Not everyone got thisone either
Addresses were "cleaned" by system in emails - I have reformatted
them.

They appear correctly on the web site version.

Best Regards Mark

--- In Yorkhall@..., "paulmilican" <paulmilican@...>
wrote:

Hello all,
here is my letter to James Bowden, manager of YH.

I urge everyone to write to protest at their proposals.

I have copied the email to :-

* The councillors of the ward where YH sits
* Alex Smith ('spa manager')
* Paul Martindill (acting head of recreation at Tower Hamlets
* Andy McCabe (operations director at GLL)
* Denise Jones (leader of the council)
* Lutfur Rahman the council's culture lead

I will post any reply. Please everyone, get involved and get typing!

All the best, Paul Milican

Useful email addresses for your protests :-

Substitute $$$$$$ for commercial and/ambersand in addresses below

james.bowden$$$$$$gll.org
cllr.denise.jones$$$$$$towerhamlets.gov.uk
cllr.lutfur.rahman$$$$$$towerhamlets.gov.uk
cllr.stephanie.eaton$$$$$$towerhamlets.gov.uk
cllr.azizur.khan$$$$$$towerhamlets.gov.uk
paul.martindill$$$$$$towerhamlets.gov.uk
andy.mccabe$$$$$$gll.org
alex.smith$$$$$$gll.org


Dear James,

This is my response to the thoroughly dispiriting meeting that the
York Hall users group had to endure last Wednesday.

1. Consultation.

The user's group has worked hard to ensure not only that York Hall
was refurbished rather than demolished, but also that its very
special history of inclusiveness was protected.
From a time long before you or `spa manager' Alex Smith came along,
we have given up our time to contribute to discussions and
consultations relating to its refurbishment. Paul Martindill paid
tribute to our efforts at the meeting. It is all the more galling
therefore to be totally ignored when it comes to deciding how the
baths will be run. The users group feels it has been betrayed and
exploited. Clearly the `spa manager' had no intention of consulting
us on how the baths should be run, so bent was she on her fanatical
rebranding of the baths as the Spa London Experience. I note that
although Ms Smith has experience of a `luxury' hotel spa, she has no
notion how to run a facility of this kind, one that, since 1926, has
been available for the borough's ENTIRE community. I further bring
to your attention that at no point in our earlier consultations did
anyone call for a `luxury' facility - indeed we pointed out time and
again that this was a word quite alien to the traditional culture of
the baths. But `luxury' - that most banal and depressing of
aspirations and a thrill only to the mindless - is what we are
lumped with.

Remedy: Meet with representatives of the users group on a bi-monthly
basis. And listen.

2. Programming.

You - by which I mean Tower Hamlets Council and Greenwich Leisure -
have made the bewildering decision to offer men just two days' use
of the baths. Neither of the proposed days is at the weekend - the
time when most people are free. Saturday was always a popular men's
day but it seems to be your calculation that this is a good day to
peddle women's treatments and `spa' products. Your argument is that
on women's days men can go to Mile End. But the facility at Mile End
is entirely different to York Hall and does not appeal to the same
clientele. Furthermore, many local people who can get to York Hall
cannot get to Mile End - this applies particularly to elderly users
(whom you claim to wish to attract).

Remedy: Introduce one more day for men, which should be a Saturday.
That would mean 3 days for men, 3 for women and 1 mixed. What could
be fairer?

3. Entrance fee.

The entry fee of ?20 and ?17 for members is nothing short of
scandalous. What kind of
incomes do you think the residents of Tower Hamlets enjoy? Tower
Hamlets is one of the most deprived boroughs in the country. You
must know this and yet you can, seemingly with total equanimity,
countenance entrance charges that are guaranteed to exclude all
but the well-heeled. Residents of Tower Hamlets who work in a
supermarket or in nursing or social work or any other low paid work
will be unable to afford to come to the baths.
Neither will the average or low paid worker have access to the
concessionary rate of ?7 itself an inflated rate for someone on
benefits or scraping by on a pension. At the meeting, Andy McCabe -
whose superciliousness seems to know no bounds - asked if he was
expected to set the entrance fee at 99p. If Mr McCabe had less
contempt for the users of York Hall he might have discussed a proper
level of entry charge. As it is, he has imposed charges that betray
his underlying strategy: to keep traditional users out and attract
the `sleeping clientele' of besuited yuppiedom. I daresay it will be
a place where he will be happy to hang out with his overpaid
director pals from GLL. For all the talk of `inclusivity' and
`diversity' I can think of no pricing structure so blatantly
exclusive. I am also looking into its legality.

Remedy: Discuss with the users group a sensible and affordable entry
price so that all sections of the community can use the baths.

4. Bathing costumes.

I have been researching and writing about UK and European spas for
the past year and not one place I visited has required its users to
wear a bathing costume. Indeed, in Germany,
ustria, Sweden and Switzerland, bathing costumes are banned as they
are considered unhygienic - they carry and spread bacteria. You are
imposing this policy without any consultation with the users group.
You claim the policy will be `popular' - a pretty counterintuitive
claim, it seems to me. I will be very interested to see the research
that you say leads you to this conclusion. I rather think that the
cabal of decision-makers sat around the table and, credulous of the
rumours that the baths were previously some sleazy pick-up joint for
homosexual men, thought up this potty rule as a way to put them
off coming. I note that no one who spoke on your side of the table
had ever been a regular user of the baths. Had you been, you would
have known that the baths were one of the most genuinely inclusive
places on the planet - men, women, gay, straight, Asian, black,
white, old and young, Jewish, Muslim, Hindi, atheist AND from all
socio-economic backgrounds. In the 15 years I visited the baths I
can remember only two incidents of sexual indiscretion - the abusers
were slung out. Discreet invigilation is the answer not the
imposition of a rule that smacks of the Victorian age.

Remedy: Make bathing costumes obligatory on mixed days and introduce
optional use on all other days. The person employed to clean or
manage the day to day running of the baths should be charged with
ensuring that no sexual misbehaviour is tolerated.

In conclusion I regret the mismanagement of this programming and
pricing and call for you to urgently revise them.

I look forward to a detailed reply by the end of the week so that
the users group can discuss it. Thanks very much.

Kind regards,


Paul Milican

--- End forwarded message ---