my office in San Francisco, I remember this experience with great fondness. Although 'Platform 9 ¾' was nowhere in sight during my four weeks in London, I feel like I found a perfect '10' in all respects. The people, the work, the results, none of it could have been better.

Looking ahead, as CI members, there is much work to do in the next few months and beyond to keep the momentum going towards an ultimate success. I look forward to continuing our work together and for now, with much gratitude for this chance to work with you, I say thank you, obrigado, terima kasih, gracias, danke, merci, dziękuję and arigato!

CI London Office makeover #3

Kate Scott, Office Manager at CI, shows things falling into place with the London Office refurbishment.

Good news from Highbury! Over the past month Chestnut Ltd and their various contractors have been beavering away through the snow and freezing weather, and we finally have some signs of a beautiful property rising, phoenix style, from tired and battered ashes.

There's lots to report on but most importantly the new heating system is in... and working wonderfully! We have new plastic pipes throughout the building and energy efficient, compact, radiators in place of our old worn-out ones. Each sink has it's own water heater so we don't waste energy on keeping water hot when we don't need it and as you can see from the pictures, our shiny new boiler (below - click for full size) is so compact that we now have loads of space in the boiler room; although I've no idea what we can safely use that for... any ideas?

Chestnut's carpenters have been working hard on making all the windows and doors fit properly, so minimising drafts. This means removing each window frame or door, repairing or replacing wood - and sometimes the glass when the old stuff has cracked - and replacing all door handles and window catches with matching shiny brass.

The office refurbishment working group has also been in action during these past few weeks with a variety of 'final' decisions being demanded by the contractors and so we now have paint going on the walls; a fresh and clean hint of green for the walls throughout with the exception of the boardroom which has a deeper more mature shade of green. All this will be offset by dark chocolate-coloured carpet tile-flooring.

Electricians have also been on site at the same time, upgrading all the lighting to meet with office health-and-safety standards. Also upgrading the fire-alarm system to include smoke detectors, another new H&S requirement. In the pictures you will also see a green stripe (left) around some of the walls, this is a film covering up the electrical ducts where power points and data cables will be. In some cases, where desks cannot butt up against a wall, the power ducts have been attached to the floor to run under desks. Thanks to the working group we also have a new range of lights specifically chosen to enhance the style of the boardroom and main entrance hall.

We now have a brand new 'tea point' (right) upstairs on the second floor thanks to a redesign of the WC's giving us more space in that area and no more drafts up there either as the badly designed open metal grate in the windows has now been reglazed with solid glass. All the WC's have been fitted out with upgraded porcelain sinks and loos.

The plans for the kitchen are coming along well too, although we are still waiting for listed-buildings permission to take down the wall there. We now have a brand new kitchen fitted into the old storage space, which gives us much more work surface, storage and a more comfortable space for tables and seating in the main area. Unfortunately the listings permission may take a few more weeks so we will probably have to put up with that wall for a while once we move in - but don't worry, it will all be fully functional so we can go back to group lunches in the kitchen, we'll just have a scruffy floor to start with.

And to finish this report... I've included a mystery picture (left) showing a little piece of the building's history - something that's been lingering under the floorboards since the building's more elegant Edwardian days when there was an 'upstairs' and a 'downstairs' layout... can you guess what it is? Leave your guess or ideas for the boiler room in the comments.

CI London Office makeover #2

Kate Scott, Office Manager at CI, makes progress with the London Office refurbishment.



An update at last...to start the New Year off I met with our surveyor and all the varous contractors at Highbury on 7 January amidst the snow and ice (look at the pretty pictures of Highbury Fields in the snow). London Transport may have given up working but all the contractors made a special effort to be there so that we could finalise our plans for all the services and improvements and get everyone working hard.

I'm now visiting Highbury every week and am pleased to report that work is now progressing really well at Highbury. Although the building still looks a terrrible wreck it's absolutely buzzing with activity now. Full of workmen carrying materials for the new heating system, the new electrical wiring and PC cabling and lot's of noise from drills, saws and hammers!

Behind the scenes I've been working with Epic IT to get our new communications sorted out with BT, so we have now ordered a new ISDN line for our phone system plus 30 direct dial numbers and two broadband lines, that will be bonded together to give us greater bandwidth quality.

The working group is also working on paint and carpet colours and some 'special' lighting for the ground floor boardroom, more on that when it's all finalised, not forgetting the important task of choosing a design style for the WC's!

One of the next urgent tasks is to finalise the fire-alarm system, which has to be upgraded to include smoke detectors. And the repairing of the intruder alarm, as the wires were cut when the workmen stripped out all the old wiring. This has to be completed in the next week whilst the floor boards are still up so best I get onto it quick...

CI London Office makeover

Kate Scott, Office Manager at CI, blogs about the frustrating first steps in the London Office’s refurb.

After a whirlwind three weeks of sourcing boxes, crates, movers, temporary offices and a new phone system – just a few of things that had to be done to get us out of Highbury Crescent – we finally moved into our temporary offices on Friday 23 October. And I think we're just about settled now.

We now move on to the refurbishment of our much-neglected old building, which will be a complete 'head to toe, inside & out' makeover. As soon as we left the building our contractors, Chestnut Ltd, were straight on site putting up scaffolding and stripping out anything and everything that isn't a solid part of the building...including cutting through the alarm wires and setting it off! So I had to make an emergency dash over there last week to get the alarm turned off!

The inside of the building is now looking very naked and sad and the outside is unrecognisable as it's covered in scaffolding and blue tarpaulin.

The challenge right now is to work with the contractors and surveyor to make sure that we can get as many of the requested improvements as possible included in these building works.

Frustratingly it has taken over three weeks to get together all the final costs for me to present them to Sam and Joost for authorisation and many items are coming in at higher costs than expected.

This delay is now in danger of holding everything up, as the builders can't get stuck into the work until the full plan of works is finalised, so the pressure is on to make final, final decisions on what we will or won't do. This should all be sorted out in the next 48 hours though and I'm hopeful we'll get most of what we want.

Next week the working group has a visit planned to a furniture show room so that they can put together a proposal for our new look interior. Hopefully we'll have something more solid on that to share with everyone in a couple of weeks.

click on a photo to see them all full size