Royal Mail's Second Class Paralympian Plans? Not Quite...

[POSTMAN]

http://inadifferentvoice.wordpress.com/ ... ian-plans/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Various links in the original article.

Sometimes you read something which seems so ridiculous, you assume someone has made a mistake. Like today, when I read tweets complaining that the Royal Mail, who are currently riding high on Olympic glory by publishing a stamp for each gold medallist, are not planning to do the same for Paralympians who get golds. I recalled they would get one from the news but it appears that the detail was indeed overlooked.

Olympic medallists are getting a stamp each made by Royal Mail. Paralympians? Not so much. According to their own website, Royal Mail say they will be getting a half dozen group shots for whoever gets gold at the Paralympics. That’s it… a few group shots. Are they not as worthy Royal Mail? Equality? I don’t think so. Appears more like a second class policy. BUT, there is a clause, Paralympians won 42 Gold Medal’s in Beijing and the British Paralympic Association say they are happy with the arrangement. (Saying they are just ‘too good’ – touche!)

So why doesn’t the PR mention this? How could they seem to get this so wrong?! Paralympian gold medallists will deserve no less acclaim than their Olympic colleagues. Surely there was a more equitable policy? It’s appearing as a rather unpleasant own goal in the P-R-lympics for a company getting a lot of brand dropping from the gold winners press so far.

Much of the publicity seems to have been generated by a (rightly) unhappy tweeter from South Wales who has been heavily retweeted on the subject. He started with a message which said they wouldn’t get stamps (technically almost correct) and has spent most of today clarifying that they won’t get individual ones. To be fair he didn’t expect to get so massively retweeted, and he has clarified with appropriate links and also said “Lets be clear about this. Olympian golds get a stamp to themselves. Paralympians get a group stamp. That is not equality.“. Well done John for bringing this to everyone’s attention.
If like John, me and many other people you think that such a policy would be appear discriminatory and just smell wrong, please do drop them a friendly tweet or email and let them know they need to clarify! They are on twitter and the contact details for email can be found on their statement (linked above).

I have emailed them my simple message:

“Why is Royal Mail only planning to credit the Paralympian gold winners with a group shot, when currently you are issuing individual stamps for Olympic gold medallists? They may be first class stamps, but this feels like second class treatment.”

Just not good enough.

JT

Currently ranting on Twitter

*Just to be clear, they are not saying they will be second class stamps – the heading is a pun on the story. It’s about how they are recognising the same achievement differently.