FWIW The musings of a webmaster Sunday 14 January 2007 What's this?

Gliding down the runway... or slip sliding away?

With apologies to Paul Simon for mis-quoting his lyrics, this nevertheless sums up what quite a lot of people would have been asking themselves last weekend.

Last Sunday I was due to fly (with about two dozen other people from the company I work for) from Bristol to Edinburgh to attend a conference. On Friday morning the news broke that most airlines had cancelled or transferred all flights to and from Bristol airport because the runway had been resurfaced and was too slippery for planes to get a grip.  One or two aircraft had apparently ended up skidding off the runway, or finally came to a halt in the emergency zone. So it is true that "the nearer your destination the more you're slip sliding away". Ho ho.

Well, it is probably fair to say that this sort of erratic behaviour by aircraft is not recommended and does not engender confidence in would be passengers.  The Bristol airport spokesman, however, was quite sanguine about whole matter - "well the CAA say it's OK" - well that's alright then. As long as it's an officially sanctioned loss of control.

Anyway, this 'breaking news' led almost immediately to two things in our office. 

Firstly, a plethora of flippant speculation about the problem having its roots in  labourers of a certain nationality with wheelbarrows full of tarmac dodging incoming 737s to resurface the runway, before giving a verbal guarantee, pocketing the cash and heading off down the M5 in a white transit van. 

Secondly, the realisation that this caused us a number of problems, as the people who were organising the conference and speaking at it could not do so by remote control. Yes.  We actually need to get there.

Cue the headless chickens.

Fortunately, one young lady with great presence of mind, said 'all of you stop  working against each other and just leave me to sort it out."  This she achieved remarkably quickly by simply getting on the web and re-booking everyone onto flights from Exeter airport.

Now why didn't we think of that? Exeter airport may be smaller and less exciting, but it has a nice long runway that isn't made of Teflon.

To cut a long story short, all of us due to attend the conference got there safely and on time. The biggest health and safety hazard that any of us had to face was probably at the whisky tasting on Monday evening, and any danger there would have been entirely self inflicted.

I don't have any especially profound theological insight to share as a result of this experience. It's probably just one of those practical lessons in life that prove, if proof were needed, that if everyone stops messing around, pays attention, and trusts someone who knows what they're doing to get on and sort it, many problems can be overcome.  Too much unproductive and uncoordinated activity by too many people just leads to confusion and stress. This is as true in a church as it is in an office - sometimes we just have to stop interfering and trust people to do what they're good at.

So thanks, Sarah, for a job well done, which meant we all had happy landings.

And to you, gentle reader, blessings from all of us at St. Andrew's.