 Brian is now on the GoSkills Board Dial-a-Cab Chairman has been approached – and accepted – to join the Board of GoSkills, which is the recognised authority for businesses working in the UK passenger transport sector. Its aim is to develop the skills and status of passenger transport including Taxis, buses, trains, aviation and others. Also under its wing are such industries as driving |
BRIAN RICE JOINS BOARD OF GOSKILLS |
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instructors and transport planners. GoSkills, in consultation with employers and other operators, training providers and other key partners, acts as a conduit advising on how the skills issues affecting industries can best be tackled by the sector. An employer-led government-backed organisation, GoSkills assists employers and operators in improving their business performance through people and skills. Its team of business advisers work across the UK and provides advice on recruitment and retention, employee development plans, developing individual skills, identifying specific training solutions and access to funding for them. |
GoSkills was founded in December
2003 and was recommended to receive its licence to operate as the Sector Skills Council for passenger transport by the Sector Skills Development Agency in October 2004. Brian told Call Sign: "I really felt that just running Dial-a-Cab was enough for me, but I took it as a huge compliment for our Society when they approached me and obviously knew so much about DaC. As it is just to attend occasional meetings, I have accepted the position as a board member and hope that being able to input the London Taxi driver’s point of view will be useful." |
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"IT’S ONLY A TAXICARD TRIP…" |
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It was 10.45pm on a cold but
chilly January evening. Whilst far from dead,
neither was it tearing busy and very few jobs
found their way as far as the ‘bid’ zone. But
soon after 10.15, one trip showed up there and
stayed even though their were cabs booking in
and out of NW3 to see what this mystery job was. It was no mystery though; it was a Camden TaxiCard passenger who wanted to go from a pub in Haverstock Hill down to Chalk Farm Road. Let’s be generous and call it almost a mile! No one wanted it because a/ the word pub can be off-putting and b/ you wouldn’t want to run too far for a trip going under a mile with no minimum fare. And after all, it was only a TaxiCard trip… The driver who eventually did the trip contacted Call Sign and put a different complexion onto the story. He asked that his name not be given "because the guys will laugh at me for being soft!" This is Brian’s story… "I had already rejected it twice because I don’t like pub jobs and they can be trouble. The short distance the job was going didn’t bother me so much because any job is better than running around Hampstead empty. So the third time I was offered it, I accepted it. The passenger, James Nelson, was standing by the entrance being supported by someone else. I immediately cursed myself thinking he was drunk, but he wasn’t, he just needed help to balance. He got into the cab and during the short journey, he told me about himself… He had been a paint sprayer for 45 years spraying taxis and the odd car. Now in his 70s, he told me |
 James Nelson that all those years of inhaling the spray had left him with emphysema, formerly connected with those who had spent their lives working down coalmines. It involves the gradual destruction of the air sacs in the lungs. James had spent Christmas in hospital hoping for a last chance of a cure. Sadly, the doctors have now told him that there is nothing they can do for him so he returned home and is waiting for the end. In the meantime, he enjoys an occasional trip to the pub where everyone knows and welcomes him and where the landlord always escorts him into his cab at around 10.30. This outing is thanks only to his TaxiCard… Like many others, I’ve often thought when seeing an uncovered trip, that it was only a TaxiCard job. I hadn’t really stopped to think that there was a real person using the card, someone with feelings and their own problems. I know the occasional "pretender" seems to get hold of a card, but in future I will look at TaxiCard jobs in a different way and they will always make me wonder if James is still battling on…" |
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