Popinjay is an organisation created primarily to promote the ongoing working potential of older workers in our society. It is our passionate belief that many over the age of 60 have much to offer the business community, but they do not have ready access to the opportunities available - despite current legislative and other initiatives to combat age discrimination. We are mindful too of those over 50 who have met enforced early retirement or redundancy - even before the effects of the 'credit crunch' began to be felt.

 

Our associate members are in one or other of those categories and are dedicated, reliable and have a strong desire to continue contributing to both business and society as a whole.

 

With the above in mind, a vital part of our primary objective at Popinjay is to provide high quality but competitively priced services to the business community - particularly to new start or small to medium sized companies. In our experience however, larger companies also benefit from having an independent external resource to delegate work or projects to.

 

Apart  from the age factor, what makes Popinjay different from other business services organisations is that we provide a working platform, as opposed to a talking forum, in what is a rapidly increasing section of the population*.

 

Yes, there are enlightened employers who believe and participate in and benefit from age diversity policies, but often the scope of opportunities for older people is limited. Our goal is to increase the level of opportunities available by successful development of our business network.

 

It is perhaps necessary here to state we are not discriminating against the young. In fact, in some ways what we are endeavoring to recreate here is a framework for the old-fashioned but proven ‘journeyman and apprentice’ approach of passing on skills and knowledge.

 

Laing Cullen.

 

*‘Guardian’ 25/08/08 – “For the first time, the UK has more people of pensionable age than children under 16, the Office for National Statistics revealed yesterday”. This has actually occurred 4 years earlier than previously predicted.