Talk:St John Ambulance (England)/Archive 1

its not it's
In the section on structure the use of its is incorrectly given as it's. It's isnot thr possessive from it. It's a contraction of "it is" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.189.159.136 (talk) 14:10, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Fixed!Thecaketin (talk) 16:25, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Weasel Words
The last edit http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=St._John_Ambulance_in_England_and_Wales&oldid=120766496 whilst also adding the Weasel Word dialogue (which I agree with) also made many changes to the document which I feel do not forward the document at all, and even worse still, revert changes to now show incorrect information. I myself would revert these errors but I'm unsure to whether there is something I'm missing here. Anyone point me in the right direction? Grinned2death 13:10, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Controversy - Relevent?
The controversy section seems to be a little irrelevent to the article of this St John Ambulance Priory. It may be an important internal source of controversy but I don't think it furthers the quality of the content. Does it belong in wikipedia? --Chris Scott 21:24, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

It was also riddled with factual errors concerning policy (which when corrected make it hardly controversial). I agree it shuold be removed. --PoisonedPigeon 03:10, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
 * What errors, exactly, can you see? I've looked through it, and it seems perfectly fine to me. Please list the exact problems with that section - it seems to me an important section. The Islander 08:49, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually... 'riddled' is a bit of an exageration, just the same misunderstanding repeated a few times: there is a national directive that all equipment, uniform and supplies must be purchased from SJS. and the insistence that only SJS may supply goods are examples which are contrary to the details of St John Ambulance HQC 55/04. --PoisonedPigeon 10:17, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Fair point, though I suspect that this is refering (in a not very clear way) to the new corporate identity, for which most things do need to be purchased from SJS, as well as uniform, which needs to be obtained from them. Perhaps it needs rewording slightly, but I still maintain that it is an important section, and shouldn't be got rid of alltogether. The Islander 10:46, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Hello. I am new here and possibly over-enthusiastic. I rushed in and deleted some of what I thought were 'weasel words' before noticing the debate here. But I agree with Chris Scott and Poisoned Pigeon that although St John Ambulance members might be very interested in this internal issue, I don't think it's worthy of an encyclopedia. Jock McCannon 13:43, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Never over-enthusiastic ;). However, I'm afraid I still disagree. It seems relevant to me, and though it could do with being re-written from a neutral point of view, I think it is notable, and thus include-able. The Islander 13:56, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

What happened to the Dot?
Before going further, I'll point out that I'm the vice-chair of a LINKS unit, so you'd think I know what I'm talking about, but here I'm just not sure. With the new CI, the logo has changed, and the dot has ben removed after 'St'. My personal opinion is that this is nonsensical - 'St.' is an abreviation, thus needs the dot. Without it, the name to me reads 'Steh-John'. Editors seem to be going to great lengths to remove this dot from any part of the SJA articles they can, but has the name actually changed? I was under the impression that whilst the logo dropped the dot, it was still a part of the name. Perhaps I missed an HQC stating the actual change of the name? I am of the opinion that they should all be added back in, unless of course there are references to suggest otherwise. The Islander 14:02, 16 August 2007 (UTC)


 * The name has not changed, but its punctuation has been brought into line with modern practice. The SJA Style Guide states that the current policy for St John Ambulance in England is to use no full stop after the "St". Obviously the English style guide does not apply to SJA in other countries, so other articles should use whatever punctuation is appropriate in that specific case; for example, the Order of St John website uses the full stop, so it can be taken that St. John Ambulance is the most appropriate punctuation for the article that deals with SJA on an international basis.
 * The usual practice in the UK nowadays is to add full stops after abbreviations only where the abbreviation consists of the first part of the word alone. For example "Professor" becomes "Prof." because the end of the word is cut off entirely, but "Doctor" becomes "Dr" and "Mister" becomes "Mr", because the terminal letter is included in the abbreviation. --Kwekubo 15:00, 16 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Hmm. I've never heard of this before - I've always been taught that you do write Mr., Dr., St. etc. Still, thanks for the explanation ;) The Islander 15:21, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Using dots is still very common, and hey, there's nothing particularly wrong with it; but I think there's a general tendency nowadays to use less punctuation where possible. -Kwekubo 23:19, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, that's just plain-lazy IMHO =P. However, now I know - cheers ;) The Islander 23:25, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

What happened to the Islands?
Another interesting point is that this article contains references to the fact that the Priory is that of "England and the Islands" instead of just England as could be thought from the title. There is mention of overseas divisions, but is there a place in this article for the provision of St John in Northern Ireland for example? There is not sufficent merit in creating a separate entry, since St John Ambulance in Northern Ireland is the Commandery of Ards, a part of the Priory of England and the Islands, and hence much of the information would simply be needless repetition. A reassessment perhaps of the title? Tsoram 09:25, 31 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I see two options: we could rename this article as St John Ambulance in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, or indeed St John Ambulance in the United Kingdom, or we could split the article into two as St John Ambulance in England and the Islands and St John Ambulance in Wales, which has the advantage of using the organisations' own international divisions but the disadvantage of using the cryptic (to those unfamiliar with it) "England and the Islands" name. I favour "St John Ambulance in the United Kingdom" as it seems quite concise and straightforward - opinions anyone? --Kwekubo 20:20, 31 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Although I do favour renaming it St John Ambulance in the United Kingdom, that doesn't really solve the problem in that the United Kingdom does not include the crown dependencies of the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. PoisonedPigeon 20:32, 31 August 2007 (UTC)


 * The Priory for Wales operates in a different was to that of Priory of England and the Islands, some for the good, and others for the worst. As such this article should be split using the obvious Priory split. There are some common similarities which could possibly be placed in the current article or moved into a the international [St John Ambulance]. Maybe the correct article names should be [St John Ambulance, Priory of England and the Islands] and [St John Ambulance, Priory for Wales]. Cwd24 (talk) 18:57, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Volunteer Membership/Training and Skills section
It's a bit of a mess at the moment, the same information (that you can do skills up to the level of Emergency Transport Attendant) is covered three times, and it doesn't cover volunteers bringing outside clinical skills (such as doctors/nurses) to their role. Nor does it cover non-First Aid services roles which exist (and the relevant training), such as management, youth work, fundraising, etc. I can't figure out an eloquent way to fix it at prsent though - so figured I'd just moan here and hope someone else fixes it. PoisonedPigeon (talk) 23:52, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Membership of Umbrella Organisations
We just had added that SJA is a member of NCVYS - I question whether this is of encyclopaedic interest; should we also add that it's a member of the Community Transport Association, British Youth Council and NCVO? PoisonedPigeon (talk) 15:23, 6 August 2009 (UTC)