Tag: Legal actions to maintain standards

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Newsletter Steven Ferry

The Modern Butlers’ Journal, December 2020, Message from the Chairman

Steven Ferry Message from the Chairman

by Steven Ferry

This month’s issue has many interesting pieces in it as well as one unpleasant piece of news regarding a joint action being taken by dissatisfied students and graduates from the South African Butler Academy. While the defendants are innocent until proven guilty, for it to reach the point where graduates rise up in numbers to complain through the legal system, there must have been some problem with the services being offered or the advertising of the same.

The owner of SABA is trying through various legal shifts to prevent the case from moving forward, as well as setting up a blank web page that promises to detail how bad the Chairman of the International Institute of Modern Butlers really is.

This kind of knee-jerk attack betrays a short-sighted world view that does not include the possibility that one may be doing something that needs to be corrected and an earnest effort to remedy what may be wrong. For this is not about myself or the Institute, but a matter of a failure by the owner of SABA to deliver what was promised to the litigants in the two court cases, highlighting grievances that were not addressed over a period of time and so have accumulated and ended up in court to the detriment of all concerned, the butler-teaching profession included.

The Institute supports the cases because it was founded at the request of peers with the purpose of maintaining standards in the profession so that its reputation and functions remain intact. While it may not be easy to satisfy all students all the time, generally ineffective or harmful training, as claimed by the students, does the profession no good whatsoever.

Looking at the bigger picture, 2020 has been a wild ride—let’s salvage it with a fun holiday season using whatever creativity and resources we can muster to bring a smile to the faces of those around us!

The Institute is dedicated to raising service standards by broadly disseminating the mindset and superior service expertise of that time-honored, quintessential service provider, the British Butler, updated with modern people- skills, and adapted to the needs of modern employers and guests in staffed homes, luxury hotels, resorts, spas, retirement communities, jets, yachts & cruise ships around the world.

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Newsletter Steven Ferry

The Modern Butlers’ Journal, November 2020, Message from the Chairman

Steven Ferry Message from the Chairman

by Steven Ferry

While this month’s journal has many butler-related pieces that we hope you enjoy, there is one message that is particularly important; it may seem to be on the no-no subject of politics, but this is far from the case, for it relates to the very survival of the hard-won democratic principles and freedoms that man cobbled together over the centuries and from which we have all benefitted in the lifestyles we have chosen. In all the confusions and disruptions of 2020, it is not easy to see that we are about to lose all these benefits unless we take some action—and this has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with our standard of living and cultural survival.

Have you noticed how the fear of Covid-19 promoted by governments and media around most of the world is being used to justify continued lockdowns and human rights violations (freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of movement, freedom to practice one’s religion, the right to work, etc.)?  And yet, the number of deaths from Covid-19, which has yet to be identified as a virus even, are less than the annual deaths from the flu while the number of suicides and deaths from overdoses and unattended medical conditions because of the lockdowns are skyrocketing; and the economies of the world have collapsed with citizens going hungry or being dependent on government handouts as they can find no work?

As predicted in the three articles I wrote in the summer (combined and available here), the failure of governments to manage the pandemic sensibly betrays another agenda driven by certain individuals, and they are unrelenting in the drive to lockdown and collapse economies until citizens will accept any solution to get on with their lives again—not aware that the future envisioned will be something they would never have agreed to if they had not been brought to their knees economically and socially.

Unsure at the time of a ready solution that would allow individual citizens to fight back against this monolithic and seemingly insurmountable agenda, I was not able to give any specific and simple recommendation.

I am happy to report now that one response has appeared around which independent individuals (who can think for themselves) can rally and actually stand a chance of pushing back successfully against this oppressive agenda.

In his article “An International message of Hope for Humanity” Mr. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. states the simplicity and dangers of the situation we are all in and provides a simple call to action that applies around the world, wherever governments are continuing the lockdowns that are proving so destructive to the interests of the citizens they are sworn to protect.

If you share my wish for a return to a life where humans are free to pursue their goals and enjoy the thrill of life, to help others, to flourish and prosper, then please support this new global movement in whatever way you can, even if only letting your friends, colleagues, neighbours, and even strangers know of it. Our strength comes in our numbers, and when large enough, we will all win this most bizarre of battles.

Lastly, on a different topic, the Institute was founded with the purpose of setting and raising standards for the profession. As such, it has a duty to close the door on any training that purports to be professional but which actually reduces the stature of the profession; this is why we have included a Special Notice in this month’s journal about court actions being taken against one particular school that by all accounts is long on social media self-promotion and short on delivering viable training.

The Institute is dedicated to raising service standards by broadly disseminating the mindset and superior service expertise of that time-honored, quintessential service provider, the British Butler, updated with modern people- skills, and adapted to the needs of modern employers and guests in staffed homes, luxury hotels, resorts, spas, retirement communities, jets, yachts & cruise ships around the world.

Categories
Newsletter Steven Ferry

The Modern Butlers’ Journal, October 2020, Message from the Chairman

Steven FerryMessage from the Chairman

by Steven Ferry

This month we welcome a new contributor, My Butler Julius, who has something timely for us: Why butlers wear white gloves and what this may have to do with pandemics.

In the last column entitled The Butlers Speak, we say “Goodbye and many thanks” to the butlers, household managers, and estate(s) managers who have contributed each month over the last almost four years to the column, The Butlers Speak, providing a guide for the present and a snapshot for posterity of the life of those who manage the estates and personal affairs of the wealthy at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st Centuries.

Lastly, the Institute was founded with the purpose of setting and raising standards for the profession. As such, it has a duty to close the door on any training that purports to be professional but which actually reduces the stature of the profession; this is why we have included a Special Notice in this month’s journal about court actions being taken against one particular school that by all accounts is long on social media self-promotion and short on delivering viable training.

The Institute is dedicated to raising service standards by broadly disseminating the mindset and superior service expertise of that time-honored, quintessential service provider, the British Butler, updated with modern people- skills, and adapted to the needs of modern employers and guests in staffed homes, luxury hotels, resorts, spas, retirement communities, jets, yachts & cruise ships around the world.